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![]() November 29 Journalists Chris Sharp, Matt Ford, and Josh Boswell team up to report that the CIA's Office of Global Access (OGA) has organized numerous anomalous material retrievals, "non-human" and otherwise. In the feature video the three journalists discuss how Sharp provided some leads, Ford drove the story forward, and Boswell championed the process by adding his sources to those his colleagues had developed. The effort supports David Grusch's allegations and further calls into question Congressional oversight of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, and indeed that any governmental institution has over any private industry that purportedly possesses the retrieved material. On a rather related matter, Christopher Mellon asks regarding Disclosure and National Security: Should the U.S. Government Reveal What It Knows about UAP? It's a rumination over the plusses and minuses of the matter, with a hope for "a graduated process of disclosure." The problem is, how would that happen? (WM) APRO Files Now Housed at the National UFO Historical Records Center Facebook/David Marler
In what is definitely "a big day for UFO history," the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) holdings have been donated to the National UFO Historical Records Center (NUFOHRC). They were personally delivered and transferred by their owner, Brian Myers, to NUFOHRC's Rio Rancho, New Mexico, headquarters and NUFOHRC Executive Director David Marler. Marler remarks "Never in U.S. history has such a vast quantity of UFO records (numbering in the tens of thousands) been centralized in one location." NUFOHRC, which already houses the voluminous files of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), has become a "gravitational center" for such acquisitions, numbering most recently important collections from Philip Mantle and the late Timothy Green Beckley. Now the APRO, NICAP, and CUFOS records are united in one location, and "in the process of being digitized for electronic storage, analyzation, transfer, and ease of access." These and other additions past and future serve the nonprofit NUFOHRC's mission to "Collect, preserve, and provide historical UFO materials to the general public and interested parties." This major development also closely follows upon the unveiling of the new CUFOS website, whose International UFO Reporter, Journal of UFO Studies, and numerous other publications are now freely available at the CUFOS Center for UFO Studies. Note: David Marler is also a CUFOS Board Member and its archivist. (WM) Finding Fairyland, Part 3 The Observer
As his quest continues to safely observe some actual fairy folk, the author of this 4-part series found himself in the midst of a stone henge, which he found unsettling. Later he was thwarted from visiting a monument surrounded by a moat. A walk through the Welsh woodlands also came up empty. In the final installment of his travelog, Finding Fairyland, Conclusion, the author travels (with books, so many books) to a megalithic structure of standing stones, purported to court the favor of fairies. Next it was on to Glastonbury to a sacred mound known for containing an entrance to the fairy realm. (It's notable that some neighboring homes had wee fairy doors built into their walls.) Were any fae folk encountered during this otherworldly visit to their land? Read on to find out. (CM) November 28 Colombia: Places Where UFOs Have Been Seen Inexplicata
UFOs south of the US (Mainland) Border, Past and Present, staring with Tatiana Munevar's catalogue of historic events in the Coffee Capital of the World. Familiar types and locations here, even to a "hidden facility for spacecraft" in a desert. In Costa Rica: A Sequence of Photos and an Unusual Object approaching a landing airplane come with the explanation that "We received a mental command to record the aircraft and that we would see a surprise." These two articles are from Inexplicata, as is Venezuela: Unusual Light Over Caraballeda. There's a bit more data here, but we'd like to hear more about those Necochea, Argentina, sightings that began at September's end. And Eyes on Cinema offers Puerto Rico UFO Encounters: Fighter Jets Went Missing Near Gigantic Triangular Object, 1988. Whatever the provenance of some of the pictures, this is a short potpourri of cases with, again, some iconic themes like "UFOs and Nukes," aircraft lost under strange circumstances, mass-witnessed events, and government denials. (WM) Fear the Hat Man: The Silent Shadow Invasion... Who is He? And What Does He Want? The Paranormal Scholar
