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.

James Carion's New UFO/NOT UFO Organization

Ex-director MUFON director James Carion announces a brand new UFO organization: CUT. CUT stands for Center for UFO Truth.

Here’s what I wrote on Facebook:

Oh dear. Not "affiliated in any way with UFology" yet "CUT" (there's an interesting Fortean twilight language kind of word to use)  studies "early days of UFOs ... answering the question long ignored by historians -- was the UFO subject purposely created by the United States. .. part of a cold war operation?" That's been asked before. But anyway, how is this NOT to do with UFology?! It'll be interesting for sure but how far is one willing to go in trusting government sources? Der.  And this gem: "CUT will work outside of the three ring circus that is Ufology and will not accept the contributions of anonymous individuals or alleged whistleblowers nor will it examine alleged leaked documents." So he's distancing himself yet once again from the unwashed masses and "...circus" of UFology, going so far as to call what he's doing - studying an aspect of UFOs --- not UFology.  Newsflash Mr. Carion, you ARE part of the "circus," -- we all are. How an ex-director of MUFON, who is currently involved in a new organization exploring an aspect of UFOs, say with a straight face he is not part of the "circus" is a deliciously ironic, er, circus like, stance to take.

I’ll add that the word UFO is in the name of the group! UFO is part of the acronym, yet, Carion insists, this new enterprise (heh, talk about twilight language) contains the word UFO in its very title. The title is also fun, in its ironic pot/kettle black way, for its word "truth." What a display of arrogance and self important stuff shirted puffery!

Carion never did like saucer heads. He reiterates his distaste for the distasteful and bothersome UFO witnesses and UFO explorers of various kinds:

CUT will work outside of the three ring circus that is Ufology and will not accept the contributions of anonymous individuals or alleged whistleblowers nor will it examine alleged leaked documents.

Yes, why bother with interviewing witnesses to see if they are credible or do the work involved to determine authenticity of documents? 

This is the problem with would be UFO Police; they set up their own little paradigm, decide to reject a good portion of what’s out there, and all the time, they’re congratulating each other on finally getting to the “truth.”

When you combine a systems like that with a dismissive attitude that reeks of classism and an obvious distaste for 90% of the thing you’re studying, you cannot possibly get to any “truth.” 

The Big Lie
Recently, the cyclic meme that “UFOlogy is dead” has been making the rounds, and I wonder: is this thing we loosely call UFOlogy really dead? Or is it just something people say out of frustration? I think the latter. UFOlogy is constantly shifting, and in fact, some big shakeups have been happening recently (David Jacobs, Cherry, and, um,  Carion. . . ) but that doesn't make it dead.

Do some think UFOlogy is “dead” because of the oft bemoaned statement that, “after such and such many years, we don’t have any answers?”

Carion remarks:

Ufology has nothing to show for more than 60 years of amateur investigation and research. By not establishing professional evidentiary standards, Ufology will neither join the halls of academic "ologies" nor will it discover the truth of what lies behind the subject of UFOs.

The us of the qualifier “amateur” is unfair. It’s snide. We’re all amateurs. Does he mean amateur in the popular sense: meaning, less than? Or in the true sense, meaning not paid for one’s work? Amateur has come to mean the former, more often than not, but being “amateur” does not always mean inferior. You cannot take away the study of UFOs from “the people” no matter how much you want to. And if you do, why do you want to? What's the intent?

We don’t have the Big Final Answer That Fits All to the UFO phenomenon. Carion’s mistake, as with many others: thinking there is one.

I don’t know what halls of “ologies” he means, probably the institutions of science, academia, and ironically, the very governmental agencies he plans on getting all this information from, but the reality is: CUT, too, is just another UFO group in the eyes of those “ologies.”

But back to the meme that “after sixty years we haven’t found the answer” -- I wonder if that’s true. No, we don’t have full disclosure, or the Beyond a Doubt UFO From Outer Space craft or an alien body. Well, not one revealed to the world on CNN anyway.

