Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume 1 Number 413
Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume I Number 413
Thursday, May 30th 1991
Today's Topics:
Jacques Vallee Interview
Vallee Interview, (2)
Vallee Interview, (3)
Vallee Interview, (4)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Jacques Vallee Interview
Date: 29 May 91 06:26:00 GMT
(C) 1991 ParaNet(sm) Information Service. All Rights Reserved.
****************************************************************
ParaNet File Number: 01154
****************************************************************
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
Recently, Jacques Vallee has been making more public
appearances following a hiatus which took him out of the american
ufological scene for nearly ten years. His reasons for the
absence were directly tied to the disgust he felt toward the
methodology employed by UFO researchers and investigators. A
very controversial figure, Vallee is highly regarded within the
French and European community, where it appears progress is being
made due to a diverse attitude among our European counterparts.
One has to agree that things are a sad state of affairs right
here at home. Virtually no progress is being made as we are
actually further from an answer than we were ten years ago. This
can be credited to the lack of a focused, scientific approach,
coupled with a move away from critical thinking so necessary to
begin to understand the complexities that this enigma presents.
Vallee has published two books of late - Confrontations and
Dimensions, which detail the fruits of his research, conducted
quietly and away from the public scene. Vallee's message is
clear - The UFO phenomenon represents a clear and present danger.
His research indicates that we may be dealing with an extremely
complex set of models that demand scientific discipline and a
whole new approach to the problem. Vallee is highly concerned
with the public's seeming "blind faith" acceptance of the "space
brothers" scenario, considering that there are serious
actions on the part of the phenomenon to do harm to individuals
without any consideration for our comfort or feelings. The
problem is agitated further by unqualified personnel performing
hypnotic regression which seems to cement the contact to fit the
hypnotists idea of what happened, instead of what really
happened. This, as Vallee says, attempts to force the event into
the victim's reality, when it really doesn't belong. Although
Vallee has drawn a lot of fire from noted abduction researchers
such as Budd Hopkins, his ideas are not far from accepted
scientific methodology. Hypnosis is not for the unqualified to
be performing. It belongs with credible, degreed medical
personnel who know the intricacies involved with the procedure.
More harm is being done to the alleged victim than good when
unqualified people perform the regression. The victim is often
left with the trauma of the contact, and cannot effectively deal
with it. It must be treated as a medical problem. As Vallee
states about unqualified hypnotists dealing with victims: "It is
unprofessional and unethical." With this he sharply criticizes
Dr. Edith Fiore, who took a course on hypnosis during a weekend
and began to regress abductees the following Monday morning.
The question comes down to: Are we interested in getting to
the bottom of this problem, or are we more concerned with the
sensational aspect of it? If the answer is the former, than we
must begin to police our own backyard and change the direction of
things. The data pool is so polluted and corrupt with
information that has been arrived at with faulty investigative
methods, that we are drawing false conclusions about what UFOs
really represent. We must have an open mind. But, we also must
employ a methodology that is akin to forensic investigative
methods. In this respect, we will make substantial progress, and
with the data that is collected in this fashion, be able to
construct theoretical models which hold some hope for the answer.
ParaNet has reprinted the entire interview with Jacques
Vallee. We invite your discussion and comments.
=================================================================
This article was reprinted from FATE Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 7,
Issue 496, July 1991. (C) 1991 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.
Subscriptions: $22.95/yr. to:
P.O. Box 1940, 170 Future Way
Marion OH 43305-1940
=================================================================
AN INTERVIEW WITH JACQUES VALLEE
BY George W. Earley
In 1980, Jacques Vallee "disappeared" from organized
ufology. The author of several ground-breaking (and often
controversial) UFO books, a one-time associate of (and co-author
with) the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, vanished almost as quickly and
quietly as a UFO itself.
Almost a decade would pass before Vallee reappeared; when he
did, he aroused even more controversy than he had in the 1970s.
