THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

There is no doubt that the entertainment business has been huge driving influence in the UFO community for years now. A huge part of our perceptions of ET, their craft and intentions have been formed by how these things have been portrayed in books, sci-fi, movies and television. Now it's streaming video, YouTube, podcasts, radio shows dedicated to the subject...the list goes on and on. And while some of these productions are good most are not as so many get way out in fantasy land, dark conspiracies, bizarre theories and subjects that just over dramatize, cheapen and sensationalize the field. This is a truly nightmarish landscape for many of us that take this field very seriously. Until I had my own experience in 1990 I was pretty agnostic to the whole idea of UFOs due to the tabloid papers of the 70's and 80's. I found the stories laughable and just plain stupid but there were thousands of people that sucked up every bit of it. You know the type. Gems like these...

First of all, for the most part, shows dealing with the UFO phenomenon are there for entertainment. There will always be a little of truth with a lot of added dramatic license to make the program more viewer friendly.In other words, the truth doesn't really matter. What DOES matter are ratings. These shows DO have disclaimers but like most TOS that we run into everyday, we don't stop to read the fine print. People see a show with a lot of drama thrown in and never think to research the subject content and find out how accurately it's being portrayed, research who the key players are in a story, get a different perspective from an expert of that stone glyph that looks like a helicopter or some solid talk from that guy that's been doing this over fifty years. As a friend and I discussed, there is a fan club mindset about all this that is generated by the entertainment industry. Fan club mindsets demand instant updates, gratification, info, new pics, the low down..you name it. Think of the followers of the Kardashians, Bieber..Cyrus..so on. People that are nurtured under this mindset in the UFO world actually believe there should be a new hard core, solid UFO case coming out all the time. The entertainment can't stop, the lights can't stop flashing, and the bells can't stop ringing. This type of mindset contributes nothing to the field of serious UFO study and the truth of the matter is that good UFO cases are far and few between.  They don't just pop up on a regular basis.Producers know this and so they will add all sorts of filler to inflate the most mundane cases. By the time they get through with it a small white orb has been turned into a UFO sighting and story of a huge scale. But like those supermarket tabloids, people by the millions suck every bit of this stuff up. Why? Because they want to believe and it's easier for some to believe in the fantastic than the mundane.

Sadly, until we discover the truth of the UFO phenomenon, I don't think serious ufology can ever get a final divorce from the side show that is attached to it at the hip. I've discussed this with my fellow folks in the field many times over as it can be really distressing. It seems the very nature of the subject serves as a magnet for the weird and wacky. I think the best we can do is to continue to stand on solid ground, try to educate as many people as we can as to what real UFO investigations entail, get the news out about known hoaxes, suggest the better books and authors on the subject and encourage learning some basic astronomy as so many people don't know what is supposed to be in the night sky such as visible planets and bright stars, showcase the best cases in blogs and forums. We have a lot tools and opportunities to try to guide people to a better and more realistic way of seeing this thing. Some will take it to heart and some won't but if we're serious about this, then we should never stop trying to guide people to the best footing of this very slippery slope we call Ufology. The truth is out there and I feel that we are getting closer to it but it won't come from the latest episode of "Alien Undercover Agents." 

As The Saucer Turns

Very few fields are as complex, complicated, convoluted and confusing as the the world of Ufology. It is like a huge tree with branches of different species grafted into it. There are the conspiracy theorists.They branch of into sub groups of their own. Oh brother, that's a huge field unto itself.  Some believe that the gov. is doing business with several alien species in return for everything from human tests subjects to our natural resources. Some believe that the military has alien bodies, alien craft, reverse engineered craft that we are secretly flying and it's all located at Area 51 in Nevada or as I call it, the Groom Lake Facility where the Air Force does test secret and advanced aircraft. For some reason if this country has secrets that it needs to keep for the sake of our protection and National security there are always aliens and UFO's involved.There are the folks that believe that there are myriads of secret underground bases, some of which have actual aliens working with our miltary.The conspiracy theorist groups are too many to name here in one blog. Trust me when I tell you that the ones I've mentioned are the milder ones. 