The UFO phenomenon has layers upon shadowy layers upon deeper darker layers. It’s a given UFOs and aliens are “real” and here,  We’ve moved way beyond that. We know they are; we don't’ know what they are.

Parsing the UFO experience down to a small segment --   U.S. government agencies intentionally creating false UFO scenarios to distract  -- is not a new idea, nor a surprise. And finding further proof that was the case at times won’t definitively provide an answer to what UFOs are.

The Orange Orb: Facebook Mini Rant

Interesting comments on this at The Orange Orb.


The Orange Orb: Facebook Mini Rant

It's Saucer Blast! Tim Beckley's New Blog

As Lesley said, it's about time Tim got a blog! Saucer Blast!

UFOlogy Is Not Dead

I responded to something on Facebook, just thought I’d share. Sums it up, maybe I’ll put it on my business card!

UFOlogy is not “dead,” no one should be the Great UFO Decider, it ain’t all that serious, and it is all VERY serious, science will never embrace us saucer heads, but that’s okay because like Groucho said: (paraphrasing) “I don’t want to be a member of any club that’d have me”, one person’s embarrassing fruitcake is another person’s tasty brownie, some of us are stuck with weird experiences and we’re trying to figure it out, no, we won’t shut up, far too many smug stuffed shirts pontificating their way through UFO Land, judgments, classism, self-importance, and not listening to the witnesses. I’d hate to go off on a rant though!

Alfred Lehmberg: Warm Blood

On John Ford, the state, and one's right to "believe in" UFOs: Warm Blood.

Friedman: Any Opponent In Any Debate

Next!

Friedman And Shermer In Any Debate

By Alfred Lehmberg



David — Goliath. Still fighting it seems. One's over-cocky, and once again reamed. One strides the mainstream opposed by too few, while his honored opponent's courageously true.
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See? One narrows scope to a slender percentage, the other is open to data, comprende? One is a scoffer — all knee-jerk dismissals; the other's employing real facts as his missiles.
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Filled with his confidence, and the weight of his creed, Goliath is RIPE for a fall that he needs! David, well read and prepared for his role show that Philistines fight up with their heads locked below! David shoots well; he infuses his points. He cited them, hell — he was owning the joint!
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Bereft of his homework, Goliath's ungainly. He fumbles around for his words so inanely. He cheery-picks data still grinding the axe that qualifies comfort he knows cannot last.
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Why — Goliath seems caught in his own vicious trap; he hadn't prepared and was pinned to the mat! Stone-marked and bleeding he moans on the floor! He proves to his last that his less... is not more.
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Goliath is vanquished for arrogance, friend. He lies belly up like his close minded kin. Plus? The sneers from his camp are the stones that are used in the sling of a righteous, experienced few.
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Round and around went the weight of Stan's sling; his arguments whistling like fiery stings on the physics, the cosmic, and base relativity! Shermer's insured his own failure's proclivity, his ignorance plain in our search for the answers that excise our ignorance — our cognitive cancer!
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See, Friedman could read and he'd read the man's book. He's studied his Rommel, so like Patton? He cooked!
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Shermer, assured of vainglorious might, that he's to prevail in a "no contest" fight, was covered with gaps in his armor-cum-science which weakened his impact beyond all reliance!
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"Goliath," well beaten, at least should admit that the intrepid David had merit and grit. Dismissal's outrageous, a listener concludes. The argument's valid, and the thought now intrudes that space is a huge place, completely unknown, and it's filled to the BRIM with anomalous foam!
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Lost in its hugeness is mind undefined by concepts which limit and keep us *confined*.
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We hold to the tails of timid tradition — are blind to the front in this backside position.
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Complacent, believing proud "science" must win, we turn a blind eye to the fringe that begins just a mean tiny distance from what we now know is the little we know of what's hidden there, Bro! What can be measured; what can be seen, when what is seen CHANGES to fit errant schemes!
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Friedman wins out once again 'cause he's right. His scholarship proves what he sees in that light! He follows the traces the data proscribes, arriving at the places the facts can't deny!
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Why, he has what compels me to question the *man*, for all the *man's* blandishment, pretence, and elan. He had the right stones, and he hurled them well. Degrees will mean nothing if buying to sell. So flourish, false skeptic, your arrogant spite — and feel that stone as your forehead it strikes!



