Fame, What You Get Is No Tomorrow

Tina Sena of Y.Ufology has an excellent follow-up article to Bruce Duensing's piece "Does Ufology Have A Future When It's Non-Existent?" (also a great article). As you might surmise, both discuss the sorry state of UFOlogy today (and probably yesterday, too).

Some of the expected points are made, such as how those who use UFOlogy as some kind of quasi-celebrity vehicle, are helping to slowly kill the entire 'field', and how Science is still donning the gloves of elitism, denouncing paranormal claims as hogwash, simply because the existence of bizarre phenomenon is (currently) void of anything scientifically plausible. And they are good points -- but my favorite part is Tina's argument that the world we live in just isn't as cool as a lot of the UFO Yo-yo's and knuckleheads prefer to believe.

And she's right -- Fiction and Reality have been merged in the minds of the overly-wishful, most probably out of a need to believe that there has to be more to life than work, sleep and fucking (though I am rather fond of the latter). They dive into UFOlogy and start to build their case for the existence of a galaxy crammed full of extra-terrestrials, playing out some geek's elaborate Star Trek fantasy.

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Wrapping My Lil' Head Around This

About half-an-hour ago, I received a comment response notification to a post Regan Lee made about my article "Alien Healthcare and How I Got a Unicorn".

Yes, I was criticized by someone (not Regan, to be clear) who used Mayan Prophecy as part of her argument.

I'm not even kidding.

I was a little surprised, to be honest because the post hit me for having an opinion that was the same kind of “non-productive 'Lets trash Salla and Greer and Wilcock and and and' bile that gets spewed around on any of the male-dominant sites.” Because, you know, I'm not allowed to agree with boys about anything. Not only is it the Women in UFOlogy code, but also the Lesbian code (of which I have probably been in breech of for years) *laughs*

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Oldies by the Moldies

By The Interstellar Housewife

I've been sitting here sifting through my daily does of Google Alerts, which are significantly fewer than the last couple of days, in which a number of them piled up while I was busy working more than I generally care to. Most of them were crap of course, and the rest -- well, they either weren't worth mentioning or I had no real opinion of them.

After finishing up with my Alerts, I then got the crazy idea of going through all of the pages I have bookmarked in the last few months, pertaining to U-know-whats. See, when I find a certain article that I think make be interesting, but don't have the time or wordage to write about it, I bookmark it with the misguided assumption that I'll come back to them again, shortly, or on a slow news day -- and the last couple of weeks have been a long chain of slow news days. Sure, there are a lot of articles out there that come through each and every mother-lovin' day, but most are crap, the same old-same old, or just UFO reports. I could post the UFO reports, but there are bazillion other sites that do just that (though I reserve the right to post reports that are interesting to me, on occasion).

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Ritzmann and the Sane Person's Guide to UFOs

If you don't know Jeff Ritzmann, you may be on the other side of "Ufology" -- the side that believes the "aliens" are all terribly friendly beings who can't wait to help humanity pull it's head out of its ass. Or maybe you don't support that particular idea, but are apt to believe in a number of cases of questionable credibility (though you may be unaware). Or maybe he isn't as notable as I assume he is, which could very well be the case. However, in my opinion, Jeff is a breath of fresh air in a field that is caked with so much bullshit and ridiculous claims, it makes the whole WMD thing look like a friendly game of Clue.

There is a growing number of individuals within the UFO "community" that harbor what I call a "healthy skepticism". Somewhere along the way skepticism became synonymous with debunking, and that is quite unfortunate. Why anyone would approach any area of study or research without an objective eye and a moderately skeptical mind, is beyond me. But, as many of you probably know, there is a majority of people who so want to believe, that they either forget that an investigation requires a scientific approach, or tune that out because they have based their life or ideals on a certain belief, and wouldn't know what to do if that were suddenly taken away.

And really, there are many different reasons why people tend to take someone's words at face-value without checking out the case history and observations of everyone involved, including those in opposition. Just because you don't like what someone may have to say does not mean it isn't true, nor does it mean that they are trying to debunk the entire subject of UFOs. You simply have to weigh in all possibilities before you can make as close to an accurate assumption as possible.

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Sagan and the SETIs – Not Just a Great Band Name

By The Interstellar Housewife

Ok, first off – I am taking full credit if anyone uses the above as a band name. And any variation thereof. For instance, “Steven Greer and the CSETIs" would, by default, also be mine. Theoretically, however, I may be bought off.

Star-Stuff

Now, I want to start this post off by expressing my deep respect and admiration for the late Carl Sagan. In a sense, I grew up with him – through Cosmos, his articles, appearances... books. My father spoke very highly of Sagan and a lot of that was impressed upon me.

His voice, melodically awkward, was almost meditative – or what I assume to be meditative, as I've never been able to do whatever it is that you do to bring on meditation. Anyway, Carl was a great man, but he also had some very strong opinions about UFOs. The kind of opinions that are in conflict with so-called Ufologists. However, recently I read a piece about Sagan stating that he was very enthusiastic about UFOs when he was younger, addicted in a way, but by 1966 had maneuvered a 180 and from this point on, he would stick by the belief that alien visitation to Earth is an extreme unlikelihood. This has always disappointed me, but it didn't make any of his other theories and teachings invalid.

