Freakin' in the Fun House Part 2

The tape that Victor was peddling was the alleged interrogation of a supposed captured extraterritorial at Areas 51. Victor's claim was that he had smuggled it out of the facility and wanted to make it public because he was appalled at the government's treatment of the ET. Due to the top secret nature of the material, he had to maintain a high level of secrecy concerning himself and the background to the tape. He also was hoping to cut a deal for world wide release via a major video distributor with lots of moola for a tape that, if real, would actually be federal property and not legally usable for commercial purposes (a point that no body, including the distributor, ever raised).

Since a super-secret security organization working for a hyper-secret wing of the utterly secret invisible government was searching for both him and the tape, Victor was unwilling to give the press his name and could only be interviewed by a phone connected to an encryption system. Due to the alleged dangerous nature of his predicament, the encryption was the finest piece of technology that was available at Radio Shack (for approximately $20). He also had a fondness for using pay phones located in Nevada.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I kind of suspected that these security precautions would in no way misled the NSA. Nor the CIA. Maybe, just maybe, it would stall the FBI. I have heard that some G-Men still have trouble accessing e-mails.

I did suspect that the whole smoke-and-mirror show was designed to set the stage for the press. Unfortunately, I was the only press at this point and the magazine I worked for wasn't offering money for the story. For the publicist, this wasn't a problem. But we were not so sure about the boys on the other end of the arrangements.

A strange group of people had gathered around the tape even though they appeared to have no actual contractual connections to the material. One was the host of a national late night radio show. The other was a UFO investigator who kept insisting that they had named a mountain peak after him near Area 51. Behind the scene, they were increasingly dictating terms to the pr person though no one seemed too clear about what authority they actually had in the matter.

Negotiations for the video release was going on with an established movie company. As part of the deal, they were hoping to get a special effects artist lined up to swear that the production could not have been the result of make up or FX work. It was becoming obvious why they wanted the person I was dealing with to be the publicist She had began her career as an assistant to one of the most acclaimed special effect/make up artists in the business. They wanted him to be in the program. She was their contact to woe him.

There was, perhaps, one slight problem. Neither the publicist nor the make up master were sold on the tape's authenticity. Instead, they were privately guessing that it was a puppet (an opinion that I shared).

While the negotiations for the video wore on, I began researching both the material and the people. I figured I better find out a little more about what I had just gotten myself into.

TO BE CONTINUED

Freakin' in the Fun House - Part 1

Back in the mid-1990s, I was (briefly) the exclusive European correspondent for a news story about the capture of an extraterritorial alien. More precisely, I had (very briefly) the inside track for interviews with various people who claimed to have been directly and/or indirectly connected with a videotape purportedly smuggled out of the alleged Area 51.

And if you think I just used a lot of qualifiers, just wait till you hear the rest of the story. All names have been dropped to protect both the guilty and the chumps.

At the time, I had been writing free lance film articles for a British science fiction magazine. Technicality, I was considered a foreign correspondent, even though my old trench coat was the only British item involved in the job. Everything else was an easy telecommunicate from Ohio (though keeping up with the time differential was often a bear).

At the time, the editor for the magazine's American office was routinely in contact with a woman who was the agent for an actor who had a major recurring role on a popular science fiction series (a lot of this story does indeed have a friend-of-a-friend quality). Their relationship was just chatty enough that the agent felt comfortable asking the editor for help with a problem. The agent had just agreed to help coordinate PR for the impending release of an odd videotape and did we know anyone who knew anything about UFOs?

I got nominated primarily because no one else wanted to deal with the issue. I had a passing interest in the subject but was way out of date with the information. However, the magazine was preparing for the premiere of the series Dark Skies and I was already having to do some basic research....So I accepted the nomination.

Besides, I figured that it would be good for laughs. Kind of like a carny show.

Admittedly, one of the first problems was the provenance of the video. The story was that the provider of the tape had worked at Area 51 (a claim never substantiated) who had smuggled the tape (by means never described) out of the Dreamland facility. For security reasons, the man was only known to the people preparing the tape's release by a code name and even the code name was not to be provided to me or any other member of the press.

When the agent told me all of this, I took a guess and asked her if the code name was Victor. There was a moment's silence on the phone.

"How did you know that?"

"Just an educated hunch."

Victor had been the name of a captured alien in the John Lear hoax a few years earlier. I was wondering if there might have been a connection.

