The Heavy Stuff

Recently on my main Squidoo page I carried a link to an article on the NICAP site (National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena) which was a paper made by a high level research group (basically a thinktank) in the 1960’s about Ufo’s (all links at bottom of article) . So, in today’s post, I want to review some of the basic assumptions that existed then, 40 years ago, and, see if `things’ have really changed all that much in terms of `reasonable science analysis’ being applied to the phenomena of Ufo’s.

The research paper - a long one - is divided as shown below in its contents section:

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 1
Part 1: UFO’s: Historical Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Part 2: UFO’s: Astronomical Aspects . . . . . . . . 8
Part 3: UFO’s: The Character of Reports . . .. . 12
Part 4: UFO’s: Phenomenological Aspects . …. 24
Part 5: UFO’s: How to Proceed and Why . . . . 29
A REPORT FORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

The introduction begins with these words: “UFOs — unidentified flying objects, or flying saucers as they are often called — have been on the mind of the public for at least the last 22 years.”  Perhaps most startling from the papers introduction - is the total move away from the term `flying saucers’ in the modern age. Could that be because the `reports’ these days seem to involve multiple categories of `crafts’ being seen such as V shapes and more? And, that the typical `saucer’ shape is no longer a majority! (I blogged about this recently in an analysis I did of reports recently - link on the bottom.)

PART 1: UFOs — HISTORICAL ASPECTS

But, don’t let the term `flying saucer’ diminish your desire to read this research - for - as soon as the real verbiage begins after the introduction - it immediately begins to sound pretty similar to the oft told tale of Ufo Buffs in today’s era.

And, to me, that oft told tale involves the idea of `this is NOT NEW phenomena’ (Ufo’s are not new.) — and — indeed, that is how the `historical’ account of the research begins: “Those familiar with the UFO literature are aware that reports of sightings did not begin with Arnold’s sighting in 1947, but that phenomenology much the same as is reported today can be found in documents going back to the earliest times……. What (`phenomenology’) was reported? Luminous discs, shields, globes and elongated objects in the sky, sometimes alone, sometimes in large numbers. Occasional descriptions of interactions with the observers are also mentioned, including landings, and seeing and communicating with occupants. The latter events especially were almost always interpreted in a religious context.” (emphasis and bracket, mine)

So, we can see that 4 decades ago - `flying saucers’ also included most of the descriptions of today’s phenomena too. Indeed, this paper even ascribes the strange events at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 as possible Ufo phenomenology witnessed at times by upwards of 70,000 persons of all religious levels and types.

The study goes on to talk about the incredible number of sightings that surrounded the time-frame of Kenneth Arnolds sighting in 1947 - “The modern period of the phenomenon began with a widely publicized sighting made by Kenneth Arnold in Washington state in 1947. A study by Bloecher of North American reports over the four week period bracketing the Arnold sighting lists 853 events, including 38 sightings made before Arnold’s heavily publicized Sighting. (8)

When I read that there were over 800 events in the summer of 47 - it blew my mind - certainly, that number is not widely known or talked about today. Indeed, it brings into speculation - just what exactly was going on? What happened on Earth to bring about such a `response’? Is it the obvious `answer’ of humans moving into the `nuke age’? And,  if so, why the exaggerated and `delayed’ response if it was that - after all - the nukes first went `off’ in 1945. (Unless secret tests, still unknown, happened before hand.) Indeed, did those first or subsequent A-Bombs `move’ the Earth itself from `expected locations’ - which set off `programs’ on `entities or hardware monitoring Earth’?

Could it be that Entities that monitor for the actual ability for a species to `move a planet’ from a projected path - exist? And, who know that when a `planet moves’ that a species on the planet has aquired the abilitiy to harness energy via their intelligence? Indicating that a threshold has been crossed?

It seems that way to me - but - lets move onward with the research paper.

“Because the early reports seemed to suggest airborne craft of unusual appearance and kinematics, the problem came to rest with the newly organized U.S. Air Force. Initial fears were that the country was being over flown by advanced foreign aircraft, possibly on intelligence missions. The latter was suggested by the large number of sightings from the White Sands, New Mexico area and from the vicinity of the Hanford, Washington atomic plant…. Serious inquiry proceeded for a few years without any positive results” And, as to be expected - National Security was a concern. Indeed, our government had a more serious response it seems then - than our `modern age’ of governance - which, evidently, wants to sweep away the very idea that intelligence greater than man might exist. Indeed, now, the emphasis of the media is NOT on Ufo’s breaking military security zones - ever - really. To talk about that nowadays - even though it happens (or is reported to) - is obviously another of the areas that are off-limits for our weakened and spoon fed big media. (Sad to say.)