There are the what I like to call, "The find the hidden object people." These are the folks that are always finding or believing that there are giant UFO's hiding in and around the sun, the moon and other planets, not to mention the ISS and former Space Shuttle missions. They are firmly convinced that there are cities on Mars, gigantic non-natural made structures on the moon, alien bases on the moon and so on. Oh, and lets not forget the alien bases on asteroids and comets. These folks have their own kind of conspiracies working. If they can see these tings and point them out, then surely NASA sees them as well and they are hiding this knowledge and lying to us.

Let's not leave out one of the groups that I find very interesting. I call them the "Intergalactic Species Experts." These folks can tell you all about the grays, the reptilians, insectoids, tall whites, Nordic types..it goes on and on. These folks seem to know about the culture, agenda, religion, diet, bowel habits and much more about these alleged alien species.They seem to know what sort of craft each one operates, where they come from, how long they have been here and that they are certainly breeding with our women creating hybrid species. 

It goes on and on. The experts in alien space craft propulsion, whistleblowers from Area 51, UFO religions, UFO cults, MIB,  Roswell experts, you name it. I'll be getting deeper into this in later blogs. My point here is that not one of these groups mentioned has any solid 100% irrefutable proof that these things are true. I'm not saying they are lying. I'm saying they are making huge claims and have absolutely nothing but what they have read, seen on the internet or TV, believed in their minds, he said she said...it doesn't matter. They cannot produce one piece of compelling evidence that any this stuff is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. They all share one big trait..they seem to know for sure, without a doubt what they are saying and believing is absolutely true. In fact many speak as if they are they are the be all and know all of a subject. 

Which brings me to my conclusion. I'm a very conservative person in this field. I've had my experience and sightings and even though I felt that I was seeing something unworldly, I cannot ascertain 100% that it was. I just keep seeking the truth. And there are a lot of us that believe the truth is this..We have no idea of the who, what, where or why of this phenomenon. We believe it exists. We believe that something is going on. We have a few pieces to the puzzle but we don't have enough. So when someone speaks as an absolutist in this field, it's absurd and preposterous unless they have the evidence and can "Show us the money!!"

Le'st Bury This Mummified Horse Part 2

Yes, I was one of those naysayers and was highly skeptical when the existence of these slides was announced and that they would be presented at a later time. I had rotten vegetables thrown at me by people that wanted to believe so badly that these slides were of an alien from the Roswell crash they never saw one red flag after another. As I've said before, a huge red flag went up when just like the meme it portrays, was in effect, "I have pictures of aliens but you can't see them, not yet anyway." I knew that no matter what, the photo could only say so much. No one can determine an unknown species with only a photograph. The bottom line is that this huge earth shattering revelation ended in a fiery crash.And from the looks of things seems to still have some fire that's not put out as there is a daring attempt at presenting this drama of the absurd once again. The good thing is that this time it's free. Yeah, good luck with that one. 

I'm not here to bash any of the ones involved.They all played their part and will have to face their own music. I'm still mystified at how two people that have worked on a case so long could have missed all the red flags. I learned a lot of things during this whole affair. I learned that photographs are not near as important as the demeanor and actions of witnesses to a sighting or the key players in an event such as this one. Learning to read people is a very valuable skill in this field. I learned that there are many people out there that want to believe so badly that they seem to stop their ears up with cotton when alternatives to what something might or might no be is presented. I re-learned something that I learned long ago.That the UFO arena always has this three ring circus attached to it and it is very problematic. The trouble is, how does the scientific and serious side of the field divorce itself from that clown show? Truth is, I don't know. I am dismayed at how many seemingly intelligent people out there seem to be lacking in science, researching topics and basic critical thinking skills when it comes to this topic. 