At the time I only had a passing familiarity with the John Lear/Bill Cooper material, but everything was already feeling like some sort of half baked cross between that warped tale and the alien autopsy hoax a few years earlier on Fox.

Which was OK. I was definitely looking for a side show and I was pretty convinced that I just found the way to the freaks tent....

TO BE CONTINUED

Search For the Great Flying Whatsit

I saw my first flying triangle as a child. Actually, it has been my only flying triangle. I'm not even sure what I really saw. It was less a sighting and seemed more like a perceptual glitch.

This was back in the mid-1960s (probably 1964) and a wave of UFO sightings had been taking place around the country. This was back in the days when newspapers and TV stations actually reported such sightings and the news accounts were extremely inspiring to youthful imaginations. So a group of us kids in my neighborhood spent a perfectly lovely summer afternoon enjoying fresh air (we still had that back in those days too) and scanning the sky for anything that we thought was moving.

That is when I spotted a solid black triangle shape moving like a silent silhouette against the pristine blue of the day. Though it seemed to have been high up in the sky, I distinctly saw what appeared to have a single bright red light at its center. The vision lasted barely 5 seconds and then it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. It was the first time I truly appreciated the phase “out of the blue.”

At the time, I thought maybe I had something in my eye because the whole experience certainly didn't seem exactly real. Likewise, I undoubtedly had my mind focused on seeing a UFO, and obviously my imagination did not want to be disappointed. But oddly enough, I was looking for those saucer-shaped thingies that I was use to seeing in the movies. I had never heard of flying triangles. Somehow it didn't make sense and I wouldn't know anything about this form until many years later (not until the early 1980s).

So what did I see? If I were a debunker, I could comfortably write the whole thing off as a combination of too much television and too little lemonade. What else do you expect from a bunch of dumb kids on a hot summer day who probably should be doing something more with their time than wasting it on a wild goose chase into phony land. Besides, we were kids, so our opinions don't count and it is just anecdotal data anyway, so go blow junior.

On the other hand, I know that I actually did see it. It wasn't that hot of a day. I like to think of myself as being reasonably intelligent. There really wasn't anything in my eye and I knew that at the time. Besides, I wasn't alone. Two of the other kids saw it as well.

But since it wasn't saucer shaped, we couldn't be sure what it was and were mainly left scratching our heads. It simply wasn't the shape we were seeking and it is often amazing the ease with which we forget something that doesn't fit our expectations.

EVP

What exactly is a EVP? The mystery of Electronic Voice Phenomena has long flown under the paranormal radar. Yet it does exist, which is something I can state from first hand experience.

I wish it didn't. For whatever reason, it is a phenomena that genuine spooks me. I think I was exposed to an episode of the old Twilight Zone at too impressible of an age (it was the one concerning phone calls from the dead). The thought gives me the willies and I often think twice before picking up the phone.

For those unfamiliar with EVP, they are voices (and other sounds of unknown origins) picked up on tape equipment or other forms of audio amplifiers. Sometimes they appear to be the voices of the dead and increasingly ghost hunters have used recorders as a mean of attempting to communicate with the great beyond. Other times they appear to be any number of other forms of disembodied voices, with one web site purporting to have recordings of angels singing (though one of the tapes sound more like Alvin and the Chipmunks played backwards).

Though not widely discussed, the phenomena is well known among recording engineers. Since all sort of radio waves create various forms of interference, it is usually a safe bet that the noise in the background of the tape has more to do with a local radio station rather than another dimension. But every so often, something strange occurs that is not easily explainable.

My own most impressive experience took place when I was once setting up the A/V system in an auditorium for a lecture one night. It was early and only I and the photographer were in the auditorium at the time. The event was a special presentation for a museum and it was a "high pressure" evening and everything was expected (actually, ordered was more the word) to go without a hitch.

The photographer was unloading his equipment at the back of the auditorium while I was just start to set up the PA system. Suddenly, a voice came full blast over the PA speakers, calling the photographer's name. The voice bore an uncanny resemblance to the director of the institution, who at the time was having dinner with selected guests at a restaurant on the other side of town. The director was infamous for his highly neurtic behavior patterns and extremely rough shod handling of employees. So I wasn't surprised to find that the photographer had broken out sweat.

I told the guy not to worry, that it was just a freak coincident caused by the PA system and radio interference. I didn't bother to tell him that the system wasn't on at the time and that there was no way this could have happened. I had a strange feeling that he didn't need to hear the truth at the moment.

