Gatekeepers: On Whose Authority?

UFO Gatekeepers. They come from all sides; uber-skeptics, debunkers, as well as those who believe, but insist on scientific approaches to exploring all that is UFO. The Gatekeepers wrangle one tentacle of the UFO Kraken, ignoring the rest -- even while it strangles them -- rejecting the elements that annoy them.

They decide who gets to, what methods, which cases.

On what authority?!

There is none.

James Mcgaha, uber-debunker, asks UFO witness if "she's qualified to look at the sky"

There is no UFO Authority, no matter how desperately some want there to be. There is no Official Method, case, researcher, witness, spokesperson.

No one is more, or less, qualified than anyone one else in this realm.

As soon as someone starts spouting off a need for standards: academic, scientific, "legitimate" cases, etc. I do not take them seriously.

Honesty is expected, at all times. That's about all we should expect. Sincere desire to explore, to share, to research, while holding the ball of integrity.

Other than that, the rest is a form of bullying. Self-righteous and arrogant demands to join, if you don't, then you're not honest, sincere and legitimate.

The Orange Orb: Leah Haley on the Abduction Mythology

if she's telling her truth, she is not to blame for anything.

I comment on Leah Haley's recent opinions on abductions, thanks to Jack Brewer's post at his blog The UFO Trial: The Orange Orb: Leah Haley on the Abduction Mythology

Imbrogno: Just a Baby Kraken

Uber skeptoid feels very proud of himself for revealing that Imbrogno lied about his degrees:UFO Magazine - UFO Magazine Blog - A Phil-a-buster He who released the Kraken is gloating, comments right and left.. including two by me.

I really hope this is the last I'll say on this, but I'll watch where this goes. While it's naturally disappointing to find that Imbrogno lied about his background, I also find it intriguing to watch how news of his exaggerations and lies unfolded. Waiting for any chance to pounce and devour, said uber-toid did so, almost channeling the spirit of Imbrogno while staring, once again, at Imbrogno's MIT shirt in photo after photo. Said channeled spirit told the debunker to go forth and reveal the truth, which he's done on many a forum. This wasn't done for any idealistic or altruistic reason or wrapped snugly in the vibe of truth; simply one more item brought to the Skepti World for the show and tell segment. It's all kooksville to them, all of it (as the skeptic who outed Imbrogno proves at his blog, opening with a rant against the contactees, as if that has anything to do with Imbrogno.) Look! The contactees were lairs, frauds! Look! Imbrogno's ideas about the phenomenon are wacky! Look, Imbrogno lied about his education! That proves it's all bunk!

Really, show's over.

Meanwhile UFO sightings and UFO witnesses and UFO stuff of a thousand different manifestations -- good, bad, ugly, beautiful, honest, dishonest, scary, benign, and oh so much more -- continue. But you know, who cares about any of that stuff? I mean, seriously? Not the debunkers. They're rational after all.

(If you weren't sure, that last was sarcasm.)

No prizes awarded here for any great truth telling. Truth had nothing to do with this latest whirlpool in UFO Land. Or Skepti World. No one's won anything. No one's lost much either. The fact of things Imbrogno brought to us exist. Details may have been fudged; but diligent research is a part of the UFO journey; whatever grime may cover some of what Imbrogno has contributed can be washed off. His ideas on things still stand as highly interesting and, by the way, they are not unique. Call them Djinns, demons, "the Devil," ultra terrestrials, or any number of labels, the esoteric theories of energies manifesting as "other" and manipulating the human experience has been around for a very long time.

Brazen Hussies Invade Earth! Serious UFO Research Attacked!

Posted on The Orange Orb, and re posted at Orange Orb Review.  Interesting comments at Orange Orb; take a look. I want to add here that I, along with others who've commented, including Deirdre of course, find it odd that he takes such deep offense at Deirdre -- to the point of saying he will never read UFO Magazine again -- over all the other hundreds of articles that have appeared in that magazine over the years.  He doesn't see fit to mention David Jacob's behavior in the Emma Woods case, apparently finding a male in authority and his command that Woods send him her unwashed underwear heinous, but does find Ms. O'Lavery's humor and slip wearing, red lipsticked, cigarette dangling persona positively horrifying. 
 

Cigarette Smoking Woman Single-handedly brings down UFO research! In her slip, no less!

Disclosure:  I write for both the on-line 'zine, UFO Digest, as well as the print publication UFO Magazine. 


