Sunday, September 27, 2009

UFO Research NSW Inc.

In order to learn more about what civilian organisations are conducting research in Australia, I have decided to take a look at a number of UFO groups and their websites to see what the average "Mary Jo" can find out on the net in this way. I went to Google and typed in Australian UFO groups and the first listed was UFOR NSW Inc.

The website is: http://www.ufor.asn.au

The front page informed me that they are a non-profit organisation and have been around since 1981. "We welcome those interested in the field of UFOs and extraterrestrials..." Next was a piece on meetings, conferences and membership. It was easy to find out when and where their next public meeting was. Finally, down the bottom I found I could download their current Newsletter, which is great to see them sharing a free Newsletter.

Down the left hand side are links to other pages headed:
* UFO Research NSW
* Investigations
* Gallery
* Guestbook
* Links
* Contact

"UFO Research NSW" opens to News, membership and UFO Reporter details. The top page provides details on the organisation's aims and history. Membership allows you to download a membership form. "News" led to a blog style page of conference details; chatty items, DVD reviews etc. "UFO Reporter" led to a page titled "UFO Reporter publication archives 1992-1996" and the last two year's worth of Newsletters. There is a project underway to scan the contents of these UFO Reporter on to the web page. Already selected articles are available. The only links which I found which were dead were under the heading "More information -current activities and what we have done."

"Investigations" has two articles on the use and misues of video in relation to filming UFOs. Then follows a page of UFO sightings reported to UFOR NSW. These are a mix of online form reporting, and summaries from other sources, between 2002-2008 and include some, which if there were detailed follow up available, would be very useful to research! There is a also the ability to download and mail in a UFO report form or email them the details of a sighting. Their previous on-line reporting system has been disabled due to excessive junk mail!

"Gallery" has photographs of various sorts.

"Guestbook" is full of people posting about their UFO sightings, views and opinions. One of the postings is from John dated 6/8/08 and relates a first hand October 1976 observation from HMAS Melbourne about a radar contact. One wonders if it was ever followed up?

"Links" is the usual links.

"Contact" provides contact details for the group as well as a listing of the committee. I'll jot them down here for my record:
President: Wendy Burnham; Vice-president: Hugh Mulgrew; Secretary: Joann Kanda; Media: Doug Moffett; Treasurer: Anthony Clarke; Public officer: Claudia Donlan; Newsletter editor: William Johnson; Members: Michael Handley; Rex Gilroy; Peter O'Brien.

What didn't I find there? I could not find a database of their investigated sightings since 1991. Nor was there a page listed "good cases"- examples of what they considered "real UFOs"
or which provided evidence of a non-mundane phenomenon. Nor was there a live listing of their current research projects or interests.

All in all though, a very good site servicing their members.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Australian Disclosure programs 4

As you might be aware, the national level Brisbane based Australian UFO Research Network (AUFORN): http://auforn.com/ spent some time in the early 2000's trying to stimulate interest in the idea of an Australian Disclosure project. This did not get far until, the Adelaide based Australian UFO Research Association (AURA), facilitated by Keith Basterfield, committed itself to the concept and the Disclosure Australia project ran from 2003 to 2008. The extensive results of the AURA led project may be seen in detail at: http://disclosureaustralia.freewebpages.org/

These results include a final report, and a listing of all the Australian Government UFO related files which were found by AURA.

Although AURA handed back the project to AUFORN in 2008, having completed its work, AUFORN seem to have done nothing more with the concept since then, apart from copy files from the: http://disclosureaustralia.freewebpages.org website to their own wesbite.

Australian Disclosure programs 3

The third program which I came across goes back to 2002.

In February of that year, "... two individuals from New South Wales, Dyson Devine and Vivienne Legg forwarded information about the US Disclosure Project to Australian parliamentarians. A letter, accompanied by a summary of the Disclosure project was sent to each of the 222 members of the Australian Federal Parliament, covering both the Senate and the House of representatives. 10% of the Parliamentarians were said to have responded. Devine and Legg’s comments were that “…not a single one of these responses was appropriate.”
(Source: http://disclosureaustralia.freewebpages.org/.unlimitedftp/temp/Brisbane%20paper.htm )

Australian Disclosure programs 2

The second Australian Disclosure program which I came across is run by one Grant Robb in Canberra. The website is: http://exopoliticsaustralia.net.au

The home page information says that the website is "...part of the international Exopolitics World Network...These sites are being set up to provide information about exopolitical developments within that country and build connections between nations as part of a growing international exopolitical truth movement."