No, in today’s modern era, ufo’s are portrayed as `strange things’ seen by the common man - nowadays. It makes one wonder if even reporting about security violations by Ufo’s is permitted by the government for big media.

Again, from the report ” By 1952 the number of reports coming in was so large that the CIA was concerned that an actual attack on the country might not be immediately recognized. A panel of scientists was then convened in January 1953 to study the available evidence and see what conclusion could be reached about UFOs. After seven days of hearing evidence and discussing the matter it was concluded that there was only circumstantial evidence of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. The panel recommended a broadened study effort with full disclosure of investigations. In order to unplug the military intelligence channels, however, the CIA recommended that, since the UFOs apparently posed no threat, the Air Force should debunk UFO reports and try generally to discourage public interest in them, in the hope that they would go away. (11) … It was the CIA’s recommendation, apparently, that was made policy, for the investigative procedures used since 1953 have been vestigial and the handling of the subject by the authorities tended to make witnesses look ridiculous.” There could hardly be a more revealing paragraph than this one — as - the government still seems to simply hope that the `reports go away’ - does treat those that come forward with ridicule - and discourages the public from an interest in disclosure. In this regard, what comes around - goes around - and has never left.

PART 2: UFOs — ASTRONOMICAL ASPECTS

“The astonishing thing would be if they did not exist.” Jean Cocteau

From this section of the report  - “To begin with, the observable universe — that is, the distance to which we can observe luminous objects — is several billion light years in radius ” Scientists, as you probably know,  have expanded that radius of our universe considerably - indeed, we now know that `beyond the observable universe’ is simply `more universe’ that will never be part of our observable area.

Indeed, again, as you probably know, because of `dark energy’ more and more of the universe is being pushed `over’ the observable `edge’ every moment of existence now. “Now let us just consider the stars in our own galaxy — specifically excluding those in neighboring or distant galaxies…Since planetary orbits are often unstable in multiple systems (depending on the details of the configuration) we will say that only 30 billion stars in our galaxy now have a dynamical environment that permits planets to exist around them. …..In fact if we select only those stars similar to the sun (whose peak of radiation energy coincides with a region of terrestrial atmospheric transparency) we have only a few percent of the total — about one in 30. Therefore, we would expect about 1000 million suitable solar type stars exist. Of these, it is estimated by various astronomers that 200-600 million have planets at about the right distance and have been around long enough that life forms as developed as our own could exist” Now, dear readers, remember here - we are ONLY talking about the Milky Way - our galaxy- and not even ONE of the other billions within the observable universe - and - indeed, the 1960’s estimate of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy that you read above — well, that turns out according to 2009 estimates to be 200-400 billion stars. So, at whatever level previous `life’ estimates were based on, just for the Milky Way - multiply that by a factor of 2-4.

So, if 200-600 hundred million was a reasonable assumption - we better make that 400 million to 2.4 billion systems with habitable planets - just in the MILKY WAY. I mean WOW - what an astonishing number. This number certainly is larger for the Milky Way than is ever really brandished about in the big meda we are all fed and fattened with. No wonder the Vatican has a more modest position now on life elsewhere.

Then, though a process of sieving the information - we get this analysis - and remember, the estimate is already `off’ by a `factor’ of 2x-4x “It should be clear from assumption (3) and the example of our own development, that among the populated planets those younger than the sun would be peopled by beings very much behind us technologically, while those on older planets would be extraordinarily advanced (remember our progress of 500 years and note that some planets could be as much as a few billion years older). Indeed, we would be surprised to find someone else at just our stage of technological development. For the purposes of this paper, we can ignore both the multitude younger than ourselves and those at our point of development. Even so, we are left with the possibility of 100,000,000 planets in the galaxy having life forms very much advanced from us. (This number would be reduced significantly if life forms destroyed themselves soon after reaching our age of development. This is a philosophical point on which I am optimistic — I believe the majority of races will learn to survive.) If these stars are uniformly distributed in the galactic disk, the average separation will be about 10 light years. ” (emphasis mine)

Wow. How is this number analysis for a sobering realization as to what `the numbers’ might suggest? Wouldn’t you say that advanced life is more likely, and abundant, than normally suggested  by our big media? I would suggest - YES.