<<Continued in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Vallee Interview, (2)
Date: 29 May 91 06:27:00 GMT
<Continued from previous message>
Vallee's reappearance was signaled by publication of two
books: Dimensions (Ballantine; 1989) sought to show that the
phenomenon we call UFOs has been with humanity throughout-and
likely even before recorded history. His second book,
Confrontations (Ballantine; 1990), chastised ufologists as
scientifically inept investigators, detailed the in-depth and
hands on investigations (many of them done outside the U.S.) he
undertook during the 1980s, and expressed his strong belief that
UFOs and their allegedly attendant beings were likely not
extraterrestrial, but interdimensional forms.
I caught up with him in Portand, Oregon, several months ago,
and between his early morning appearance on a local TV show and a
press conference, the following tape recorded conversation
ensued.
Earley: I saw the program on TV this morning and you
mentioned the Costa Rica photograph. I looked at the one in
Confrontations and the analysis of it and it still seems
inconclusive. What do you feel we need to have for a photo to be
thoroughly acceptable not only to the scientific community but to
the media and the public?
Vallee: Well, in this case we are taking the analysis step
by step. We are purposely very careful, not making any claims
that we can't prove as we go along.
The first thing that was done was to work from a 2nd
generation negative that I brought back from Costa Rica. Dick
Haines1 and I published an initial article in the Journal of
Scientific Exploration.2 When that article was refereed and
reviewed, a couple of referees raised questions about what the
image could be and what artifacts could have caused it. Now we
have the original negative which I have succeeded in getting out
of Costa Rica. As you know, it is a photograph taken by a mapping
aircraft of the government of Costa Rica and it belongs to the
government. What I have now is the original uncut negative, the
frame that shows the object, the frame before and the frame
after, taken at 20 second intervals. We have looked at it,
magnified it, printed it with different densities, and so on.
That eliminates all the claims of possible artifacts. We know
this is not a double exposure, we know this is not a fine
particle trapped in the film...this is a real image. It is a
large image. The next step is to digitize it-we do not have
access to such a place here [in America] but I know people in
France who can do it, with superb facilities for computer photo
analysis. We are waiting for them to digitize the frames and to
do enhancement and comparisons of one frame to the next.
Earley: I'll be interested in hearing the results of their
work. Now, during your TV appearance today, just before and
after each commercial break, the station used some of those
controversial saucer photos taken in Switzerland by Edward Meier.
Has anyone analyzed them? I know there have been a couple of
books about him but I don't believe his claims have ever been
seriously examined.
Vallee: In the case of Meier, the negatives have never been
available, to my knowledge. Without the negatives, one can do
nothing. So it goes back to a question of belief. I am very,
very skeptical of the Meier case. I've been to his place in
Switzerland. Nobody can tell me this is an average Swiss
farmer...[chuckles]...the man has led an extremely interesting
life. The photographs themselves are not convincing. No one
will be able to tell for sure until we can work from the
negatives and the negatives have never been available. And
there's no good reason for withholding them. In a situation
where someone has had a genuine experience, there should be full
disclosure. There is no reason to hide anything.
Earley: I agree. I would also note that the space beings
he says he's meeting with are more like those described by George
Adamski in the 1950s than the beings that are reported today. I
don't know how you feel about this but it raises a warning flag
for me.
Vallee: Yes. And the place...I was there last summer
[1989]. The place is run like a cult. Visitors are screened by
members of his group. He is not at all living in poverty,
getting up at sunup to work in the fields. He has a large house,
with the flag of his organization in front of it, a guest book
which has been signed by every TV station in Japan which has come
through there. There is a satellite antenna to pick up foreign
television broadcasts...this is an organized cult. It is not
just the average farmer who has happened to see UFOs.
GULF BREEZE
Earley: Very interesting. Have you talked with Dr. Bruce
Maccabee about the Gulf Breeze case?
Vallee: Yes I have. And I respect Dr. Maccabee, he's a
good scientist. I've looked at the photographs, spent two to
three hours with him in Washington. I should qualify this -- I
don't like to talk about cases I have not investigated myself. I
have not gone to Gulf Breeze purposely, I am not trying to
investigate it. As you know from my book, I put the highest
priority on cases that have not been reported and cases that are
not big media cases with fanfare...those are the cases where I
can achieve something within my limitations, where I can get
somewhere. I like the cases that have been very quiet or where
interest has disappeared over the years. Then I can go to the
site and meet the people and be seriously involved and this is
certainly not the case in Gulf Breeze.
