UFOs and 15 Minutes of Fame

Everyone, and we mean everyone, in the UFO community wants (or needs) attention it seems.

No one wants to quietly examine the UFO phenomenon; UFO aficionados would rather get a Google listing or some note of recognition from Anomalist.com, Stuart Miller’s Alien Worlds News, or anywhere else in the UFO universe.

Blogs are intrinsically superficial, and used for notoriety mostly, but even books, films, and television shows – the History channel’s “UFO Hunters” is an example – are geared to attention-getting rather than thorough analyses of UFOs.

This is also the case with science nowadays, but it has always been so with flying saucers and UFOs.

Aside from Donald Keyhoe’s purposeful tomes – to get a military admittance of the UFO reality – most books, early on and ever since, have been used to provide or gather some notice for the author; the truth of UFOs damned in the process.



If there is a hunkered-down ufologist – one studying the phenomenon seriously and in depth – we don’t know who that is, and no one has yet to come forth from a sub rosa incarceration to enlighten the world about the UFO mystery.

Jacques Vallee’s recent appearance on the Paracast show came and went without any significant notice or new insight.



His 15 minutes of fame continues, but is in its last seconds.

Because the UFO enigma remains essentially unexplainable, it’s no wonder that persons interested in the phenomenon go for self-glorification rather than a drill-down to the core of the mystery. They are frustrated and ego-diminished.

Jerry Clark has thrown in the towel, seeking answers to the era of early and formative Christianity.



Dick Hall has retired to rumination about the [American] Civil War.

Others have resorted to mining the UFO dregs for any clue that may have been missed by those preceding them. (That’s futile of course, but it has the appearance, in some quarters, of being productive.)

No, ufology and the UFO conundrum are without serious investigators and analyzers.

The goal now is to get one’s name plastered all over the internet, because that’s where immortality lies, or so it seems…

The Ethics of Ufology

There are none.

Science, medicine, media, law-enforcement all have codes of conduct: theories must be peer reviewed, do no harm, never plagiarize, serve and protect.

But ufology has no code(s) of conduct whatsoever.

That murderers, child molesters, drug-users, liars, hoaxers, womanizers reside in the midst of the ufological community is partly the reason that science, media, and the general public eschew the pronouncements of the few decent UFO mavens who treat the phenomenon with respect and ethical behavior.

The old-guard ufologists – listed elsewhere here – were and are a above reproach, but a current crop of UFO hobbyists laud reprobates, celebrating them, as they self-promote their own shoddy ufological efforts.

When disreputable persons take hold of the UFO dialogue, besmirching it with lies and slander to cover their own disgusting, criminal behavior, and some support, even encourage, those ethically and morally challenged persons, the UFO phenomenon itself suffers, and the study of the phenomenon is lost to those who have an existential ethos.

UFO investigators are supposed to study the phenomenon with a fine tooth-comb, but those same investigators don’t even check into the backgrounds and behaviors of those in their midst who use the phenomenon as a cover for nefarious activity, and deviant occupations.

Some wonder why we rail here against a few semi-known ufologists.

Our excoriation comes from the fact that these self-aggrandizers allow their web-sites, blogs, magazines, podcasts, et cetera to be housed by persons who slink about the UFO community while engaging in human degradations that should be quarantined and eliminated entirely, rather than touted, indirectly, by giving them a platform or forum which tries to disguise their criminal conduct.

No, we are not without sin, but our sins are venial, while those of a few are mortal sins, deadly sins.

We would hope that ufologist and the UFO community would remove those who behave without regard for truth, this side or any side of truth.

And beware of the person(s) who pretend they are without sin, as they try to excuse accusations against then with bluster that only thinly masks their criminality.

Their rants haven’t fooled us, and they shouldn’t fool you either.

Death(s) will clean the UFO palate

When ufology’s old-guard passes on – Dick Hall, Stan Friedman, Kevin Randall, John Schuessler, and even the 60ish Jerry Clark to name a few – taking hangers-on and sycophants with them (and you know who they are), the UFO palate will be cleansed.





That is, the mummified concepts of ufology will be washed away, and new paradigms will be allowed to flourish.

Standing in the wings already is a group of middle-agers who, while not particularly astute about the UFO history and inclined to be cavalier with their observations and characterizations of ufology and UFOs themselves, think they are the news faces of ufology, which is a mantle they hope to change.

Those people include Paul Kimball, Nick Redfern, Greg Bishop, and Mac Tonnies.





More importantly, there are much younger UFO aficionados who are investigating UFOs quietly and sincerely, without aligning themselves with those who use the UFO phenomenon for social-networking and “have-a-good-time” parties.

These include Alistair McCallum, Max Taylor, Brad Hirn, some RRRGroup fellows, and several others who may be found in our UFO links (on the right of your monitor screen here).





Once the old-guard is gone, and the mid-lifers dismissed because of their foolishness, the young crop of UFO mavens’ newer ideas will hold sway with the public and media, because this new generation isn’t conscripted by former old-think about UFOs, presenting instead original thought and pursuit of the UFO mystery as they discard the fossilized “revelations” that have gone nowhere as far as the phenomenon is concerned.

Of course, the old-guard will go down kicking, but only moderately so, as they are tired and enervated by disappointment and irrelevance as far as the general public is concerned.

And the mid-lifers will stomp and fume that they are the new carriers of the UFO light, but that will be seen for the silliness it openly flaunts.

Meanwhile, the new breed will prevail, and the UFO mystery shall be solved, by them, because this group is steeped in scientific methodologies and discipline, not pretense and bonhomie for the sake of ego rather than truth.

UFO Mac Attack!

