The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters
Page 51
Therefore, one might expect better means of long distance communication than radio (which might not be observed with radio telescopes) and certainly more advanced means of propulsion than the use of modern chemical rockets. Detailed studies done almost 40 years ago in industry show that trips to nearby stars are feasible with round trip times shorter than the average human life span, using staged nuclear fusion rockets. Fusion reactions provide the energy of the stars and of hydrogen bombs. Many different fusion reactions are available. The most interesting appears to be the use of the Deuterium (heavy hydrogen with one neutron and one proton) Helium-3 (light helium with two protons and one neutron) reaction. This produces charged particles which (unlike neutrons produced in other fusion reactions) can be directed out the back end of the rocket with electric and magnetic fields and which have 10 million times as much energy per particle as can be obtained in a chemical rocket.
Many other schemes have been proposed including spacetime warping, white holes, the energy of the vacuum, laser propulsion, etc. Of course advantage would be taken of the fact that time slows down for things moving at close to the speed of light. For example, at 99.99 percent of the speed of light it only takes 6 months pilot time to travel a distance of 37 light years. Considering that man’s first powered flight took place less than a century ago, it would not be surprising if visitors had technology about which we know nothing.
—STANTON T. FRIEDMAN
Into The Fringe: A True Story of Alien Abduction (Berkley Books, 1992). Texas English professor Karla Turner describes in this book how she and relatives and friends experienced a contagion of alien abductions and body wounds. Over a 13-month period, at least ten people in Karla’s life reportedly experienced the same disturbing pattern of alien intrusions and disturbances.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Intruders (Random House, 1987). According to Budd Hopkins, humans are the subject of an alien breeding experiment which tracks specific family bloodlines. This book chronicles the UFO-related experiences of “Kathie Davis” (real name Debra Jordan-Kauble), who has since gained considerable notoriety as an abductee thanks to Hopkins. This book along with Whitley Strieber’s Communion heralded, or helped initiate, a major wave of abduction stories continuing through the remainder of the 20th century.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Invaders from Mars (National Pictures/20th Century-Fox, 1953). A classic science fiction film of the Cold War era, starring Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt, and Leif Erickson.
This was one of the first films to portray humans under medical assault by aliens and to show the insertion of implants. It could also have influenced the famous Barney and Betty Hill case.
The story involves the takeover of a small town by aliens from a landed flying saucer. The events are seen through the eyes of a boy whose parents are also victimized by the aliens and put under a form of mind control—accomplished through the use of small devices implanted surgically into the victims’ bodies.
Clute and Nicholls comment (in their Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) that the film produces: “…a powerful metaphor for the loneliness and alienation of a child whose world seems subtly wrong. The image of human bodies concealing incomprehensible and menacing alien motives was, in its paranoia, an important one in US sci-fi cinema, especially during the 1950s Communist-spy phobias.”
—MARTIN S. KOTTMEYER
& RONALD D. STORY
References
Clute, John, and Nicholls, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1993; 1995).
Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies, Vol. 1 (McFarland, 1982).
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Republic Pictures, 1956; directed by Don Siegel.) A classic alien invasion film of the Cold War era, starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, and Carolyn Jones; based on a story by Jack Finney.
The film portrays the aliens as interstellar parasites who create replicas of human individuals, thus assuming their identities and taking over their minds as well as their bodies. The aliens themselves are spawned as giant seed pods that float through space until encountering a host planet. Each pod serves as a “blank” to be filled in by the human form. The conversion process takes place while the victim sleeps—a parallel feature of modern UFOabduction lore. Upon awakening, the new “pod person” is without human feeling or individuality. He or she becomes an emotionless “clone” only appearing like a human being on the surface.
The film exploits the venerable mythic theme of the doppelganger—more commonly termed the “evil twin”—in the service of exploring the horror of dehumanization. Pods come down from space and replace people with duplicates that take the body and memories, but are subtly different. The “pod people” are vegetable in their essence and cannot take in the animal vitality of humanity: their emotions, desires, and love. As they quickly spread and threaten to overtake all the friends and neighbors of the central character, there is a confrontation in which the pod people make their case that life is so much simpler as a vegetable. Love does not last and there is no pain.