Sometimes you just let sleeping dogs lie.

The Aliens Are Coming Part Two

A simple glance through the vendors room of any UFO convention would seemingly confirm that we are on a slippery ride to an irrational hell. Palm readers dressed in Star Trek uniforms sit demurely in a booth right next to a middle-aged housewife with a pyramid on her head. A professional Bigfoot hunter lectures on how he spends his weekend afternoons combing the woods for animal droppings while another speaker expounds upon her telepathic communications with extra-terrestrials. Through out the convention hall there are the inevitable tables filled with books and tapes devoted to the wilder ravings of the right-wing militia movement. Fliers advertise a meeting focused on the war against the New World Order, with a special treat being a video presentation of the new TV show Millennium.
The scene plays like a suburban version of Bedlam as the room fills with rumors about three black helicopters parked at a nearby airfield. Ironically, the rumors turn out to be true since the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration uses these vehicles in an effort to locate marijuana farms in the surrounding countryside.
The current state of American reality is stocked with enough weirdness to keep the X-Files department in business well into the next century. That may be one of the reasons why many people are seeking an answer for the unexplained from the world of the inexplicable. Like a religion, much of the belief in UFOs is based on faith. One either believes or disbelieves and there are few agnostics to be found.
"We have come a long way from the Sixties where God was dead and there is a lot of spiritual seeking right now," is how Paul Barrosse explains so much fascination with the topic.
Barrosse is the executive producer of Strange Universe, an internationally syndicated daily TV program on everything from UFOs to merely odd occurrences. He calls the show's venue the Millennium beat and proudly wears his press pass to any crop circle in sight.
"We think that it is probably in some way people looking at the Millennium and having to take an accounting of themselves and finding a better definition of their universe."
For Barrosse, the glass is half full and the dividing line between spiritual faith and scientific evidence is primarily an Old Age assumption quickly falling to a New Age sense of heightened enlightenment. Barrosse doesn't necessarily believe in every subject that his show covers, but he likes to keep an open mind.
"I don't know if you would call it Sixties fallout or what," he continues. "But we got introduced to a lot of alternative philosophies and a lot of barriers broke down and a lot of groovy subjects entered the mainstream."
But for others, the glass is half empty and layered with rot.
"The paranormal makes grandiose promises," asserts Nickell. "For example, if ghosts exists then obviously we live on after we die. It makes a promise of immortality...And extra-terrestrials would promise that we are not alone in the universe."
Unfortunately, there are no extra-terrestrials. Right?
Unless you happen to believe in Roswell. It has become the common touchstone of the modern debate as well as the recurring reference point for everything from The X-Files to The Rock. Whatever happened in 1947 in New Mexico (and something major did actually happen), it has snowballed into the greatest article of faith since transfiguration.
"We know that something did crash at Roswell," concedes Nickell. But he is a firm believer in the Project Mogul theory, which was a top secret military project attempting to detect possible atomic tests in the Soviet Union. According to this theory, the object that landed near Roswell was essentially a balloon and a radar reflector.
Oddly enough, there is no real evidence to support the Project Moguel theory, we only have the Air Force's word on it. Likewise, extensive first-hand eyewitness testimony present a different picture, including tape transcripts and signed affidavits from many key military personnels who were based at the Strategic Air Command post stationed at Roswell Air Base. Or at least that is the surprisngly impressive case made by Kevin Randle in his books on the incident.
This account supports the notion that a shuttle-type vehicle of presumed extra-terrestrial origin crashed for unknown reasons. Contrary to popular folklore, the ship was not a flying saucer but rather a long fuselage with bat-like wings. Likewise, the dead occupants were not the so-called greys. Instead, they were small built humanoids with slightly enlarged eyes and an unusual skin texture. Several of the eyewitnesses repeatedly described the skin as being like that of a reptile rather than a mammal.
Wait a minute. What was that about an impending invasion by man-eating nasties? You would think that somebody would want to spill the beans on an event of such magnitude.
"If I were in the government, I wouldn't fess up," says Timmerman. "I wouldn't make a public statement that there were UFOs. The world today is too preoccupied with its mutual annihilation and we are not prepared to handle such a development."
Timmerman's organization was originally created by Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Hynek was the dean of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University, the scientific advisor for the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book and the technical advisor for Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (whose title is taken from Hynek's own classification system for UFO reports). Though Hynek was employed by Project Blue Book in order to explain away UFO sightings, he became a strong believer in the phenomena.
Both Timmerman and his wife were close friends of Hynek. As the public information officer for the center, Timmerman has made a strong effort to solve the mystery that left his late colleague baffled.
"I have 800 to 1,000 recorded interviews from people all over who have had these experiences that are so similar in character that I am so convinced that this is real. If it isn't, we need to do serious studies on the human brain and the minds of people, because they are all thinking the same thing."
Which means that many people are asking the same questions in a desperate hope that the truth is out there...somewhere.