Here is the biggest lesson that I'd like to impart to people. Do you really want to believe that you saw a UFO when in fact it was a balloon, Venus, a plastic bag floating on the wind or even a drone outfitted with LED lights? Do you really want to believe that a mere photographic slide could prove that a body was an alien and said alien was attached to the Roswell event when in fact there was no mention of Roswell attached to the slides. I, myself want to know the truth of the matter. What a fool I'd feel like if I thought I'd seen a UFO and wouldn't see it any other way even if it could be proved without a doubt that in actuality it was a Hello Kitty kite. Yes, I do believe in this phenomenon but I don't believe in BS. I believe in going about this in a sane, logical and in as a scientific manner as possible because I know how elusive these critters are. 

This won't be the last time something like this latest sideshow shows up. Claims that this has killed or irreparably damaged Ufology are false. Ufology already has problems and damage. It's a cross the field bears and goes with the territory as I mentioned before.   What I'm hoping is that lessons were learned from all this. The worst thing of all was that there were a lot of people that really don't know how all this works, want to believe, are really nice folks and are gullible and there are a lot people that take advantage of them and will gladly take their money. 

So to end this, I wish this thing would just fade on out into nothingness. That we just ignore it, chalk it up as another UFO debacle as this certainly isn't the first and won't be the last and move on to something more positive. 

Let's Bury This Mummified Horse Part 1

When is this dead or should I say "mummified" horse be given a decent burial? We all know about the "Roswell" slide drama that purported to show slides of an alien body tied to the Roswell crash in 1947. We know how the big reveal ended up in the presentation in Mexico. The body in the case was that of a Native American child and was on exhibit in the Mesa Verde Museum. This was found out by de-blurring the placard next to the body. There are accounts that match the placard in articles in the Region III Quarterly. The authors described the child by copying for the most part what the placard read. 

"Another excellent mummy in the Mesa Verde Museum is that of a small boy of perhaps two or three. X-rays of the teeth have not been taken so the exact age is uncertain. The body is well mummified, but small patches of skin are missing and the lower part of the right leg has disappeared. The skin has lost all of its former color and is an uninteresting dull gray shade. Part of a small slip-over cotton shirt still hangs around the shoulders. Several pieces of cotton in which the body was wrapped are well preserved. This mummy is not popular with visitors. It has such a negative personality that it has never been named. Even though it is well preserved, it fails to click. The spark is not there; that certain something is missing." http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/region_111/vol2-1c.htm

The actual inscription on the placard. 

There it is. This body was just what so many of us in this field believed it to be when the leaked image got out. A mummified child. I ran the de-blur tool myself and could read the placard. I'm not going to rehash this side show in Mexico City. What I want to talk about is how people that have been in this field for year and years didn't get all the dots connected? Yeah, it's a lot of BS and Jaime Maussan is offering a free viewing in June complete with a scientific panel. I'm sure the freebie is to ease the pain of the ones that paid and the "scientific" panel is to make things look genuine. It is amazing to me that this farce is still steaming on. But the internet and UFO shows that amount to nothing more than sci-fi are the big thing right now. I'm sure there will be those that will die believing that the body in that glass case was a true Roswell alien and this was all a government conspiracy to debunk this huge event that would finally show that aliens exist and the Roswell crash was real. Anyway, back on point, I see this incident as a teaching tool. So let's go over this point by point. 

1. My personal first red flag was when the announcement of these slides just came out of nowhere from Jim Carey at a panel discussion at American University in Washington D.C. This is a very prestigious school and there were so many of us in the field that were excited to see such a dignified place allowing discussions of the UFO phenomenon.  A place where this subject could be approached in a logical, scientific and sensible manner. It was heartwarming that so many students signed up and attended this event. We need more young people in this field and young people that are serious and take a scientific approach to this phenomenon. But then, Carey comes in and basically says...

Say what? You folks are claiming you have slides that prove the existence of aliens and not just any aliens but the Roswell alien.But they can't show it to the public yet. The reveal will be announce later. Are you kidding me? You are holding evidence of the greatest discovery of mankind and you're holding it back to be presented at a later date? If one knew they had 100% irrefutable proof of an alien or ET they would be the one most famous people in the world besides Elvis of, except for one thing.... 