The theme on the home page is that "...the governments and religions of the world have been tight lipped about the whole UFO and Extraterrestrial topic."

When I recently viewed the site there are two articles by Tony Lambert of Perth. One was the letter to the Governor-General which I commented on in my last post. The other was a letter to the Australian Broadcasting Commission re "Swine flu scam and Disclosure reminder."

In the section of the website labelled "Australian contacts" Grant Robb lists himself as "Researcher, EFT practitioner, events organiser" and shows another website of his at: http://www.flightoffire.com.au

On the exopolitics website there are links to EWN affiliates in a number of countries, quite a list in fact.

The purpose of this site is given as:
"To educate the public so they can make up their own mind based on the facts"
"To be a source of information for abductees, experiencers, 'star children' and contactees so they can be supported not ridiculed"
"Be a source of credible facts and information for people in the media..."
"Keep the politicians up to date so they may gauge the level of public interest..."

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Australian disclosure programs 1

There have been/are currently, a number of disclosure style efforts underway in Australia

The first may be found at: http://disclosureoz.org and is run by Tony Lambert in Western Australia.

The website describes Tony as an ex-musician, author of several books and that he has traveled in Japan. He recorded a music album "We are not alone" triggered by the crop circle phenomenon. In October 2005 he and Mary Rodwell traveled in WA on a crop circles and contact lecture tour. Tony says he has been an experiencer since early childhood.

The site hosts a number of letters which Tony has sent to a variety of Australian political figures in an effort to raise their consciousness on the issue of UFOs and disclosure. One letter, dated 17 June 2009 was sent to the Governor-General of Australia. The thrust of the letter is that "the witness testimony clearly asserts that our constitutional government is compromised by the illegal secrecy shrouding technologies known to provide pollution free energy devices."

Tony has forwarded copies of the US Disclosure DVD to "The Prime Minister's office along with all national political party leaders, foremost science personnel and prominent media investigators" for comment but received no responses.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Revelations!

I finally finished re-reading the third book in Vallee's trilogy. "Revelations" was published in New York by Ballentine Books in 1991. ISBN 0-345-37172-0.

p6 "The government of the major nations have assembled countless dossiers about the subject. In the course of military and intelligence gathering many remarkable facts have been accumulated...yet officials have never seen fit to declassify most of the files."

pp7-8 "...some of the most remarkable sightings are actually complex hoaxes that have been carefully engineered for our benefit."

p8 "Who is perpetuating such deliberate fabrications and what is their goal...no single reason for the deviousness of those military or civilian agencies that are spending our money to conduct secret psychological experiments..."

p8 "Others were found to have been engineered by government agencies engaged in psychological warfare exercises...some ufo sightings are covert experiments in the manipulation of the belief systems of the public...numerous rumours of crashed saucers and burned aliens, were not so much the result of delusions as the product of deception."

pp83-84 "The very fact that the U.S. military has been doing its own secret research, interrogating certain witnesses and conducting discreet laboratory analyses, demonstrates how little, not how much they know."

p84 "My guess is that someone deep within the U.S. government structure is suing the stories of crashed saucers to hide something else...my ufologist friends should awaken to the fact that in one way or the other all the stories they are happily spreading...originate with the Pentagon itself..."

pp148-149 Discussing the November 1979 Pontoise, France alleged abduction. "...I can report that the human kidnapping scenario did lead somewhere-to perfectly tangible organizations and to beings of flesh and blood within the French military and technological establishment..."

p157 Discussing the Rendelsham UK affair of 1980. "To me the most plausible theory is that the US military has developed a device or a collection of devices that look like flying saucers, that they are primarily intended for psychological warfare, and that they are being actively tested on military personnel."

Wow, I need to sit back and digest all of this Vallee material!

Is "The UFOlogist" dead?

I keep up with a few newsstand magazines, namely "Nexus", "New Dawn" and "The UFOlogist."