Writing entrepreneur Mac Tonnies continues to push the idea that there has been a parallel, subliminal (or hidden-dimensional) existence and species that accounts for ghosts, paranormal activity, and UFOs, among other spooky intrusions.

He may be right, but what does it matter?

According to Tonnies’ hypothesis, this interceptive phenomenon (or phenomena he hints) has existed since the beginning of time, and has interacted with human beings off and on since the beginning of creation.

The concept isn’t unique, as one knows from the literature (Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine,” the Hermetica, Urantia, et cetera).

And to tie UFOs into the mix comes from Jacques Vallee, among others.

But Tonnies infuses the old ideas with coined words and concocted argot of a quasi-technical nature so some persons see his suggestion(s) as unique.

The problem for Tonnies is that he isn’t mainstream, and won’t be any time soon.

His ideas are corrupted by his ufological associations. (Ufology demeans everything it touches.)

However, if Tonnies can make clear his ideas by collating the old “theories” with his and Vallee’s contrivances, he might make some headway with those, in science and out, who are not loath to accept bizarre extrapolations of reality, even though they have nothing to do with real life and everyday living.

Google Mac Tonnies to find his discursive blogs, web-sites, and ideas. You may not be disappointed.

UFO UpDates: Neo-Fascista?

Errol Bruce-Knapp is a person from Canada who holds sway over a web-location called “Virtually Strange Network” which houses a sub-stratum forum called UFO UpDates, that has been around for a little more than a decade.

UFO UpDates is, currently, a peripheral UFO site, eclipsed by many other forums, blogs, and web-sites with more import and substance.

A few old-guard ufologists are still habitués of UFO Updates, but the new breed of ufologists, a younger, more imaginative group, eschews UpDates, and EBK, as he likes to be mantled, and his site has lost cachet in the overall UFO community.

EBK is a martinet, controlling input to UpDates with a heavy hand, thus censuring and censoring content to the point that a mean-spirited extra-terrestrial bias is the main focus of the almost illiterate content now suffusing the forum.

Bruce-Knapp has, over the past years, surrounded himself with and has promoted power-seekers, self-promoters, sycophants and perverts.

UpDates hasn’t furthered the UFO cause but, rather, has decimated new-thought about UFOs and provided a rift in the UFO community, albeit an inconsequential one, that only a few delusional die-hards pay heed to.

We consider Errol Bruce-Knapp to be a person with subversive tendencies, subversive in the sense that he has undermined ufology and scientific inquiry by extolling ideas and reprobates who have no idea what the UFO phenomenon might be and who have provided nothing that might explain the profound mystery.

UpDates is a kind of virus, one that has antecedents in the fascist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, where one person and a few lackeys subverted political thought and activity for obtuse purposes.

EBK’s efforts have been on the wane for a while now, but the pollution of thought he’s engendered is lauded by persons who have been hypnotized by his seemingly mild-mannered demeanor, which actually masks an authoritarian, defensive psyche that only has succeeded to some extent because members of the UFO community are easily gulled by charlatans (George Adamski for instance).

A few mid-lifers in ufology seek out EBK and UpDates to further their personal agendas, but, fortunately, those who are not inclined to self-glorification search for the UFO truth elsewhere, leaving EBK, UpDates, and its retinue to wallow in their moribund and decrepit UFO detritus.

And this is how the UFO mystery will eventually come to a positive denouement.

The Real Edward U Condon Story

The UFO Iconoclast(s) provide a link to a posting about Edward U Condon from The UFO Reality blog.

The material is presented to offset the naïve posting of a blogger who thinks that Mr. Condon was a hypocrite, not the pro-U.S.S.R. lackey that he was, and thus had various nefarious reasons for scuttling the Colorado UFO study.

Go to the Iconoclast(s) site for the link and story….

The UFO Epithet

When the term “flying saucers” appears in print, or on television and in web-sites and blogs, it gets attention from the fringes of society – persons who are attracted to the idea of visitors from other worlds.

When the acronym UFO shows up, it attracts believers in strange things from the skies and even nay-sayers who, down-deep, think there is something to the UFO phenomenon but hate to admit it (for various reasons).

When we plug in a video at YouTube, and label it with the UFO mantle, it receives lots of views, and comments, pro and con.

If we leave out the UFO sobriquet, the visits and views are much less.

Thus, if one wants to attract visitors to a blog or a book or magazine, UFO should be in the title or heading.

Stuart Miller’s one-time “UFO Review” had a healthy following. His new magazine, “Alien Worlds” will very likely only attract cognoscenti, not that broad swath of readers who need to see UFO before they can get excited about what lies before them, in print, or on the internet, or on television.

UFO has become a symbol, resonating in ways that few other words or acronyms do.

It represents many things that stir the semi-conscious and unconscious of human beings.



It even has the power of a Jungian archetype that normally only exists in the collective unconscious, and requires a few hundred years to establish itself as a psychic symbol.

That a term, which represents a whole lot of bewildering appearances by an unknown thing or things, has become so fraught with psychological stimuli, is remarkable.

Not to capitalize on that powerful stimulation seems foolhardy and non-productive.

If one wants to move away from UFO to another term that is less tainted, such as unidentified aerial phenomena, they do so at the peril of losing a whole panoply of persons and mythical accretions that the term UFO provides.

Sure, science might take a look at the phenomenon if it were not encased with the UFO (and flying saucer) baggage, but then science would lose all the meaningful accoutrements that UFOs have garnered, which may provide the real clues for the solution to the mystery.

So, UFO needs to remain embedded in the consciousness of human beings, since that is what will ultimately decide the fate of the phenomenon, whatever that phenomenal fate may turn out to be.