An examination of shadows today, starting with The "Hat Man." This video looks at the recent reports of this shadow being, as well as historical examples indicating he may have had an ancient origin, long before the internet and online tulpas. Next, here's a Man Frightened as Surveillance Camera Captures 'Shadow Figure'. Evidently the gentleman was so frightened by the image that he turned to Reddit for support. No doubt after all that helpful advice he was even more terrified. Personally we would have cleaned the camera lens and thought about better lighting. (CM) George Wingfield Interview The Paracast
If you want to hear the "straight-skeptical take" on UFOs from a long-time British researcher, George Wingfield's interview with Gene Steinberg and co-host pro tem Tim Swartz is for you. George articulates a creative alt-"Trinity Crash" story to Jacques Vallee's ET and most folks' hoax assertions. He also says Whitley Strieber's late wife, Anne, admitted that Strieber's abduction cases were "all in his head," and asserts Tony Bragalia is/was two different people, one of whom is dead. (Tony tells us he is not dead.) George has "wrinkles" of his own on Roswell, and a Linda Napolitano tale we'd also not heard before. As one might expect, the Budd Hopkins/David Jacobs/John Mack abduction "triad" receives criticism. It seems highly likely that Wingfield's newest book The Rendlesham Forest UFO Mystery & Project Honey Badger, which "reveals the actual identity of the 'UFO,' along with the extraordinary purpose for which it was devised," will be...different. Gene and Tim also have a Chris Aubeck Interview. Aubeck talks about his two recent books, the first being Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-shaped UFOS. Aubeck makes numerous good points here that are reflected in this book, as well as his Alien Artifacts: The Forgotten Story of How We Came to Believe in Visitors from the Stars, which takes that story up to 1880, and whose Volume II will be out soon. Chris' recent books affirm his belief that ufology has a much longer, richer history than popularly suspected. (WM) November 27 NUB TV Launches New Channel to Reveal the Truth about UFOs Celebretainment
The week begins with something we've all been waiting for! And it's not just UFOs, but looks like All Things Paranormal Considered!! But ogling the image and reading further...perhaps we'll have to wait for the product itself to decide. Seems even the (outgoing) AARO head can't get the "skinny" on UFOs, per Baptiste Friscourt's AARO Director Fails to Obtain Nimitz Case Data. Friscourt's article raises other warning flags regarding sound data dissemination. Which brings up Rich Reynolds' worry that For UFO [UAP] Information, We Have No Credible or Central Source to Obtain It. We might differ with a few names on Rich's "fame-seekers" list, but most may be on "NUB TV's" want list. Rich's point that "it will be the UFO events that resonate" is generally accurate. However, we appreciate Curt Collins' efforts, in particular his list of UFO Information and Research - Sources & Sites. Allowing for Sturgeon's Law, Curt directs the motivated student to a number of sites, to which we'd add the National UFO Historical Records Center. (WM) Poltergeist Cases 2022-2023 The Fortean
Cropster provides a compelling summary of poltergeist cases (and nefarious neighbors) over the past two years. These reports include stone-throwing polts of the kind that Cropster has personally investigated, as well as fire-starting polts, and one infestation where a family was not allowed to cook food. And speaking of hungry ghosts, Overnight Worker Films Ghost in Aisle of Mexican Grocery Store? We're not sold on the authenticity of this story, seeing as the security guard was a little too pleased to discover an "intruder" in the store. No word on whether the incident is under further investigation, or if the individual is in the market for a different job. (CM) Move over, Rendlesham! UFO Talker's Michael Ryan interviews Mark Olly, the author of Europe's Roswell: 40 Years Since Impact. The multi-talented Olly has written many folktale/mysteries books, and opines about the more famous "Welsh Roswell" 1974 Berwyn Mountain UFO Crash before covering the Llanilar puzzle. And Llanilar is a remarkable story, featuring debris scattered over a huge area--only to be "cleaned up" overnight by three different teams after their notification by a very surprised farmer. Apparently a single article written at the time prompted the story's "resurrection" decades later. And stray samples of debris, recently analyzed, only creates more mystery. Host Michael Ryan prefaces the Welsh