Indeed, if the average was 10 light years for advanced life - it really makes `visitors’ to our planet potentially `any-lifeform’ attaining `interstellar travel’ be it above or even below the speed of light (SOL) if at a significant % of the SOL.

(That is not to suggest that `entities’ from planets traveling at only a small fraction of light - `are everywhere’ - obviously, if that was the manner that real interstellar travel is occurring - then, only a `fraction’ of `intelligences’ will be able to organize engineering and have `the will or desire’ to carry out galactic missions.)

Here is an excerpt of what the RAND paper said about this issue of interstellar travel ”If it has been discovered by one, we certainly would expect it to be used; if no other planet’s inhabitants independently discovered the means, it makes little difference for such a thing could be taught by the discoverer. Thus we may conclude that it is very likely that at least one, and probably many of the 100 million advanced planetary populations is capable of interstellar travel. ” And, with this logic - paper next goes to this “The next question is, of course, have any of them been here? That question cannot yet be answered definitively. Without knowing what kind of phenomenology extraterrestrial visitors might exhibit, I will fall back on my scientific, mechanistic attitudes and say it makes sense to look for some kind of vehicle or spaceship. It appears that the class of phenomenology called UFO reports may contain, as a subset, actual observations of such craft. We shall now turn to the reports “

PART 3: UFOs — THE CHARACTER OF REPORTS

It’s in the character of the reports where the RAND Corp. looks for the `interesting cases’ “The really interesting class of reports is that reporting phenomenology which is clearly extraordinary. The observer’s qualifications may be such that the report is not only highly credible but is articulate and quantitative as well. It is this subclass of reports, variously estimated at 5 to 20 percent of the total, that offer hope of our learning what is going on…. Hynek considers two parameters of reports) credibility and strangeness, and suggests that the investigator really needs only to be concerned with reports having high strangeness and high credibility. The physical scientist is in a position to evaluate strangeness, the social scientist should be able to provide some measure of credibility” The report then picks 4 ufo incidents to focus on - and here - again - the `reports’ from those seeing ufo’s:

Incident one : “It was moving slowly and silently in an east-to-west direction at not over 50 ft. above street level….’The UFO appeared to be about the size of one of the Cape Cod houses over which it passed, which would make it approximately 30 ft. in diameter and about the same dimension in height. It was circular, surmounted by a dome giving off flashes of green light. The center section rotated a series of square shaped “windows”, each giving off a brilliant white light. The base section was somewhat saucer-shaped, ….All told, there were at least 15 persons in the vicinity who acknowledged seeing the object at about the same time as the sightings”

Then, incident two: “After a minute or so, as she now recalls it, a new object, perhaps three of four times as large as the little objects, came out of the cloud on its east side. After it emerged, the small objects began to emerge also, taking up a V-formation pattern behind it. The V comprised a line of four-abreast just to the rear of the large object, then a line of three-abreast behind that, and finally two-abreast in the rear. Thus the point of the V was to the rear (in the sense of the emergent and subsequent motion). This formation permitted the first accurate count of the small objects, nine in all. No sooner had the last pair emerged than all ten objects shot off to the northeast, climbing out of sight in a time that she thought was probably two to three seconds. She does not recall what happened to the cloud after the ten objects departed” So, here - in the OLD days of ufo’s - V formations and a `number of objects’ not just one.

Then, incident three:”Jay Munger, operator of an all-night bowling alley, was drinking coffee with two police officers, James Overton of the Corning force and Frank Rakes of the Orland force, when Munger suddenly spotted the object out the front windows of his bowling alley. In a moment all three were outside observing what they each described as a dark gray oval or disc-shaped object with a bright light shining upwards on its top and a dimmer light shining downward from the underside. A dark gray or black band encircled the mid-section of the object….

The weather was clear, no haze, no wind, according to the witnesses. Munger’s concise comment was “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” He estimated its “diameter” at perhaps 50-100 ft, and its vertical thickness as perhaps 15-20 ft, with some kind of edge (band) perhaps 5-10 ft thick. No sound was ever heard. Overton stated to me that he had no idea what it was, but that “there was no doubt it was a craft of some sort.” So, these crafts, these objects - come in different sizes and styles. Just like today’s reports.