When Deirdre O'Lavery of Interstellar Housewife and JAR announced she was UFO Magazine's newest columnist, I was thrilled. She shared some of her ideas for her column's title with myself and a few others, including fellow UFO Magazine columnists Lesley Gunter at The Debris Field  and Alfred Lehmberg of Alien View.  The one column title that really said "Deirdre" to me was Saucers, Slips and Cigarettes, which is the one she chose.

A member of the Stuffed Shirt faction of the UFO Police doesn't appreciate Deirdre's cheeky 'tude, the brazen hussy, she.  David P. Kuhlman, FFSc, in his article for UFO Digest (UFO Mag Columnist is an Insult To Readers,) tells us why O'Lavery's column is offensive. Clues to Kuhlman's personal philosophy can be found in comments like the following: 

Do people give in to secular pressures, which can change the outlook and product for everyone? [bold and italics mine]

Indeed, in another article he wrote for UFO Digest; An Alien Reasoning, Kuhlman wrote:

I am a Christian. I was brought up through the years in church and I have strong roots with all Christian beliefs. I believe in God.

The use of the word "secular" in this context is clear: Deirdre O'Lavery has been seduced by the devil and away from the light, and is bringing the rest of us down with her into the roiling pits of hell.

John Collier, Lilith, 1892

Kuhlman goes on for quite awhile discussing what we all know far too well: UFOlogy has a difficult time being taken seriously, hoaxes hurt us all, there are good researchers who are "respectable," but some are not, and they're talking the rest of us down.  One of those who are not respectable, writes Kuhlman, is Deirdre O'Lavery, who should cause us all not only "concern" but "out-rage." Something about slips and cigarettes causes Kuhlman great distress:

Paging through to the seventh one [column] I noticed an unfamiliar face, a columnist. It initially caught my glance simply because I am familiar with the magazines layout since I read it often, and I knew this was a new addition immediately. I was curious and thumbed back to the index page and sure enough, the magazine had added a new columnist to its list, Ms. Deirdre O’ Lavery, Hmmm… never heard of her. Instantly I knew this was the place to start my reading journey through this months issue and quickly paged back to the column titled “Saucers, Slips, and Cigarettes”. That is where my blood began to boil!

I understand not liking a column, but really, his "blood began to boil?"  Sex, -- especially the "wrong" kind of sex, as in, anything you don't approve of between consenting adults -- is clearly the issue here, not UFO research. Women should be demure; we should speak softly and refrain from being sassy. Especially if we're wearing underwear. (Note to Kulhlman: some people prefer that kind of thing.)

The title of the column was strange I thought after reading it, it really didn’t seem to “fit” a serious publication on UFO research, but sometimes the title is to get the attention of the reader and it certainly did its job there and at least one word did correlate with the cigarette hanging out of the side of Ms. O’ Lavery’s clown painted, rose red lips. [italics mine]

Deirdre O'Lavery, get thee to a nunnery! And lest you think I am being overly flip here, Kuhlman himself is serious; of all the things in UFO land to get upset about, he finds O'Lavery's "rose red lips," cigarette smoking, and use of the word "slips" to be the targets of his repressed and misogynistic outrage:

"I have never been more agitated at any other piece of writing on UFOs than I am on this one . . . As I read I was disgusted and nauseated at her attempt to break the ice with the reader. Foul language and an utter sense of ignorance and disrespect to serious readers was her route. She goes on to write her column like a heathen speaks. [italics mine]   

He was nauseated? And "heathen?" "Heathen?" Did he really write that? Yes, yes he did. 

All that mishegas aside, he completely misunderstands O'Lavery's column, focusing instead not only on her lips but her "drunkenness":

Can people really take the UFO phenomenon seriously when it is painted that only sorry drunk people with no life dabble into this subject? Folks, this article is a disgrace to everyone that considers UFOlogy worth of investigation!

Kuhlman borders on the libelous; if it weren't so damn funny, it might be of concern. He not only finds Ms. O'Lavery "drunken," and what not but also believes she should be shunted off to the nut house:

She is certifiable for this piece of worthless paper with all of her slang and ignorant insight.

Her "slang?" Hey Daddyo, you sound like a real square!

Of all the columnists that write for UFO Magazine, this is the one that has caused Kuhlman --- after just one column! -- to stop reading the magazine altogether. If O'Lavery's one column can upset a supposed UFO researcher so much that he writes a rant about it and demands a "formal apology" from the publishers, then Ms. O'Lavery is one hell of a writer!