I divide my money between three large newsagents in Adelaide and a survey of all three shops indicates that copies of "The UFOlogist" just aren't moving off the shelves.

A look at the last three issues shows me why. The material in each issue was very tired. There are lots of stuff from 50 years ago, e.g. photographic catalogues from the 1950's; and the articles from overseas contributors were hardly fresh.

Also there were rarely any in depth articles on recent Australian UFO investigations; and why so much dry astronomy material? Even the regular columnists don't talk of much new stuff!

Perhaps, previous readers have now moved on to the net, are getting their news from blogs, u-tube, websites or even Twitter.

Maybe it is time for a radical revamp of the magazine, or even moving solely onto other than the printed word?

Final report of the Disclosure Australia project

The Disclosure Australia website at http://disclosureaustralia.freewebpages.org has recently posted the final version of its research findings from its five year search through the UFO files of the Australian Government. Go to the website; look under "What's new?" for "UAS files located in the Australian Government record system" Part 1 and Part 2.

There is also a listing of the 150+ files which the Project uncovered. Then, because the Project had the National Archives of Australia make many of the files available electronically, you can read thousands of pages from the files for yourself at http://www.naa.gov.au Go to this website, click on "RecordSearch" , then click on "search as a guest", then in the box titled "keywords", type in the words "flying objects" and open any file which says there is a digital copy available.

It is amazing just what the Disclosure Australia team found out and we all owe them a great debt of gratitude for all this work.

Happy reading.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Are abductions all in the mind?

Volume 44 issue 10 pages 1387-1395 of the November 2008 issue of Cortex carries an article on abductees co-authored by Adelaide based parapsychologist Michael A Thalbourne.

The abstract reads:

"Previous research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens, known as 'experiencers', appear to have a different psychological profile compared to control participants.

"They show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief and experience, and possibly fantasy proneness.

" They also appear to show greater susceptibility to false memories as assessed using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott technique.

"The present study reports an attempt to replicate these previous findings as well as assessing tendency to hallucinate and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis in a sample of 19 UK-based experiencers and a control sample matched on age and gender.

" Experiencers were found to show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness, tendency to hallucinate, and self reported incidence of sleep paralysis.

"No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of susceptibility to false memories.

"Implications of the results are discussed and suggestions are made for future areas of research."

A very interesting piece of research with wide implications!

In the 2002 Australian Journal of Parapsychology, Michael Thalbourne and Keith Basterfield published the results of some work with Australian experiencers. Their article is titled "Belief in, and alleged experience of, the paranormal in ostensible UFO abductees." An abstract of the paper may be read at: http://www.aiprinc.org/abstracts_2.htm

The full text of some other very detailed Australian research by Gow et al may be read
at: http://www.anomalistik.de/gow.pdf

Friday, September 11, 2009

What was Jacques thinking post 1979? Post 2

The second work in the trilogy was "Confrontations" published in New York by Ballentine Books in 1990. ISBN 0-345-36453-8.

p21 "Like many of my colleagues in the field, I have become convinced that the U.S. government, as well as other governments, was very much involved in the UFO business. This involvement is not limited to the kind of data collection that is the normal responsibility of intelligence agencies. It extends to the close monitoring of the UFO organizations themselves, and in some case, to the staging of false sightings and the occasional leaking of false documents."

p22 "I do not believe that any government has the answer to the UFO problem, although several governments must have the proof of its reality."

p228 "At one time, in fact, the Brazilian Air Force and Navy Intelligence speculated that actual UFO bases might exist somewhere between the mouth of the Amazon and the Sao Luis area."

What was Jacques thinking post 1979?

After writing my previous posts I got to wondering what Jacques Vallee was thinking about post 1970, the final year of his recently published second Journal. I then realised that of course I had his three books published in the 1988 to 1991 era, so it was a simply matter of getting them out and taking a look!