alienview@roadrunner.com
http://www.alienview.net/



When Dr. Shermer says that a 'spaceship' and 'body' would "do it" for him, frankly? He lies, I suspect. That's just to start. He's a CSICOP affiliate, forgetting he's Prometheus-published and lap-dog media nay-saying "goto"guy.
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Dr. (lapsed fundamentalist) Shermer: a reasonable man who can at last be convinced given extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims? What a load.
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Nothing would *do it* for him, but that *it's* sent back for additional analysis. He would continue to demand further analysis until *it* was either 'proven' wrong; however ephemerally, or he was checked into a rubber room and thorozined to incontinence.
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Stanton Friedman believes we are not served by our ignorance in these matters. I suspect that Dr. Shermer believes we are. That's why he'll lose the real debate.
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Moreover, with regard to Dr. Shermer: I suspect all his points as based on ignorance, misinformation and an apparent will to promote these things. Who did he cite but fellow ax grinders. Ax-grinders handily blown away by Friedman already, Clancy and Pflock spring to mind... but forget that.
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Asked who it is trying to cleave to the closest science one can only give Stanton Friedman that nod. There's some irony, on the surface at least. Dig even shallowly to find there's no irony, really, at all.
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Is Stanton Friedman For Real?

Is Stanton Friedman For Real?
By Alfred Lehmberg
http://www.alienview.net/



Everyone 'knows' who or what Stanton Friedman is. He's probably as close as anyone has gotten to being a household name with regard to UFOs. Even not knowing his name, but seeing his picture, is to automatically go, "Oh yeah... right... ...the 'UFO' guy."
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Friedman was pilloried, fatuously, along with some undeserving others, on a Jennings/ABC flopumentary "exploring" UFOs, where he was faintly accused of behavior so far removed from his actual behavior that it borders on slander. For my money it crosses the line. To wit:
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Stanton Friedman is an evidential cherry picker, a self-involved fantasist, and an inventive conspiracy monger/hoaxer. Stanton Friedman is a frustrated old man with delusions of grandeur and a messianic complex. Stanton Friedman is ~not~ real.
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So would say those who speak in persuasive proclamation, *mainstream* declaration, media decree, and 'official' edict. But hold on. The thing about proclamations, declarations, decrees, and edicts is that they don't need to be true; they only have to be compelling. They only have to sow a seed of doubt... ironically nourished by the "information void" they help to maintain, it's enough to preclude further action. The goal, to be blunt.
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Let's try some other 'proclamations' on for size...
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Stanton Friedman ~is~ real. Stanton Friedman is a tireless historical scholar and rational humanist. Stanton Friedman is a portrait of selfless courage, an assiduous researcher, and an unflinching observer/reporter of that which is decidedly and discomfortingly out of the box... but portending our future...
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Forgetting, entirely, their opposing character, is there any other difference between these preceding proclamation sets? Paul Kimball, a serious filmmaker with his own production company, has produced some engaging and instructive documentary films providing the requisite basis for just this kind of supposition.
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The well crafted documentaries referenced here include Kimball's "Stanton Friedman Is Real" (a sober examination of Stanton Friedman the 'man') and "Do You Believe In Majic" (A Doc regarding alleged quality documentation indicating, among other astonishing things, ~very~ high levels of official interest in the ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis... as it pertains to UFOs). These films show, with some clarity and fairness, where more of the truth in this... very twitchy and ephemeral area... must be! This is forgetting the balanced cameo they provide Stanton Friedman, despite, I do not hesitate to point out, any conflicts of interest possible. I suspect any conjectured conflicts are abundantly accounted for.
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Kimball's relationship by marriage to Friedman's family has Kimball erring on the side of Friedman's opposition, if anything. It remains that this writer's gut-sense advises that Kimball is legitimately trying to shoot straight-down-the-middle on the issues. Too bad for Friedman's opposition. A 'fair' look makes ~them~ look pretty bad. Humiliatingly so.