conundrum with a nod to Anomalist news editor Linda Powell's groundbreaking new biography Against the Odds: Major Donald E. Keyhoe and His Battle to End UFO Secrecy. This 486-page work is the first and likely will remain the standard for Keyhoe's "public and private life before and during his time as the world's best-known UFO advocate." At the conclusion of this UFO Talker episode, Joy Ryan reads a rather gripping passage from Keith Chester's Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II, also from Anomalist Books. For pictures of the Welsh material that was salvaged by a local UFO investigator, see Emma Perry's UFO Case Dubbed 'UK's Roswell' Blown Open by New Evidence as Expert Reveals How Aliens COULD be Behind Baffling Mystery. (WM) November 26 Here in the USA we have one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eaters but, writes Scott Corrales, Argentina have their unique answer to the 'States musical cryptid. These green midgets from 1988 caused quite a stir and Scott follows the developments following the original encounter, including another sighting of Olympic proportions. Further from America's Olympics, the Olympic range in Washington State that is, some Minnesota Hunters Report Bigfoot Sighting dontchaknow. Of especial interest, per Tim Binnall's coverage, is this specimen's scent that tends to go unmentioned in many contemporary reports. We just find it heartwarming the hunters were mother and son. Across the pond there's word how DNA Taken From Loch Ness Reveals Truth About The Monster. Last time such headlines gripped the internet the DNA wound up being that of an eel but Ken Gerhard, by way of Neil Shaw, says a new documentary coming in 2024 enhances the collected DNA and might hold surprises. (CS) Ooh, is it the thylacine? Perhaps the wooly mammoth? Maybe the golden toad? Nah. Colossal Biosciences is fixin' to clone back the dodo. Snark aside, this is big news as conventional wisdom argues bringing back extinct species will harm, rather than help, environments and it seems Colossal made a slam-dunk parntering with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. In other science news, Neuroscientists Discover A Surprising Connection Between Breathing And Memory. Don't hold your breath and start reading, as it seems the less one breathes there's more to be forgotten while regular or heavy breathing facilitates strong memory function per JD Shavit. And don't think of this as mind-over-matter or some placebo as the effect's shown itself to be real in studies. Speaking of placebos, they actually have a real impact on us and Denyse O'Leary presents the Everyday Evidence Of The Mind's Reality and it seems the placebo effect appears to becoming more influential in life. Or at least scientists are becoming more open to investigating the possibility by using "honest placebos". (CS) November 25 It's one thing for high schoolers to use ChatGPT to pad out a term paper for science class, but what about scientists using ChatGPT to push their own agendas? Back in '21, Richard Van Noorden reported Hundreds Of Gibberish Papers Still Lurk In Scientific Literature. Gibberish papers generated by language learning models (LLM) like ChatGPT which is not an artificial intelligence. Such tomfoolery is nothing new as back in 2005(!) Three MIT Students Fooled The World Of Scientific Journals using SCIgen. Yet Miryam Naddaf raises the signal for fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) behind LLMs being used to promulgate lies, rather than FUD for welcoming our new artificially-intelligent overlords. What's crazy here is ChatGPT created a database supporting a hypothesis, yet with a modicum of scrutiny the database was proven to be flimsy and fake. Don't worry, ChatGPT is the first program to do this considering humans have been pulling similar shenanigans over the years. Take Dan Ariely as an example. Dan is the behaviorist who Fabricated Data In Research About Honesty using Microsoft Excel to support his theory that sounded right but didn't work in reality, much like religion. It's a wonderful listen spiced with schadenfreude. With that in mind, An Equation Co-Written With AI Reveals Monster Rogue Waves Form "All The Time". Note to Andrew Paul, it's a language learning model not artificial intelligence. Moreover the use of "co-written" makes one wonder how much the human collaborated, and how much the LLM just chunked out by googling. Don't throw out that baby with the bathwater yet... at least until you read Dion Häfner's proposition. (CS) Dwarfing the recently-announced gamma ray burst that affected Earth's atmosphere is a cosmic ray so powerful