Although it may appear, to all external analysis, that Blather is lapsing into some dank murkiness of ufology (or, as we prefer to call it around here, ‘ufologyology’ – the study of ufologists) on a permanent basis, we trip ourselves up in our haste to reassure The Readers that this is not in fact the case. Our excuse for such intense attention is merely due to the current flurry (slurry?) of Irish UFO interest – first two ‘conferences’ on consecutive weekends, and then UFO-related news made it to the front page of the ‘The Examiner ‘ newspaper. Assuming that nothing utterly bizarre takes place in the next week with regard to Irish ufology(ology), next week’s Blather will do its downmost to spew out bile of a different tangent.
The front page of the Friday, November 21st issue of ‘The Examiner’ (Cork) had a piece headlined with ‘Yes, the aliens landed. . . in Mexico – Film of alien shown in public for the first time’
*Bong* [Brass gong sound] Error #1:
The Irish Centre for UFO Studies have trotted out this little gem *at least* twice already. This particular Blatherboy has had the dubious pleasure of viewing it on no less than two occasions, the first time was August 16th last, in the Metropole Hotel, Cork and more recently on November 15th, in Wynn’s Hotel, Dublin, at the ICUFOS thingummy discussed in last week’s Blather
.
Why didn’t Blather mention it before? We thought it was inconsequential, just another inconclusive piece of footage doing the rounds. How wrong we were. . . or were we?
Journalist Áilin Quinlan goes on to inform us that ‘It has the head of a praying mantis and spidery limbs and is surrounded by an electrical force field as it moves slowly through the bright, moonlight cornfield.’
*Bong*(discordant) Difference of Opinion #1:
Dare I say it, but unfortunately for me, all I saw was in this wonderful video were a few luminous blobs floating about in a dark background, overdubbed with the voice a woman speaking Spanish in a rather excited manner. Was Ms. Quinlan doing a Rorschach test or giving an objective opinion? I saw what I saw, not what I was told I was going to see. I’m not saying that it wasn’t an extraterrestial on the video. For that matter, I’m not saying that it wasn’t an angel, a duck-billed platypus or a fresh wholemeal scone with strawberry jam either. But I do persist in saying that I saw only blobs.
‘You could hear a pin drop in the UCC auditorium last night as previously unseen footage of an extra terrestrial sighting in Tulusana, Mexico, four years ago unfolded.’
*Bong* See Error #1 (Above)
‘The amateur video of the four-foot alien’s six minute ramble through the corn was filmed by a terrified woman whose overlooked the field.’
*Bong* [Severe] Difference of Opinion #2
The video that that I watched was barely two minutes long, about half of which was post-event ‘analysis’, allegedly by ‘scientists’ at the National University of Mexico. The analysis is backed by some suitably haunting music, while the narrator uses something akin to a light pen to joining the dots between the blobs, and eventually ends up with a line drawing of a cartoonish alien. Unconvinced? I was.
Quinlan then breathlessly tells us:
‘But the film was confiscated by the FBI and suppressed, according to Alan Sewell, founder member of the Irish Centre for UFO Studies. In true X-Files tradition it was then transported to Area 51, an underground test site deep in the Nevada desert, says Sewell.’
*Bong* [Major] Difference of Opinion #3
Since when did the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations extend their jurisdiction to Mexico? According to the CIA World Factbook, Mexico is ‘a federal republic operating under a centralized government’. Actually, if anybody, the CIA would be a more likely bunch to blame for this kind of carry-on. Now call wrap me in tin foil and label me a dissident (actually, Ufomind did), but isn’t it a bit premature to set about associating the word ‘tradition’ with ‘The X-Files’? Not that I have any problem with ‘The X-Files’, I find it to be tasty pabulum, but hardly something to compare allegedly real events with. Surely The X-Files is a product of the myths surrounding these alleged events, not a source of prescription weirdness.
As for Area 51, if I hear any more bunkum bandied about concerning that place I’ll surely suffer an aneurism. For the few who might be unfamiliar with this place (It’s where Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith go for a spin in saucer, in *that* movie, Independence Day), I recommend checking out what Ufomind have to say about it (http://www.ufomind.com/area51/). They describe it as a ‘Military Facility, Social Phenomenon and State of Mind’.
Quinlan then raves on about how appropriate it should be that this video was shown in Cork, as ‘Bantry has been a hotspot of UFO sightings in recent years’ and quotes Alan Sewell as saying:
‘”Thirty of [the UFOs] have been investigated in depth and it was established that the sightings were of an extra terrestrial nature. They move erratically at very high speed, and can go from one horizon to another in the blink of an eye,”‘.
*Bong* Pedantic Query #1:
I see neither Mr. Sewell – nor Ms. Quinlan mention how this revelations has been established. I mentioned some of the ICUFOS claims in this regard somewhere within the innards of last week’s Blather, but there’s no explanation given in The Examiner.