Painting by James Rich

One last point about Kuhlman's apoplectic response to Deirdre O'Lavery: he includes all of "us" (well, except for O'lavery) in his rant, beginning with his title: UFO Mag Columnist is an Insult to Readers. No, Kuhlman, it's not an insult to all readers; not to me, obviously. Speak for yourself. Clearly it's an insult to you, and possibly, to some others, so be it. But don't include me in your campaign to rid UFO land of Ms. O'Lavery. This is the problem with the UFO Police; they expect everyone to join them in their outrages and edicts about what they perceive to be right.

Congratulations, Ms. Deirdre O'Lavery, for bringing UFOlogy down to such a shameless level with just one column!

On Orange Orb: My Truth Can Beat Up Your Truth

More on James Carrion and CUT on The Orange Orb: My Truth Can Beat Up Your Truth.

Lehmberg: "Mal-Inculations"

Mal-Inculcations by Alfred Lehmberg.

New Rules

From UFO Media Matters, "New Rules" -- I love it. Thanks to Lesley at Debris Field for the link.

Woo T.V.
Are you doing your part to keep Woo Television on the air?

New posts at Snarly Skepticism

A few new things over at Snarly Skepticism, including the latest Bigfoot thread on the JREF.

Of Gatekeepers and Decoder Rings . . .

Lesley at Debris Field has a few comments on Michael Salla's article, which is about the UFO Police. (Salla's article:
Hysteria drives UFO gatekeepers debunking exopolitics pioneers.) Of UFO Gatekeeprs or the UFO Police in general, Lesley comments:

They even attack people that have had experiences that don't fit into their box. They try to cloak it as some noble mission to save Ufology, but anyone that listens to them for more than 5 minutes realizes it is really a mission to try to make themselves look far superior to anyone else. They are the only ones that "get it" and the rest of us (except those that totally agree with them) are a stupid mass of people in need of a leader -- them.

And Bruce Duensing of Intangible Materiality writes, as always, so eloquently about UFO Gatekeepers in Secret Decoder Rings:

Outside of truth in the imaginal realm posed as a franchise, a exclusionary divisor that is not prone to uncertainty, the adapted postures of those who claim to possess the secret decoder ring,there is a certain instinctual desire of ourselves as fish within this atmospheric ocean to be lured, compelled and strike a pose in the reflected glory of exclusivity, designed in earnest by a franchised cabal, an inner circle of humanity as opposed to dim candle flickering by the lowest common denominator carried by an unwashed rabble of sheep. A carrier of secrets which in of themselves are perhaps default settings, a backstop in a competitive game, a consensus set against ambiguity, a self executing warning concerning pawns, boosters and the appetites that stir for satiation. ~ Bruce Duensing

Alfred Lehmberg has a piece up right now at UFO Magazine that relates to this theme of the would be overseers of UFOlogy: Traces and "Stuff" Alfred is mainly addressing the pathological skeptic but a lot of what he writes can be applied to those that deny someone else's perspective on things:

Whose call? The call of my muse, you biliously sneering skeptibunker of small imagination, smaller intelligence and sub-microscopic, even concave, courage! Something could be said regarding meager scrotum size. The reader knows who's addressed...

Whose voice? Why, the inner one of course — the only one of which I'm sure! I can't hear it in the clutter of your media's exhortations to burn and consume. I can't hear it in the frothing of your Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell... ...that UFO's are agents of Satan…

Making Money, Changing the Vibe

It's true the uber-skeptics of the world lie about the huge piles of money pouring in from UFO book sales, TV deals, and other related UFO commercialism; that's how, these skeptoids tell us, UFO researchers, witnesses and pundits make their money. UFO writers make money from telling, and selling lies. That's the gist of the pathological skeptics meme.

Those within the UFO community will tell you it's not true, no one is making money, not much of it anyway, from publsihign their books or doing what they re doing. Very few make any money to matter. There aren't any UFO researchers out there who are making enough money from their UFO and esoteric interests to give up their day jobs.

The latter is true. The former is just more nonsense from the so-called skeptic crowd.

But, there's nothing wrong with making money, and there's nothing wrong with making money from something you love to do. In my case, it's writing, and in particular, writing about UFOs and esoterica in general. In my case, I'm investigating myself as much as others. I also enjoy facilitating people of similar experiences and interests -- like Women Of Esoterica -- I love that. Making money from this is a blessing.

Of course, I'm making very little money. So far. Not enough at all to give up my day job. That doesn't stop me from exploring the UFO and paranormal realms every chance I get.