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The pros and cons regarding a ufological contribution by Stanton Friedman do not balance in actuality, even as Kimball's films very assiduously give equal time to the positions of both sides... obvious sincerity shown by Kimball, a man trying to arrive at some kind of non-anticipatory conclusion on the matter, or at least a step forward and not back. Which side of the argument ~does~ succeed in outweighing the other?
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The viewer can make up his or her own mind... but this writer perceives that the 'cons' see far before them what 'pros' leave far behind... The cons have little weight it seems.
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Along similar lines, I've heard no protestations from this opposition -- no cries of "foul" or angry wounded remonstrations regarding a misrepresentation of their assumptive, biased, canted, and homocentric views; their convenient attitudes; their conflicted opinions. The point is whittled, admittedly, pretty fine.
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Truly, I've neither read nor heard of same, and both of these films were released some time ago. Perhaps there will be a late protest...
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The presumption is that, to date, the opposition feels that it was fairly characterized by Kimball's films, and that oppositional views, such as they are and have always been (...continue to be!), were squarely portrayed and accurately recounted. One would presume.
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The irony is that it ~was~ squarely portrayed and accurately recounted. They ~got~ their best shot!
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In comparison with Stanton Friedman, though, they fall way short -- their meager shell won't even clear the gun tube. This is ~despite~ the huge amounts of powder provided by the hijacked mainstream to get that round down range.
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This is further illustrated by the ease with which Friedman will dispatch the occasional brave (if haplessly clueless) soul who gathers up the sack required to join the long list of "noisy negativists" crushed, decisively, in debate with him. There are numerous examples of same on Kimball's films. Dispute Stanton Friedman on the issues, bunky, and scamper from a righteous fray with your tail tucked between your legs making whipped-puppy-Ned-Beatty noises... I digress.
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Flatly, the arguments of Friedman's opposition make assumptions based on contrived ignorance, intellectual infidelity, obstinate illogic, wishful thinking, denied fear, and rank complacency. They are arguments larded with confident sounding if baseless assertions based on varying tinctures of the preceding six performance indicators, and they only serve to provide for what, in the final analysis, can only be sack-less cowardice -- intellectual and otherwise. Such is, and has been, the ongoing prosecution of the arguments from the opposition.
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Friedman's pompously ignorant and conflicted detractors ascribes humanistic psychological motives to aliens, facilitating a fallacious relegation of them to dismissible myth. It waxes knowledgably on the physical impossibilities of alien propulsion systems then references their superiority later to preclude us from a possibility of accidentally bringing one of them down... then it blithely leaps back to foregone conclusions on the unlikelihood of alien technologies with which to start. Astonishing! They seem unaware of this strange dichotomy, themselves...
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It soberly expounds that the already unlikely alien cannot get here because we cannot get there, only inventing a comforting rubric they can use to keep their intellectual distance from them. It is quick to label the ufologically affected individual as a mis-representer of the facts (a LIAR), a mis-understander of the facts (a DOPE), or as one too mentally incapacitated to appreciate the facts (a NUT). To the opposition, there is, or can be (...of needs!), ~no~ 4th possibility.
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To this klasskurtxian and pelicanistic opposition, people who see UFOs are, unquestioningly and absolutely, "M" cubed (Misleading, Mistaken or Mentally ill), and we ~are~ alone in our little corner of the multi-verse. ...Perhaps (...pray hard to your fundamentalist god of choice!), even alone in the whole damn thing... a centerpiece jewel in God's crown of creation, ideally! Intelligent alien beings might ~possibly~ exist in some other galaxy, or even at the other end of this one... but not here... Oh please, god... not here.
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No!