"Dimensions:A casebook of alien contact" appeared in 1988, published by Contemporary Books, ISBN 0-8092-4586-8.

p221 "What I will call, in chapter eight, the 'triple cover-up' is concerned with those pitfalls: the UFO phenomenon is shielded from direct study by the persistent, misguided official denial of its very existence..."

p221 "As a source of rumours within military as well as civilian populations, UFO stories can be manipulated for a variety of reasons that may have nothing to do with the government's interest in the phenomenon."

p226 "The first level of cover up is in the reporting of UFOs. It is the result of the closed mind and negative attitude of government, scientific and military authorities."

p247 "I have alluded to the fact that the major groups of UFO believers have been closely monitored by government agents. There is a good reason for this attention: their influence can be manipulated for political goals or simply as a test of various forms of deception."

p248 "The political factor also explains the deliberate infiltration of civilian UFO groups by persons linked to the intelligence world...because they would provide...a useful channel for planted stories."

p252 Speaking of the application of the US FOI Act against the CIA and the Pentagon. "All that has been shown so far is that these agencies were involved-often covertly-in many aspects of the UFO problem. I suspect that they are still involved."

p253 "And the government may simply be hiding the fact that, in spite of the billions of dollars spent on air defence, it has no more clues to the nature of the phenomenon today than it did in the forties when it began its investigations."

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Third new book alert

Budd Hopkins is both well known as an artist and a UFO researcher focusing on the area of abductions. His UFO books include "Missing Time" 1981; "Intruders" 1987; "Witnessed" 1996 and more recently "Sight unseen" with Carol Rainey.

Now he has published "Art, Life & UFOs:A memoir by Budd Hopkins."Anomalist Books. New York. 2009. 438pp. http://www.anomalistbooks.com/hopkins.html

The book traces Hopkins' interest in art; his relationships with high profile artists; his introduction to the UFO phenomenon and his involvement with abduction cases and other researchers.

Second new book alert

Well, continuing my posts with an intelligence agency flavour is a book I have been long waiting for. This is the second volume in Richard Dolan's trilogy. This one is titled "UFOs and the National Security State: The cover-up exposed 1973-1991." Published by Keyhole Publishing New York. 2009. 638pp.

Having not yet seen a copy of the book, the following is from the publisher's website at http://keyholepublishing.com

- The book was researched using US and Canadian Archives, direct investigations, journals and interviews
- "Dolan presents a detailed analysis of the critical UFO encounters by military and civilians. These encounters, all thoroughly documented and equally baffling repeatedly demonstrated that the UFO phenomenon has been a global phenomenon, and the result of highly advanced technology that has received no official recognition."

Looking at the chapter headings and contents on the publishers website I see that China and Australia rate a section.

I look forward to reading a copy of the book.

New book alert

David Clarke is one of the key English researchers who have been mining the UK National Archive UFO files for several years.

Look out for his new book "The UFO files:the inside story of real-life sightings" published by the National Archives. ISBN 9781 9056 15506.

According to David's blog http://www.drdavidclarke.blogspot.com the book features:

- accounts of sightings from the 19th century unto today
- details of classic UFO UK incidents
- the latest material released under the Freedom of Information Act
- "Original records reveal how British Intelligence and the CIA investigated many cold war sightings...the book sheds new light on many famous cases, such as RAF Topcliffe, 1952; the Flying Cross in Devon,1967; RAF West Freugh, Scotland 1957; the Berwyn Mountains crash..."

I went to Borders Bookshop, here in Adelaide, the other day but they have no record of the book so far.

David's blog states the book was due out in July 2009, but I have heard elsewhere that it is now due out this month.

As my earlier posts indicate, I have a particular interest in information about the involvement of intelligence agencies in the UFO phenomenon.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

My comments on Vallee's book

Well, having now had some time to digest what Vallee notes in his journals, what to make of it?

So, analysts in both the CIA and NSA did indeed monitor the subject. The FOI output of documents from these organisations supports these observations of Vallee's.

However, Vallee states that neither agency set up a serious research project into the phenomenon, instead any work done was at the individual level of personal interest.

The CIA worried about what the military knew. While private industry in the form of McDonnell-Douglas conducted research.

I guess the bottom line to draw from this look at the 1970's is that Vallee, who was certainly well connected enough to know these things, says there was no serious scientific research project.

According to the work conducted by the Disclosure Australia project, the same thing happened here. Harry Turner who worked for the Joint Intelligence Bureau, now the Defence Intelligence organisation, appeared to be working out of personal interest, but with the knowledge of his superiors. The JIB/JIO file located by Keith Basterfield clearly shows this fact. Turner's boss saw there was something to the UFO phenomenon, but declared it was not their role to look into it.