The Aliens Are Coming Part One

(Back in 1996, I wrote the following for a British magazine. However, my editor thought I was nuts for doing the article and was busy getting rid of all of the American writers from the staff. So the piece never saw the light of day. Though some of the information is outdated, I feel the need to present it. Call me stubborn.
-WK)

Man-eating reptiles from another planet are preparing to invade the earth. Or at least that is the hot buzz on one of the numerous computer bulletin boards devoted to UFOs. But the rude diners from the Draco star system have better get in line. By some accounts, our world is one of the busiest stops on the intergalactic superhighway. Simply everyone who is anyone is landing here these days.
"We have visitors on this planet," insists Peter B. Davenport, the executive director of the National Center for UFO Reporting in Seattle, Washington. "There is very little remaining doubt."
The center maintains a 24-hour telephone hot line for UFO reports from all corners of North America and has accumulated thousands of eye witnessed statements.
"I think we are observing," adds John Timmerman of the Center for UFO Studies, "something we cannot explain or understand coming from a place we cannot imagine for reasons that are beyond our imagination."
Which is to say: It's a mystery. But long before such movies and TV shows as Independence Day, The X-Files and Dark Skies renewed public interest in low flying things that go bump in the night, the UFO mystery was deeply entrenching itself into the global sub-conscious.
Since the end of World War II, strange lights and bizarre flying crafts have been spotted on every continent. Though often dismissed as misobservations of such natural phenomena as St. Elmo's Fire and nocturnal geese, UFOs have also resulted in a variety of well documented reports from surprisingly reliable sources. Consider:
The North American Air Defense Command have actually tracked fast-moving objects that were whizzing in and out of the upper atmosphere and that were not behaving in a manner resembling either a satellite or a meteor.
Both a pilot and his Cessna plane vanished off the coast of Australia when he encountered an object that was tracked, and then lost, on radar. The pilot's last radio message was that he was being followed by something that was not an aircraft.
In a recent interview, ex-astronaut Gordon Cooper revealed that he and several other jet pilots once encountered a mysterious saucer-shaped ship in the desert near Edwards Air Force base.
But such provable (or at least plausible) allegations pale next to the nebulous twilight realm of myth and folklore that has evolved around the UFO mystery. Legends abound, from tales about massive underground alien bases to terrifying accounts of abductions. In some stories, the government is secretly in league with the critters as they willingly surrender the planet in a fool-hardy pursuit of advance technology.
Either way, everyone agrees that the U.S. government is keeping something secret. Even the government goes along with this since they have repeatedly denied access to a large volume of material on the subject. The Department of Defense, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency have all spent years actively gathering information on UFOs. But the small sampling of documents which have been released are more laundered than the expletives deleted from the Watergate tapes of Richard Nixon.
"The government didn't tell the full truth," admits Joe Nickell while discussing a few of the more infamous cases in UFO mythology. Nickell is a research fellow for The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. He is an expert on the subject of forgery and his work has been crucial in the debunking of the original Majestic-12 documents.
"We pretty well know," he continues, "that whenever there is secrecy, what happens is that it is a breeding ground just as damp, moist places may be a breeding ground for all kinds of horrible creatures. This type of breeding ground produces rumors, speculations, fantasies. People come out of the woodwork: pathological liars and raconteurs, the kind of people who like to sit back and spin some tall tales."
If some Ufologists are guilty of believing anything, then Nickell could be accused of disbelieving in everything. Aside from his work for CSICoP, Nickell is also a member of the Council for Media Integrity and is a vocal critic of such shows as The X-Files and Dark Skies. In the Council's viewpoint, fun is fun but the current crop of media induced paranoia may be steering people into a new Dark Age.
"We are becoming two nations," Nickell warns. "One that is scientifically literate...and another that is not educated or informed in that way."
For the Council, a program like The X-Files gives false credence to old hoaxes while using pseudo-scientific babble to confuse the viewer into accepting various conspiracy theories that flies in the face of any well-balanced, rational thinking.