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No! There ~is~ a 4th choice. Verily, there is a plethora... a panoply of 'choices'! These are choices that must come as a result of following the data where it leads and not where it can be driven. These are choices that one discovers as one pursues the devil in the details (as Friedman has for four decades!) and still be able to hold that evidentiary demon by reluctantly slippery shirttails! These are choices that remain after one is able to appreciate the vast amount of evidence extant (as Friedman has) that is physical, historical, photographic, anecdotal, and even personal. These are choices one can accept when one sees past the end of a conflicted little nose (as Friedman has), removes oneself from ones convenient and unfounded prejudices (as Friedman has), or objects to and rejects ones self-imbued and pettily contrived ignorance (as Friedman has). Freidman has a long, long history of perspicaciously, perceptively, and intelligently trying to get it down... right.
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We are not alone. Not now. Not ever. Admitting the preceding is to step to the future. Denying it is an impossible and so disastrous retreat to a lost, and even invented or imagined, past.
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Paul Kimball is clear in his films that Friedman is very specific and precise about why he says what he says. Not content to sit in a comfy spot and airily spew puerile pronouncements of outdated and discredited "conventional wisdom" like his critics, Friedman chases details that squirm and shift in his grasp, details handily discrediting the 'official' version of puzzling events and/or corrupting, otherwise, what should be a cogent record of same. Rare bird he. We're lucky to have him.
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Stanton Friedman is thorough. His critics are only thorough enough with regard to their assertions to sow a fallacious seed of doubt or allow for a plausible deniability to obscure the ufological issue du jour. This is not honorable, on any level, and apes the activities of the propagandist, despot, axe-grinder, canted lobbyist, or spin-doctor.
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Friedman is organized, objective, constructive, and comprehensive. His critics are none of these things and are shot down in flames when they meet him in the air for formal argument on the points of it.
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Friedman is flexible, acceptable, specific, and thoughtful regarding the ufological. His critics prosecute the opposites of these things, and use every fallacious trick they can to discount him, invalidate him, and discredit him. Even honor and character have been smarmily attacked, reader!
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...Et tu, Peter Jennings, and a mark on your legacy, Sir. Point one finger and risk three back at yourself, boyo!
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Contrarily, Kimball's compelling film "Do You Believe In Majic," dismissing the recent Jennings/ABC whitewash as patently false and a mockery of what a documentary (...a "mockumentary"!) should be, is a good case in point.
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Every point skeptically raised against the verity of the MJ-12 Documents (...as clear evidence of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis with regard to UFOs, and an admitted high level ufological interest in the ~reality~ of same...) is dissolved, handily, by citation -- chapter and verse. Truly, these defensively reflexive protests do not hold up upon examination, Kimball is able to show. They are bluster, illogic, ignorance, complacency, bias, and cant. Friedman, on the other hand, can provide clear and compelling evidence that the documents are, indeed, real. His critics have nothing remaining in their moldy corner but strident, officiously vicious, and patently unsupported negativity.
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So, in answer to the question asked at the beginning of this essay about differences between the two sets of opposing proclamations, the answer is this:
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One set is of 'proclamations' is based on solid reputation, diligent research, pains-taking fact finding, unblemished integrity, tuned intelligence, and verified results. The other set is based on 'mainstream' flatus or klasskurtxian hot air. The reader can judge for themselves which is which. Be that as it may, Stanton Friedman, in a final analysis, ~is~ real, in this writer's view, and one wastes no time, at all, believing in MAJIC. Step forward to the future, reader, not backward to futility.
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Such can be drawn from Paul Kimball's intriguing, concise, and calmly iterated documentaries, here referenced. More information can be secured from the filmmaker's site at:
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http://www.redstarfilm.com/order/index.htm
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Read on!