2. When it comes to aliens and UFOs, a photograph can only tell you so much. If an alien ship landed in my front yard and I got beautiful shots of it with my Canon it would be of interest in a huge way but how would anyone really prove that this was indeed an alien craft? It could be a fiberglass prop. CGI would easily be discovered as there are so many experts out there that can identify it. But still, all I have is a photograph. I have no physical evidence whatsoever. No metal, no landing marks, nothing. You get my point? Because that is what scientists look at. They incorporate all sorts of data to solve problems. Without any hard data they just don't have anything to work with. It's not that they disbelieve a person it's just that without any hard data they just don't have anything to work with.

3. So let's move right on to the slides of the body itself. When the slide leak came out so many of us saw this as a mummified child. It is clear that the body in the photograph is lying on a glass shelf with a placard placed at the bottom of it's right leg. Ask yourself, would the USAF display an alien body in a glass case with a museum type placard beside it?  If the Air Force indeed had an alien body this is not the way it would be stored and tourists, no matter how well heeled they were would not have access to such a thing. I have been to many, many museums and am familiar with placards next to exhibits. That is the way museums work. That is not the way the military works. How could anyone actually believe that the Air Force would put the body of an ET in a glass case and allow civilians to photograph it?  As I've said before, one of the greatest discoveries of mankind and it is displayed in this manner. Not a chance. 

4. Now let's get down to why the photo was not a smoking gun. It's one thing for a private dick to get compromising photos of a couple in a compromised situation, hey that's pretty self explanatory but a photo of a humanoid type being lying on a glass case is quite different. How would one go about doing any forensic test on a photo? Yes, there's a funny looking body lying there in a glass case but how do we know if it's fake or real? We have no body to get a tissue sample, DNA, or anything else. So how do we assume this body is an alien? There is no way because there is no physical body to examine. So all one has is a couple of slides with what looks like a humanoid body lying on a glass shelf. From the beginning I saw nothing alien about the body whatsoever. I've seen mummies in the Southwest and Egypt and that was the first thing that came to my mind. I wasn't alone in that belief and our group were called the debunkers and naysayers. People just couldn't seem to understand that there is just so much in you can glean from a photo and determining if a body is a human or alien is impossible because of lack of physical evidence. All you have is a photo. Part 2 tomorrow. 

The Crazy World of the UFO Community

It goes without saying that the mere word UFO can bring on snickers, giggles, eye rolls and that all telling, "You have got to be kidding me. Are you nuts?", look. In short, there are a lot of folks that think we UFO people are a bit out in the Twilight Zone's left field. And to be honest, that is a fair assessment in many cases. The UFO community is very diverse, divisive and divided. There are the conspiracy theorists that think anything concerning National Security or a secret facility must have something to do with aliens and UFOs. You have contact groups that go out in remote places and allege they are contacting and communicating with alien entities. There are the exopolitic followers that think the world's leaders are in cahoots and doing business with several alien species unbeknownst to us. You have the true believers that just believe on faith alone that there are ET's out there. They don't have any need for physical evidence or scientific investigation. According to them, they just know. Some think these so called entities are demons or fallen angels. Others think they might be good angels.There are the nuts and bolts folks like me that believe science is the key to disclosing our elusive visitors. We believe something is going on, that we are dealing with most likely an advanced species, we rely on scientific investigation, collecting data, and finding any physical evidence that we can. So as one can see, the UFO neighborhood is painted with many colors with a very broad brush.  

The problem with all this diversity is that there are indeed factions of the UFO community that make it very hard for the outside world to take this subject seriously. When believers get on a soap box and announce that they know for a fact this and that about this phenomenon, credibility goes flying out the window at mach speed. The truth of the matter is that we have no physical evidence in the general public that tells us what the big picture is. That is the who, what and why. People can claim all sorts of things but without physical proof their claims are just that and nothing more. The reality is that we really have no clue as to what we are really dealing with. We have no proof of who these entities are, where they come from or what their intentions are. These are the questions that I believe are the most important of all. When unbelievable and absolute claims are made, it's like filling in a story without the characters, the plot or motivations. How can we claim that they are good, evil, peaceful, non peaceful or whatever if we don't even know who they are in the first place? People can argue all day long that the military has aliens hidden away but we have no proof of this either just like we have no proof that there are alien ships hidden in places like the Groom Lake Facility or Area 51.  All we have is hearsay and hearsay isn't good enough. We have to have the data and physical proof that an advanced species does in fact exist and they have visited us often and have actually made contact with some of us for the world to take this phenomenon seriously or Plan B, these visitors announce themselves to us. So far that hasn't been forthcoming on a large scale.