that astronomers and physicists could draw meaningful data from the phenomenon in hopes of making them less mysterious. Adam Kovac has the details of what was found and why this one is a game changer. Meet Amaterasu, the aforentioned cosmic ray far more powerful than 1991's "Oh My God Particle" along with more details on the 2021 event by way of Jennifer Ouellette. (CS) Nine years ago the internet was abuzz over the human genome's vanishing Y-chromosome. Then Scientific American and Nature drew a conclusion the announcement was hogwash considering the Y chromosome has been stable for 25 million years, among other data points. Now Darren Griffin and Peter Ellis are boosting that signal yet again to shill their new book. Sigh. Worse, they're citing old data from 2011 to 2017. Fortunately if this is the case, men have plenty of time to prepare and some mammals wind up non-plussed and continue to thrive after losing their Y chromosome. (CS) November 24 US Space Force Wants to Track 'Abnormal Observables' with Unknown Origins in Earth's Orbit Space.com
Brett Tingley reports that the US Space Force just published a new document detailing its concept of what "space domain awareness (SDA) is and how to establish and maintain it." That 49-page item is available at Space Doctrine Publication 3-100: Space Domain Awareness: Doctrine for Space Forces. Brett outlines the needs and current "gaps" in SDA. Sobering reading. For more "gaps," Joe Khalil reports that David Grusch, the UFO Whistleblower Calls out Congressmen in Joe Rogan Interview. Grusch "names names" of a pair of Representatives who are working against the likes of fellow Republicans Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna, and Matt Gaetz to block UFO/UAP disclosure. Grusch also claims new threats since his Congressional testimony. Isabelle Hajek adds to this story as Joe Rogan Grills UFO Whistleblower David Grusch on Alien Entities as Ex-Intel Officer Says 'Variety Interacting with Us', sketching out some of the additional details around but not directly describing the "entities" themselves in Joe Rogan's 2hr 41 min Episode #2065. Commenting upon this podcast, plus Jesse Michels and Chris Lehto efforts, Rich Reynolds asks Why Would David Grusch .... be talking to such plebeian audiences as they serve? Maybe because some of them vote for Congresspersons? (WM) New Study on "Psychic Channelers" and Disembodied Consciousness Neuroscience News
A recent international study took a sampling of 15 channelers, asking each the same set of questions to test for consistency. The responses from the fifteen did not match, but compelling similarities in the underlying themes were revealed. More research is required. Moving on, Does a Coincidence Exist If No One Notices It? Does a synchronicity cease to exist if it goes unnoticed? What is it about the human experience that makes events "real" or "valuable"? Have fun arguing this with like minds—just be prepared for the endless loop because this is a question that may be impossible to answer. (CM) Garrett M. Graff is everywhere! He's the darling of mainstream media a the moment. Maybe that's because of his communications "track record"? Or because his latest book UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There tries to steer a path midway between outright rejection and abject acceptance of the UFO phenomenon? And possibly because Graff realizes that conundrum is as much a human as it is an "Other" issue? This adaptation from Graff's book displays the weaknesses we've remarked about Gerald Ford's Congressional district and the U2 et al. "spy plane" role in UFO reporting, but Graff does score points. For Wired Graff writes Here's the Proof There's No Government Alien Conspiracy Around Roswell. Here we'd invoke Kevin Randle on the balloon controversy, and think Graff places too much emphasis upon Enrico Fermi and Edward Tellers' apparent ignorance of a possible 1947 UFO/something crash. Graff's Politico piece We Have a UFO Problem. What We Don't Have (Yet) Is a Serious Answer repeats many ufological "truisms" but is a strong, almost lyrical call for open-mindedness on the subject. In Vanity Fair's Why UFOs Freak Out the Government Graff emphasizes that human component: "But mostly, this is actually a story about us. Mostly, this is a story about humans and US politics and geopolitics" and "Where do we fit in the universe?" Perhaps Graff's treatment epitomizes one view of current goings on with UFOs and Government: "Not what we'd prefer, but the best we realistically could expect." (WM) Copyright
1996-2023, The Anomalist
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