alienview@adelphia.net
http://www.alienview.net/

Future Theater

Thanks to Lesley Gunter, who posted this at Women of Esoterica;I'm passing it along. . .


UFO Magazine publishers, Bill and Nancy Birnes, are starting their own  weekly radio show - Future Theater.  Here is some information from Bill about  the show:

This  Saturday evening at 6PM Eastern on Future   Theater, Dr. Ted joins us  for a UFO Hunters reunion along with Dan   Zarenkiewicz, our producer.  You can catch the live broadcast at  futuretheater.com or ufomag.com or lanlamphere.com. We'll have a  chat   room and open lines, too.

Visit The Orange Orb
http://orangeorb.blogspot.com

Review -- Frank Feschino On Paratopia!

Re: http://paratopiary.blogspot.com/


Just finished up the latest entirely free Paratopia, and I have to say this.

Bravo! Hosts Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni allowed —if still flawed— the most revealing telling of the entire Flatwoods affair yet! They did this respectfully revisiting the conventional wisdoms of the klasskurtxian and skeptibunky camps, and some of the more unusual ones at that! Who is allowed to drive oil spewing 1940's era pick-up trucks and where they are allowed to drive them, springs to mind. Answer: no one and not anywhere.

No, Feschino was able to rationally address every concern. "Rationally address," from fact, reader, not rationalize.

I don't think it is a stretch to report that the Paratopian Pair were impressed, even gobsmacked by the accounting.

Flawed? Yes. Interviewers are reluctant to face the provenance of the Monster and seem equally reluctant to inquire about it at all. True, Ritzmann, and Vaeni too, tried to pin Feschino down on Feschino's accounting as pointing to a hypothesis that is extraterrestrial in origin... or the currently abhorred, besmirched, and dreaded "extraterrestrial hypothesis": beings of an indeterminate biology, in other words, interacting with humanity in some manner outlining a way that might mimic our behavior, reader, if we, swapping shoes with the alien, were the extraterrestrials. Frank got it, folks. We've talked about it, frequently. The ETH is unfairly toxic territory these days, a decided magnet for premature derision and too hasty opprobrium. I point out that Paratopia did not engage in this.

Certainly, Frank Feschino, reporting the story he's pieced together over enormous hurdles for almost 20 years, is reluctant to go there for reasons obvious especially to the self-proclaimed critically thinking. In the first place he refuses to speculate on a provenance of something he doesn't know, in a manner which is unsupportable, regarding whether the "Monster" is crypto-zoological, trans-temporal, extra-dimensional, or para-psychological. How should he pretend to know that? He doesn't.

Feschino would prefer to stick with that which IS supportable! What is supportable is that the Flatwoods affair, again, is at the end of an enormous flap as it pertains to UFOs, reader, UFOs enjoying the consequences of the whole of a Military Aviation Arm of the United States operating in fact on standing orders to shoot them down!

These are the objects, reader —attributed to one six second Washington meteor— documented in 21 hours of continuous UFO sightings, mind you, as flying erratically, being on fire, dropping molten detritus, and making funny sounds... alien aircraft attacked and damaged?

Well, reader... Feschino will make no apology that this whole affair, even if it seems to be that obnoxious "extraterrestrial hypothesis...," is right in the reader's face... up close and personal! Though, why Feschino's reluctance?

He doesn't know what or who the Flatwoods monster is reader, in the first place, as pointed out above! Too, considering how ridiculously and inappropriately non-trendy the ETH is these days —this writer suspects— Feschino is loath to give a person any reason NOT to look at the massive data he has collected about, and get this, a secret Air and Sea War —against something decidedly odd— in which so many pilots, other persons, and aircraft were lost. Shoot Them Down is a fact, reader.

Closing, Ritzmann and Vaeni agreed the Flatwoods affair is ridiculous, their words. I caution the misquoting reporter; however, that they also made every indication that this ridiculousness actually credited the Flatwoods case. It did not remotely discredit it. See, we all agree that this UFO thing IS ridiculous as a portion of its part and parcel. It is ridiculous to the "conventional wisdom," reader, but I think we all might further agree that this says more about "conventional wisdom" than it does about Feschino's Flatwoods accounting of the Flatwoods affair.

Again... Well done Paratopia!

Read on.
 
 
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