Now on the technical questions I have about Gulf Breeze,
I've never gotten an answer.
One question is: Why don't we have a spectrum of the
illumination? The object appeared again and again and again; it
appeared often enough that the witness could be supplied with a
camera that had four different lenses on it. Well, it would be a
simple thing to sacrifice one of the lenses and put a
[diffraction] grating in front of the objective [lens] and get a
spectrum and then we would know once and for all if it's a good
old 200-watt Sylvania light bulb in there or if it is something
unknown to physics. At least we would know that. From the
photographs you can't tell.
Another thing that is very, very disturbing is that, as you
know, the witness, Ed Walters, has a (criminal) record. Well,
that is neither here nor there -- people with records see UFOs
just like people with no records. But that does have an
influence on the way one would analyze a sighting. And the fact
that he has a record is not disclosed in the book. And I think
that's wrong! I feel there should be full disclosure.
Earley: There was a vague mention of an "indiscretion" or
something like that. I would note that in a recent issue of Jim
Moseley's Saucer Smear newsletter 3, Walters writes that because
of "my reputation as a responsible business man and community
leader" he has been granted "a Full Pardon" by Florida Governor
Bob Martinez. Of course that doesn't take away the guilt of what
he did...I know Phil Klass loves to get into things like that.
He pointed out that Travis Walton had also been charged with
forgery...
<<Continued in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Vallee Interview, (3)
Date: 29 May 91 06:27:00 GMT
<<Continued from previous message>>
Vallee: I think that's relevant and it should always be
disclosed. There should be no question in disclosing it. The
fact that in this case there is no full disclosure, that the book
represented him as a pillar of the community, I find that wrong.
Earley: I think the pardon came after the book was
published. Perhaps it will be put in the 2nd edition...
I'd like to talk about witness harassment and ridicule. You
mentioned this topic in your book; I believe in one instance you
wrote of "vandalism." Was this to a victim's home or car?
Vallee: If you remember, there were several cases like
this. There was a policeman in the Midwest, Herbert Schirmer,
who suffered from harassment. Even in the case of Lonnie Zamora,
he was harassed and had to leave the police department. The
kids, when he tried to arrest them in Socorro [New Mexico], would
say "Why are you after me? Look at that flying saucer over
there. It's going faster than I am. Why don't you arrest it and
leave me alone?" And in the famous case in Michigan, the "swamp
gas" case, the witness's house was pelted with beer bottles and
Coke bottles and cans...jsut the reaction of the friendly local
community.
Earley: And the police chief in Alabama I think it was, who
took the picture of an alleged entity...Greehaw, was it? I think
he resigned because of the hassles he had. Have any of your
fellow scientists done any sociological studies as to why there
should be this reaction to UFO reports?
Vallee: Not any formal studies. It is a normal human
reaction in a way; there is a reaction of laughter to relieve
tension and the fear of the unknown. It's nice to be able to
laugh at it and it makes you look smart. It is a normal reaction
by people who don't want to be bothered by such things. I don't
know what it will take for people to grow up and recognize this
phenomenon as something very important. I hope that my book will
be a contribution in that direction. Among my colleagues it has
started to have that effect. After reading the book they
understand that this is obviously not just a bunch of uneducated
people in the countryside sitting by the river and watching
flying saucers come by...
Earley: So you're getting a positive reaction from your
colleagues in the United States as well as in France?
Vallee: Absolutely.
COSMIC IMPLICATIONS
Earley: That's encouraging. Because what it gets down to
is how do we develop a proof that will allow people to take this
seriously...why are people ignoring the, shall we say, "cosmic"
implications of the UFO phenomenon?
Vallee: Well, you know, the people who are interested in
the UFO phenomenon...we've been guilty of pushing the
extraterrestrial theory to the exclusion of everything else. The
word from many people in the public and also in the scientific
community is -- either UFOs don't exist and it is all illusions
and mistakes and hoaxes and so forth, or we are being visited by
beings from outer space. It seems to be either one or the other.
Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other. What I find
is that people start paying attention when you tell them "Hey, of
course it could be aliens or a form of intelligence from outer
space, but it could be other things too!" Then they start to
want to know more, they start thinking...before they had to
decide between not believing the witnesses or agreeing that we
were being visited by aliens. People have reacted negatively to
that narrow choice. Scientists have certainly reacted negatively
to it. They say "Oh yeah? If they are space aliens, how and why
do they come here?" I had that reaction yesterday at a radio
station in Seattle. "Why do they do these absurd things people
say they do? Why do they look like us?"
We have to deal with the fact that while this phenomenon is
very complex, it does not have to be extraterrestrial
necessarily. That opens up many other hypotheses including
interdimensionality, which is now mainstream physics. There are
theories about the universe having more than four dimensions, and
to me the UFO phenomenon is interesting to the extent that it is
forcing us to ask those questions and to test some of those new
and exciting theories. When you say that, scientists become
interested once again because it means that the UFO problem is
not a closed system anymore.
What has surprised me is that when you start proposing such
ideas, the people who react the most negatively, not to say
venomously, are not the skeptics but the people in the UFO
community themselves. I have been astonished by this violent
reaction and you may have seen the comments of Budd Hopkins and
of Jerry Clark4 calling me a flake for opening up these
possibilities.
I've argued before, as you know, with Donald Menzel and I've
argued with Philip Klass, yet I've never experienced such
polemics. Mind you, I don't mind the polemics. I'm not
particularly looking for it, but if it happens, it happens. Yet
I've never encountered the kind of vitriolic reaction I have with
Jerry Clark, which was totally uncalled for. It just came out of
nowhere as far as I'm concerned. That taught me an important
lesson, though, that I'd not realized before: parochialism
within the UFO community itself may be what is preventing us from
being heard by the scientific world.
Earley: I think that could be a possibility. The "house
divided" effect...
Vallee: Jerome Clark is reacting almost as if I had
questioned something very sacred for him, something that must not
be questioned by someone who calls himself a UFO researcher. I'm
questioning the dogma that these beings are ETs...yet when I
listen to the witnesses, which is what I try to do carefully,
they tell me they see objects appearing out of nowhere, and
disappearing on the spot. They don't necessarily see things that
take off and go up in the sky and go through the atmosphere. In
some cases they do, but in many cases they describe objects that
seem to have the ability to operate on space-time, to manipulate
space-time. Well, if there is a form of consciousness that does
that, if there is a technology that does that, then it opens up
all kinds of questions that we have never really considered
seriously. And from a scientific point of view, number one, it
makes a lot more sense. Number two, it is much richer in terms
of what we can do with it in our own research.
<<Continued in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ParaNet.Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (sm)
Subject: Vallee Interview, (4)
Date: 29 May 91 06:28:00 GMT
<<<Continued from previous message>>>
Earley: It is, of course, a regrettable fact that the
scientific community, by and large, has rejected the UFO
phenomenon out of hand without making any real study of it. I've
talked to Isaac Asimov. He speaks of "UFO maniacs" in a recent
book5 on the NASA/SETI program, yet he knows nothing of UFOs.
When you try to pin him down about his skepticism, he says:
"Well, I've devoted enough of my time to this and I have many
other things to do." Carl Sagan does the same thing. A very
personable man but very glib and shallow in some respects,
particularly with regard to the UFO phenomenon.
Vallee: They've never taken time to study the cases
themselves. All they know about it is what they read in the
National Enquirer...
Earley: Are you saying that to a large degree you wrote
Confrontations for the scientific community and that while you
are hoping it will have an impact on the public at large,
basically you were trying to speak to your colleagues?
Vallee: I'm trying to show that, number one, the data is
robust enough that it can be studied scientifically. There is no
lack of parameters that are quantifiable, there is no lack of
data from technically trained observers. Number two, I am
showing that the phenomenon also has important medical
implications, physiological implications that should be studied.
A lot of attention has recently been placed -- and rightly so --
on the abduction phenomenon. That is fine, but beyond the
abduction phenomena there are other types of impacts that should
be documented and studied: that includes the medical and
physiological impact and I'm trying to call attention to that.
ABDUCTIONS AND HYPNOSIS
Earley: You mentioned Hopkins' disagreement with your
theory as to the possible origin of the aliens -- do you still
feel the abduction phenomenon is a real one?