All in all Vallee's latest work clarifies a few things in this intelligence arena. A good read.

Vallee's new book post three

Later, in January 1978 p417. "Kit has told me that the Agency didn't have a mission to monitor the subject."

October 1978 "A great deal of activity, if not research, is indeed going on about UFOs among government organizations."p438. "McDonnell-Douglas is continuing their quiet but well-funded study with John Schuessler, also monitored by the Agency. They seem to be looking for exotic alloys."

By February 1979 Vallee writes on page 455. "I am not even convinced the government knows much. I have drawn two conclusions from my contacts. First, they are confused about the nature of the phenomenon, they only see the surface. Second, the best data gets lost in a black hole within the military. No group of 'experts' will penetrate it. The only sensible avenue for me is not a crusade, but quite independent research."

Finally, in March 1979 p458."What have I learned? (1) The phenomenon is real but it offers multiple levels. (2) No simple extraterrestrial explanation fits the facts. (3) The governments of the U.S., Mexico and France have a keen level of interest (and the Russians and U.K as well) but no scientific research project seems to exist. (4) Some of the brightest people in Intelligence get involved but the real data must be hidden at a different level. (5) Much of the official involvement is directed at faking data, not at discovering the truth. (6) Animal mutilations are real but probably unrelated to UFOs. (7) No solution will be found by mediocre, amateurish research."

Vallee's new book post two

On page 237 of his book, Vallee asked Green: "Don't you agree there must be a secret effort somewhere?" Green replied: "Yes...I do agree with that statement. In my group we've wondered if it wasn't being run within private industry."

In March 1974 Vallee visited the CIA and Met David M. Vallee left with the impression that the CIA knew very little. "...the major topic for them wasn't the phenomenon itself, but what the military may be doing behind their back." p244.

In December 1974 p277, "Kit reluctantly confirmed there was a group of 15 engineers in the MidWest ( I assumed it was McDonnell in St Louis) secretly doing UFO research for CIA under cover of 'aeronautical research'."

P335. "I got an interesting call from a Vice-President with Environmental Systems in Van Nuys...As early as 1955 he belonged to a UFO group at Douglas aircraft in Santa Monica...They were asked by Douglas management to assess cases from Blue Book..."

p373. "...the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, the notorious OSI. They show up everywhere and are much more likely than the CIA to be the true manipulators behind the scenes."

In December 1977, p410. Dr Green CIA was told off by his boss."You're supposed to cover life sciences...this stuff has nothing to do with it." "The agency allowed him to pursue the topic privately."

January 1978 p412. Writing about a contact from a worker at McDonnell-Douglas Astronautics. "Thye have an on-going secret project, well-funded, with the blessing and official monitoirng of the CIA, and they're discretely connected with major UFO groups..."

Vallee's new book post one

Well, Jacques Vallee has recently published a new book. This one is his journals between 1970-1979, and titled "Forbidden Science Volume 2." Published by Documentica Research, LLC in the US, the ISBN number if you want to order it is 978-0-615-24974-2.

Any book by Vallee is a delight to read. However, the focus of this post will be the role which the intelligence agencies have played in UFO research. Did they undertake any real scientific work?
I have been fascinated by this question ever since I examined the material available at
http://disclosureaustralia.freewebpages.org which documents the work of Australian UFO researcher Keith Basterfield, who lives here in Adelaide, and his team.

In 1972 Vallee met one Howell McConnell who worked for the NSA. "...we keep an eye on things." p159. "He asked me if I'd ever heard of a group based at Wright-Patterson, which is supposed to do secret analyses on behalf of the Air Force."

In 1973, psychic researcher Hal Puthoff told Vallee that he had found the leader of a CIA group that monitored the UFO scene. p214. "Hal's contact...Dr Christopher Green, nicknamed Kit...the most important thing I learned was that Green had counterparts in every branch of the Executive. Like Howell McConnell, they mainly operated 'out of personal interest' with the blessing of higher-level managers. They occasionally exchanged data, but he claimed little was done with it." Vallee stated that the CIA had never set up a serious UFO research project.

European Parliament member and UAP

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