What if we changed this idea that "no one ever makes any money" to "it's possible to make a living doing what you love." Constantly reinforcing this negative idea that no one makes money from this ensures it stays the reality. I'm not naive, it's a hell of a lot of hard work, and you have to have the chutzpah to be annoyingly self-promoting. But maintaining that intent, if that's what you want to do, is a start. Like attracts like. Why not make some money from this?

The next time someone says no one's making money from this, just ignore them. While it may be true, it doesn't have to stay true. Arguing with skeptids is pointless; I don't even go there. Exchanging nasty barbs is not my idea of being productive. But with others who know first hand the truth (so far) that there's little or no money to made in UFO and paranormal research, there's the very real possibility this can change.

Just setting the intent, while continuing to do what you do because you want to do it, is a start.

Hiding Data: Excluding the Folk

This was originally published on-line by UFO Digest in May of 2007. It fits in with the theme of this blog, so I thought I'd repost it here.

In a delicious bit of synchronicity, and fitting to be sure, over on UFO Digest, at the end of this article, appeared this image of Monty Python. It's an advertisement for ring tones.



Hiding Data: Excluding the Folk
by Regan Lee

Posted: 00:35 May 12, 2007

Jerome Clark coined the neologism "pelicanist" (initially jokingly awarded to James Easton, who insisted that Kenneth Arnold's 1947 UFO sighting was ... pelicans) to define "the practice of ascribing _any_ explanation, however scientifically unsustainable, illogical, or fantastic, to a UFO event or experience, in a desperate effort to deny that anything seriously anomalous may be going on". Pelicanists are advancing extraordinary claims masquerading as prosaic explanations. Source: hyper.net
I cannot abide, nor understand, the exclusivity factor a handful of so-called UFO and Fortean researchers insist upon maintaining. Actually, they're not UFO, crypto, Fortean, etc. researchers at all; they're wanna bes, new thugs, -- basically chronic cranky skeptics. Sometimes trolls, sometimes confused fence sitters, often a variety of Pelican, they get up blogs and forums and clubs that announce to the UFO/Fortean World that they're all about research. What makes their research different, better and true?

Well, it's only for the few. The bona fide researcher, as the bloggers at the UFO Iconoclasts blog refers to them. The serious, somber and apparently humorless individual, with some vague criteria that is never openly revealed, seems to be the type who can join these private research groups.

Documents, books, writings, research, data (allegedly) is kept from the common folk. Only the privately invited and arrogantly sanctioned can access such real information.

One of the messages of such pompously covert shenanigans is that only real researchers will get to join, therefore only real researchers will have knowledge of the real information. The great unwashed masses (that's me and you, according to the UFO Iconoclasts) don't deserve to know. We're all idiots anyway. We're time wasters, wasting time blogging about our experiences, theories, research and thoughts, trying to find out what happened. What the hell do we know? Not a thing. Who are we to dare to speak? And who dares to listen? No one worth mentioning. No one serious. They're all over at the private bona fide UFO Iconoclast group, or the Magoniax Project, or some other full of themselves group. Those of us out here aren't serious, nor are we telling the truth. If we were, we wouldn't be out here, so public.

But more than being just full of themselves, and silly, puffering around in their musty slippers among piles of squirreled away data, is the fact that this mind set hurts UFO and Fortean research.

It is also highly ironic. It's ironic, because such things as UFO experiences, Fortean experiences, Bigfoot sightings and the like are of the folk. They are folklore. They are experienced by, and told by, the folk, the everyday person. Which is most of us, including you and me. We're everyday people with jobs and families and bills who've had some weird things happen. The very nature of UFO and Fortean experience is folklore; living folklore. It lives on the fringe among the folk, forever outside the institutions of society.




To have stuffy individuals who sneer at the folk; the so-called unwashed masses, and keep their doors closed to the very people that experience and make up the phenomeana, is not only ironic, it's hypocritical, and harmful to research.

It hardly needs mentioning, the fact that there is a lot of bad research out there, or, what passes for research. The field is littered with liars, hucksters, the deluded, the sad, the mean, the weird, the disinfo agents, the garbled. But it's part of the folk and the answer isn't to hide behind thick doors, eeking out data and research to a self-imposed holy few.

The next time you read a blog or article that supports the following: exclusive research organizations, hoarding data, rejecting other forms of data, and calls for some sort of cleansing of the UFO and Fortean landscape, watch out. They do not have the truth as their objective, they do not want the truth at all. They do not seek knowledge; inner or outer, and they do not wish those of us with experiences or a vital interest good will.