Vallee: I've never said otherwise. People have tried to
imply that I was rejecting the abduction phenomena and I never
have. As you know, both in this book (Confrontations) and in
Dimensions, I even talk about abduction cases I've studied. In
Confrontations you will find the case of the woman I call "Mrs.
Victor" and several other cases.
In Happy Camp (California), for example, there was an
abduction case, among many other things. In some cases I have
studied those incidents whit the help of hypnotists. But I
surely would not do the hypnosis myself as some abductionists so.
As I have said before, and I will say it at every occasion, this
is unethical and unscientific. What they (the abduction
hypnotists) are getting is not the truth. They are wrongly
assuming that they are looking at the first level interpretations
of what the witnesses have encountered. In many of those
hypnosis sessions you will find that leading questions are being
used. Besides, there is obvious screening or self-selection on
the part of the people who come forward to be hypnotized. There
is a framework that is put on the experience itself.
The tragedy is that once that kind of framework has been put
on the experience, you cannot go back. I've had a number of
people who have been studied and hypnotized, people who have been
mentioned in some of the more prominent books on abduction, who
have come to me saying "my experience was much wider than what is
described in the book. The author took things out of context to
fit them in his book, but I need help to deal with other aspects
of my experience that nobody wanted to look at."
I'm not in a position to help these people because they've
already been hypnotized a number of times, they are stuck in a
certain framework -- I don't know of any way one can go back and
rehypnotize these people to get back to the original experience.
Which is why in many cases a...psychiatrist using hypnosis in his
work will tell you that you have to be very careful and that in
many cases hypnosis is not even the proper form of investigation.
Earley: That's why I was frankly appalled at Dr. Edith
Fiore's book6 because she "learned" hypnosis over one weekend and
then began using it the following Monday. And now she thinks she
is an abductee after having been hypnotized by Dr. James Harder.
I understand Dr. Rima Laibow is saying she's an abductee. It
seems to me there is a lot of self-contamination and pollution in
this business.
But let's take a scenario here. Suppose I came to you and
said I've been having disturbing dreams and I've read things in
newspapers and magazines about abductions; maybe I've been
abducted; you're the first person I've come to about this. What
would your step-by-step procedure be with a person who approached
you in that manner?
Vallee: I think witnesses should only go to trained people.
Hypnosis is a complex and dangerous thing; people should only go
to clinical psychologists or M.D.s for that kind of work. There
is an objection to that, which I have heard from Jerome Clark and
other people in the UFO field, saying that many witnesses don't
have access to such experts, so Budd Hopkins and Dave Jacobs and
others are performing a valuable service when they do it
themselves because the medical professionals are not always
available to do it.
Well, it's obviously a flawed argument. It's like your
coming to me and saying "I need a triple [heart] bypass. Would
you please take your kitchen knife and do it because my doctor
doesn't want to do it?" Well, I'm not qualified to do a triple
bypass and I'm not qualified to hypnotize anybody and I'm not
going to learn the technique so I can start hypnotizing people
left and right. Again, I think this is unethical and
unscientific and it doesn't get us to the kind of UFO data we
need.
In the cases when this situation has happened, what I've
done is to go to professionals I know. I would not discuss the
case with a witness. I would say, "Look, we are going to get to
know each other. You are going to tell me about yourself, but
let's not talk about UFOs. Please don't read any more on the
subject for a few weeks until we can get you to see someone who
is trained in hypnosis." In one case I went to a friend of mine
who is a clinical psychologist and he said, "You won't need
hypnosis with this person, there are other ways -- there are much
more sophisticated techniques that can be used to help people
remember what happened to them, under their own control."
<<Concluded in next message..>>
--
ParaNet(sm) Information Service - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: ParaNet(sm).Information.Service@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
********To have your comments in the next issue, send electronic mail to********
'infopara' at the following address:
UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara
DOMAIN infopara@scicom.alphacdc.com
For administrative requests (subscriptions, back issues) send to:
UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara-request
DOMAIN infopara-request@scicom.alphacdc.com
To obtain back issues by anonymous ftp, connect to:
DOMAIN ftp.uiowa.edu (directory /archives/paranet)
******************The**End**of**Info-ParaNet**Newsletter************************