A lot of the problem with Ufology today is sensationalism. There are so many dramatic and cheesy "Alien" shows on television. Movies have the big screen filled with aliens and humans fighting gigantic CGI battles to the death. And that is the perception a lot of people get about the UFO phenomenon. This type of entertainment is the only exposure they have had to this very mysterious and fascinating subject. We are living in an age where information,  good, bad, true and false is at our fingertips. People put up posts on their FB pages all the time that are completely untrue. It 's not that the poster is trying to lie, they just believe what they see without checking into the facts. You know, "It's on the internet so it must be true". That's not the mindset of real ufologists and researchers. When we hear about stories and news, we find out all we can and then contact people that we know are reliable and serious about this subject. We do our best to find out the real deal. This is something I preach all the time on the MUFON FB group that I'm the team leader of. Do your homework!  Look into things, do research, read, question!  Reach out to the people that are known for their sane, logical and sensible approach to this subject. Find out who the best are. Read and study them. There is a real and serious branch of Ufology out there. It does not have circus wagons, rigged games or fake sideshows promising to show one something unbelievable. Instead, it is a scientific investigative process that uses the facts, data and testimony of witnesses to put together a picture. These entitles or whatever they are, have in my mind been either visiting or living here for a long time in secret. They could care less about our instantaneous tech world and our on demand mindset it would seem. So it is going to be up to us to figure out the science and technology that can finally start sorting out this mystery and that is not going to happen sitting around the campfire telling stories. We've got to get out there and find the truth about these stories. But serious Ufology also has to do it's best to separate itself from the Flying Saucer Circus in the Sky. Otherwise it will never be taken seriously. 

UFOs. Wow, that's a loaded word. It brings on a wide range of emotions and reactions. Belief, disbelief, fear, acceptance, trust, distrust, they are here to helps us, they are here to hurt us, a reality, ridicule, they don't exist, they do exist, they are from other worlds, from other dimensions, angels, demons, they have always existed here on earth,and so many other explanations. I could have gone on and on. This is just a very small window of thoughts and feelings on this subject. This phenomenon seems to have been going on for thousands of years but yet we still don't know the who, what or why of these visitors, if that's what they truly are. The thing is that that thousands and thousands of people from all over the world have been reporting strange flying objects in the sky, encounters with beings not of this world, abductions by these beings, contact with them and the list goes on and on. I truly believe something is going on and I've seen things myself and like others that have had experiences or people that have the good sense to know that something seems to be happening , I want to know the truth of this phenomenon.  The UFO world has for the most part been a male dominated arena. I get that as a female that grew up in an era where math was mostly a guy thing and science as well. Higher math was a challenge for me but never science. But I still held my own and was, yep, a geeky kid. And hey, that's a good thing these days! We gals are are becoming more and more involved in this arena and that's a good thing. So let me introduce myself and let's get this blog cranked up.

Hi, my name is Karen King and I have been studying the UFO phenomenon ever since an experience I had in the fall of 1990. Before that I was pretty much agnostic to the idea of aliens,visiting our planet, UFOs, abductions and all that went  with the genre due to the like of the tabloids and all their crazy and outrageous stories in the 70s and 80s. Not that I didn't believe in other intelligence out there like our own or far more advanced, it was just that I didn't believe woman were having three headed alien babies and all the other crazy stories that were out in left field. I just didn't really think about the subject much at all, even though my late dad of whom I worshiped the ground that he walked on, did believe. Let me add here that my dad was a very unique and smart man. An electrical genius, cartoonist, philosopher, story teller, carpenter..oh he could do just about anything he set his mind to and he always told me that I could do anything I wanted to if I wanted it bad enough. Sadly he passed away at the young age of of 39 due to the ravages of Type 1 juvenile diabetes. But in those short eleven and a half years I had with him, he imparted a treasure trove of knowledge to me that no amount of money could buy. He always emphasized that science and numbers were the only impartial things of this world and that they were always honest. I'm talking about a man that built me a Tesla coil when I was seven not just to entertain me but to explain electricity and hey, how a  Faraday cage worked. How cool is that? More about my dad later. Let's talk about the sighting I had that got me roped into this arena.