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Clowns, Clowns Everywhere

(Don't) Send in the Clowns
By Robert Barrow

You don't forget that first letter to the editor when you're a teenager -- you know, the one that actually saw print in a newspaper, one of those paper thingies with ink on every page? Maybe you're old enough to answer the question, what's black and white and read all over? That's correct, it's a. . .well, I guess nobody really cares much anymore.

My first letter appeared in a newspaper during the summer of 1965, precipitated while interesting UFO sightings seemed to engulf the world and its news services. The reason for my literary outburst was a feeling of incredulity when I read of a UFO flying over the Azores with a curious ability to literally stop cold a weather station's electromagnetic clock. Time may not have stood still, but the clock apparently did. Nevertheless, during this period when UFOs were seen over Portugal as well as the Azores, an obligatory official explanation was soon thrown out to the anxious media like a soup bone to a starving dog pack, and all were enlightened with the knowledge that a "research balloon" launched from India was responsible! Surely, I post-adolescently editorialized, weather station personnel would know if balloons could stop their clocks, otherwise why should this become a news event?

Read more at the source

Overkill

If I see one more Google Alert about that friggin' upcoming abduction film (that I'm not naming in hopes I won't add to the issue) I'm going to stab myself in the face.

UFO Pudding (and Terrestrial Crackers)

By The Interstellar Housewife

The word "proof" has been popping up more than usual lately. In discussion and through the results of my Google Alerts. It's no wonder, in respect to the topic at hand, which is of course UFOs and extra-terrestrial visitation. It is not as common as say, results discussing the new upcoming film "The Fourth Kind", results of which are so numerous that even the late Carl Sagan would find them unfathomable. but I digress.

This really began a few weeks ago when someone made a request on another blog I follow. This particular person was asking why us "UFO people never have real evidence." Outwardly it seems a fair enough question, albeit a tired one. The problem with this question and the UFO phenomenon in general, is that we do have real evidence. It is often conveniently dismissed, however.

What real evidence is there, you ask? Well, what kind of evidence are you looking for? Physical evidence? We don't really have that at our disposal. This would be the so-called smoking gun that would seem to please most skeptics. But would physical evidence really prove anything?

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Catching 22 in the Field of UFOs

Ignoring the photo in question, there is a point in the following article which I found interesting:

"UFO sceptics and debunkers have created a catch-22, either a UFO is a blurry blob and then the comment will be made as to why those filming these objects can never hold their camera still. If it is too clear it will immediately be dismissed as computer generated graphics. Their pre-conceived ideas that humans alone populate the universe inform the outcome of any investigation."

Read the whole article

UFO Tech: Reverse Engineering My iPod Classic

Blasphemy

It is a favorite argument among a portion of the UFO community that since the Roswell crash in 1947 (I can't believe I'm mentioning Roswell) that the government has been reverse engineering crashed alien technology, and it is this technology that lead to the swift advancement of our own technology. It's a romantic notion – it really is -- and I think that somewhere inside of me, there's a little girl hoping it is so. But the big girl in me has some real doubts.

Reasoning

I think the majority of people assume that any possible extraterrestrial visitors to this planet, utilize a technology that is anywhere from a thousand years to a million years ahead of our own. The problem I have with that theory is that as advanced as we may see ourselves, in comparison, we most likely resemble insects. How could we possibly have taken a piece of technology so far ahead of our own and sorted it all out?

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The Um, Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission

By The Interstellar Housewife

So, I was reading a summary of the Denver ballot initiative for an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission, because I'm a glutton for punishment and I have this problem where I can't help but watch certain kinds of train wrecks. Anyway, I'm reading the summary of the ballot and somewhere in the middle, the main proponent of this initiative slaps in a little advert for his patented Metatron Technology.

If you don't know about this technology, you're missing out! Or missing out on a hearty chuckle, at the very least. This particular ad offered a software download that was listed as free, but I'm certain it's just an arrow to help promote his other Metatron devices which are very un-free. I knew about the card for a while now, but just discovered the number of products under this "technology" that he offers. Apparently it helps protect you from EMFs.

*Interesting side-note: The indie band EMF had a hit in the early 90s called Unbelievable.

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Disclosure and The Presidency

Ah. The near age-old question, reformatted for a new presidency:

Will Obama Be the First President to Tell the Truth About UFOs?

It's a lovely thought isn't it? It's white, soft and fluffy like lil' bunnies - and mostly everyone loves bunnies! Right!?

Hrm...

At any rate, while I'd love to believe that he will be the one to break the door down on disclosure (for my current official position on disclosure, read this) I don't think it's going to happen. The above article mostly assumes that the president might actually has a fucking clue as to whats going on in regards to UFOs or alien vsitation, or that any president has been privy to that information. They do bring up the possibility of even the president being susceptible to a government cover-up, while discussing Clinton' request for information.

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