Incident Four: “The children shouted to her to “come out and see the silent plane”. She writes “I glanced out the south window and there it was coming into sight just south of our 72 foot silo moving very slowly from east to west. It was about 35 feet high. My first thought was that it was a plane making an emergency landing, but when I saw it in full view, I knew it was no plane, not like anything I have ever seen. I hurried outside to join the children in the yard. It continued to move in a straight line to the west. We could see it clearly as it drifted over a 50 by 100 foot machine shed being built at the time [the workers were, however, in the fields this day]. It appeared to be larger than our car, and was more oval. There was a bluish glow around the ends, top, and bottom of it. It (the glow) wasn’t bright, since it was daylight yet, but more like a low cloud, haze, or fog; or a mixture of bluish-grey tiny bubbles floating along around it. The object was seen clearly. It was blue in color and appeared to be made of metal. You could see [longitudinal] seam lines. There was one black window…..it rose so quickly and was out of sight in just a few seconds. Our eyes could not follow it fast enough. This was certainly a fantastic thing”….”The surface appeared to be non-spectacular, like dull aluminum or metal, and blue, the color probably deriving from the self-luminous halo. Longitudinal seams were apparent, but no rivets or such were seen. The black rectangle was assumed to be a window and appeared to be recessed. It was not shiny, but “like the dark of night.” …Enough angular data was provided from building and landmark placement and sizes that it is possible to estimate the size of the metallic portion of the UFO at 16 to 20 feet in length, seen at a distance of 150 to 300 feet. Its linear speed was about 4 to 8 miles per hour, based on the above distances and timings obtained by re-enactment. It was visible for 4 minutes”….the observations are sufficiently detailed to give us adequate confidence that some sort of machine was present, behaving in a very extraordinary way. Some parts of the object are similar to other reports (the effervescent glow, the orange color on acceleration, the very black “window” (which sounds like a block-body absorber)). Other parts are unusual — the UFO’s prolate spheroidal shape and the pattern (although seeing the pattern would require the observer to be quite close)”….

It is this kind of sighting - the kind which is clearly inexplicable in contemporary terms, which causes me (and other interested persons) to take the whole subject so seriously. Hynek suggests that it is just this kind of sighting that often goes unreported, because the witness — especially if his education or training are appropriate — knows that what he saw was unambiguously extraordinary. And machine-like. A number of such reports were belatedly made after the University of Colorado study effort got underway. Apparently the witnesses waited for the respectability the UOC study brought to the subject. It is hoped that the scientific and intellectual climate will change to the point where witnesses, particularly those having the best qualifications, can feel free to report sightings and know that they are being taken seriously. ” (emphasis mine)

Frankly, these four reports could be culled from the database of 2009 reports too - except for the emphasis here (the report examples) on close up sightings (which also still occur but nowadays are almost `underground’ compared to `distant’ sightings).

Part 4 - Ufo’s — Phenomenological Aspects

The next section of the report is an analysis of the ontological phenomena known as ufo’s `gathered’ into three `views’ of the data:

The breakdown of NICAP’s 575 cases goes as follows

        Disc                            26  %   149      cases
        Round                           17  %    96      cases
        Oval/elliptical                 13  %    77      cases
        Cylindrical                     8.3 %    48      cases
        Triangular                      2   %    11      cases
        Other (Radar, light source,     33.7%   194      cases

NICAP finds that of the 253 cases of daytime observations where color is stated, the results are

        Silver or metallic              34.8 %  88 cases
        White                           32.0 %  81 cases
        Specular                        13.4 %  34 cases
        Gray                            7.5  %  19 cases
        Black                           12.3 %  31 cases

Luminous rays are also reported, going up sometimes (particularly from domed

discs) downward (from hemispheric types principally, also from discs) and from

one UFO to another (spherical types). The luminous column is usually not

divergent. Excluding these interesting rays, the reported colors of UFOs seen

at night are, for 162 cases

        Red                             38.3 %  62  cases
        Orange                          15.4 %  25  cases
        Yellow                          17.3 %  28  cases
        Green                           13.0 %  21  cases
        Blue                            16.0 %  26  cases
        Purple                          0       0

End of Part One - (Part Two - with the conclusions of the report and more 

next Saturday)

http://ufodisclosurecountdownclock.blogspot.com/2009/03/analysis-of-nuforcs-monthly-reporting.html

The above link was an analysis I provided of a Ufo Data base for Feb. 2009

http://www.nicap.org/papers/randdoc.htm — This is the link to the RAND document.

My link to Ufo Incident Posts On THS - http://theheavystuff.com/?cat=4