‘”There is definitely an extra terrestrial presence in our skies,” says Sewell.’
*Bong* Superfluous Irony #1:
At last – the eternal ‘Are We Alone?’ question was keeping me awake at night. Now I may rest easy. Damn it, I might as well retire.
‘However he is confident the visitors from beyond are not hostile.’
*Bong* Superfluous Irony #2:
I’ve met Mr. Sewell, and while being an extremely courteous man, I would have severe reservations about sharing his confidence, especially in this regard. Would you trust this man to save the planet?
‘”We can guarantee that these beings are carrying out a programme of surveillance, watching our evolution.”‘
*Bong* Superfluous Irony #3:
Oh, that ‘guarantee’ word. Careful now.
‘And while there have been many reported abductions in the US and Russia, Irish-based aliens have so far remained aloof from the subjects of their surveillance.’
*Bong* Error #2:
That’s *not* what Sewell’s colleague Eamon Ansbro of ICUFOS said on Saturday, November 15th, in Wynn’s Hotel. Ansbro told us that there *were* documented abduction reports. Are these boys singing from the same prayerbook at all?
‘”They are not yet prepared to make physical contact,” says Sewell.’
*Bong* [Warning] Utterly Superfluous Sneer #2:
I’m not bleedin’ surprised.
Anyway I rest my case. Incidentally, The Examiner is an Irish national broadsheet newspaper, and such publications like to place themselves a cut above the rest (e.g. tabloids). So why are they stooping so low?
CORRESPONDENCE
Yes, people see fit, on occasion, to mail us ‘mad stuff’, and sometimes Blather sees fit to include it. Here’s an email from the one and only Brother Blue. Blather’s comments are marked by []’s.
Dear Brother Blather,
re: Blather Vol 1. No. 28, 11/21/97
As to the exploits of thy Brethren from Lodge ICUFOS, your assumption that “coherent thought sequencing” is just another costume with which to dress up so-called “remote viewing” is slightly erroneous, for this is merely one aspect of the absurd pseudo-scientism of CSETI’s Dr. Steven Greer.
[I probably worded it slightly misleadingly. ICUFOS seem to regard the two terms as being synonymous, not I, and they appear to be under the impression that sunshine shines out of Greer’s anatomy from regions where one would least expect light to shine from.]
Though employing such kewl-sounding techno-babble as Coherent Thought Sequencing, Koch-Kyborg Pyramidal Visualisations, Photon-Talk, etc. ad ridiculum — in an apparent attempt to make their bizarre Modus Operandi somehow more palatable to those who nosh only at the Buffet of Club Science — the long and short of it all is that they spend a great deal of time “thinking happy little thoughts” to attract the clever space aliens who, occasionally appearing in space ships DISGUISED TO LOOK LIKE 747’s, after zooming countless light years through the cosmos to reach this blue ball-of mud way out here on the outskirts of the Milky Way, are apparently incapable of landing safely without the aid of Eager New-Agers “vectoring them in” with high-powered flashlights.
It’s all very scientific, you see.
Yet in regards to your fascinating notes on the Blarney of Brother Drunvalo Melchizedek and his Holy Merkabah Crafts from Outer Space, we were delighted recently to stumble across this old diary entry from the enigmatic and wonderfully iconoclastic Dr. Jacques Vallee:
“Chicago. Tuesday 19 April 1966.
“Before starting work on my examination I took time to read a chapter from a book by Scholem recommended by Don, _Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism_. It describes the doctrine of the Merkhaba, the Throne of God as mentioned in Genesis and Ezekiel. There used to be a wise rule that forbade the study of these subjects until the student was over thirty, says Scholem. Merkhaba mysticism is the oldest subject in the Jewish tradition. The dangers of rising through the palaces of the Throne were very great, since Angels and Archangels attacked the traveller, and a great fire came from inside his own body to devour him. I think I know what that great internal fire is.
“The relevance of these traditions to the study of the UFO phenomenon is obvious: People have always seen similar apparitions in the sky and have always given them religious interpretations. Thus in the Apocalypse of Abraham the Patriarch is said to have heard ‘a voice speaking inside the celestial fire with the sound of many waters, the sound of the storming sea.’ The same loud humming or whirring noise is described elsewhere as ‘the hymn that the Throne of Glory sings to his King.’ And Enoch, like Ezekiel, speaks of being taken away from the earth ‘on the stormy wings of the Shekinah.’ This secret is supposed to become universal knowledge in the next Age.”
‘
Forbidden Science: Journals, 1957-1969 (Amazon.com)
orbidden Science: Journals, 1957-1969 (Amazon.co.uk)
1996 by Jacques Vallee, Marlowe & Company, ISBN 1-56924-808-7
A most excellent issue, Daev! It is always a pleasure to find your ejournal in our humble mailbox, being, as it is, further proof that life is a theatre of the absurd which we accept as reality.