It was October of 1990. I was living in Ripley, Tn in a rural area. We had a few acres of land that we had several horses on and that night my ex was out on the road as he was a truck driver. The only people in the house were my twelve year old daughter and myself. My ex brother in law's house was adjacent to our house within about 50ft.. He worked as a night foreman at a muffler factory so Lindi and I were the only ones on the hill that night. He had a Great Dane pup named Deacon that started barking wildly around the hours of ten and eleven. I was reading in my bedroom and when the barking wouldn't stop, I got up, got my flashlight and told my daughter that I was going to go outside to check on the horses. I told her to stay inside and I'd be back in a few minutes. The days had been warm up there and my ex brother in law had cut the grass so clippings were all over the yard. When I walked outside, I immediately went round the corner to where the feed troughs and hay stations were and all the horses seemed to be ok but they were all huddled in a corner. I proceeded onto the back yard and saw the dog, Deacon sitting on the other side of the fence that adjoined our place . He was mostly white and I could see him well with my flashlight. He was sitting across the fence barking at the sky. I called to him several times and he ignored me and just kept barking. I crawled between the barbed wire fence collared the dog and he dropped to ground and started whimpering. I finally got him and me on the other side of the fence and he shot off. The sky was really clear that night and since we had very little light pollution I could see thousands of stars. I sat down on my ex brother in law's porch, lit a cigarette, sat back and did a little star gazing. I was attracted to a large patch of stars off to my right and while gazing at them the whole patch started to move. That's right, I said moved. From right to left right towards my house. I sat there trying to wrap my brain around this and then everything went dark. It wasn't long before I could make out an outline of a huge rectangular object over my house. Not only my house but all the space around it. It wan't the high up. About 50 feet at the most above the treetops. At first I was very frightened, in disbelief, just a whole range of emotions as I tried to process what I was seeing. Then these soft canned type white lights came on all underneath eh object and there was a low humming sound. A sound that you could literally feel in your teeth, your hair and under your skin. I remember then not feeling so much afraid as curious. In fact I remember being underneath this huge craft as though I walked underneath it but to be honest it was like things happened in little parcels. The soft lights went off, a huge light in what I assumed to be the front of the craft came on, it flashed left , right and center and the next thing I remembered was that the craft was moving off slowly toward the west and the Mississippi River.

The next thing I remembered was standing in my kitchen door and my daughter asking me over and over why I was out there so long and what happened? That was two hours later. To be honest I was in a fugue state of mind. I was just out of it, told her it was ok and went to bed. The next day I slept for the most part  and felt as if I'd been sedated.In fact when I first woke up, I thought maybe everything the night before may have been a dream except that there were grass clippings in the bed from off my feet when I went outside. What happened in those two hours? I have no clue, have never had any bad nightmares or flashbacks and have no intention of ever being regressed. I do feel that something profound happened to me. That's a given. Just to see something like that. But because of fear of ridicule, of frightening my child, the old you're crazy thing, I kept this to myself for nearly two decades and finally told my daughter after her asking over and over for years what happened that night.

I put this away for a few years and then started doing research of my own. I found out that a lot of people had seen things much like the one I'd seen. What was it? Where did it come from and what was it doing over my house and property? I've been searching ever since and like others that have had these strange encounters I want to know the truth. But I want to know the real truth and not the same tabloid junk that is all over the web just as it was in the paper tabloids that scared me off the subject in the first place.