In interviews, Siegel explains his attraction to the story as due to his knowing people who gave into the seduction of settling for contentment and turning off their passions, unaware that the trade-off is a living death. The allegory of the pod people is thus a timeless morality story sure to be retold over the years, as partly illustrated by the 1978 remake by Philip Kaufman.
—MARTIN S. KOTTMEYER
& RONALD D. STORY
References
Finney, Jack. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Dell Books, 1954, 1955, 1978).
Clute, John, and Nicholls, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (St. Martin’s/Griffin, 1993; 1995).
Siegel on “Invasion of the Body Snatcher,s” Cinefantastique (Winter, 1973).
Invisible College, The (E.P. Dutton, 1975). Jacques Vallée proposes that a control system for human consciousness connected to the UFO phenomenon is being explored in secret by a group of scientists. This control system, which the author believes has influenced humankind since the dawn of history, originates either within the collective human consciousness or as a direct consequence of extraterrestrial intervention.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Invisible Residents (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970). Ivan T. Sanderson tries to draw connections between UFO sightings and the disappearance of ships and planes. He claims to have plotted these sightings and disappearances on maps and found ten vortices around the planet which are used by UFOs to distort space and time and cause ships, planes, and people to disappear without a trace.
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Is Another World Watching? (Carroll & Nicholson/Harper and Brothers, 1950; Bantam Books, 1951). Subtitled: The Riddle of the Flying Saucers, this was the first book on the topic of flying saucers to be published in the U.K. and the second (following Key-hoe’s The Flying Saucers are Real) in the U.S.
Variety columnist Gerald Heard tries to make a case that 2-inch long bees from Mars are buzzing Earth in saucers to show their displeasure about our atomic weapons. He urges Earth scientists to establish diplomatic relations with our own planet’s bees and to use them as intermediaries when and if the more advanced Martian bees decide to “swarm upon us.”
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
Is Anyone Out There? (Delacorte Press, 1992). Astronomer Frank Drake and science writer Dava Sobel believe humankind will receive radio signals but never actual physical visits from other intelligent life in the universe. Perhaps the most unexpected benefit of deciphering these signals, “bequeathing to us vast libraries of useful information,” will be the secret of immortality, delivering unto us “the grand instruction book telling creatures how to live forever.” (Does this not sound a little like the legend of the Holy Grail?)
—RANDALL FITZGERALD
J
J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies Known as CUFOS, the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies was founded in 1973 by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, former chief scien
tific advisor to the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book. CUFOS is not a membership organization, but instead is composed of volunteers, including scientists, academics, investigators, and members of the public, all dedicated to the continuing serious examination and analysis of the UFO phenomenon. It is supported entirely through public donations and contributions.
The organization has several goals. The first is to be an archive for UFO reports and literature. CUFOS maintains the largest collection of case files in the world, including the files of NICAP, Blue Book, and its own report files. CUFOS also investigates the most scientifically-promising cases it receives. Second, it promotes the general public understanding of the UFO phenomenon through its publishing program. This includes the quarterly International UFO Reporter, special monographs and other documents, and the Journal of UFO Studies, the only peer-reviewed journal devoted solely to the study of UFOs. Third, CUFOS conducts various research projects and assists the research of others. For example, CUFOS researchers have been involved in investigating the Roswell incident, the psychological characteristics of abductees, physical traces left by UFOs, and the history of government involvement in UFO investigation.
Address:
2457 W. Peterson Ave. Chicago, IL 60659
U.S.A.
E-mail:
infocenter@cufos.org
Jacobs, David M. (b. 1942). David M. Jacobs is Associate Professor of History at Temple University, specializing in twentieth century American history and culture. Dr. Jacobs began researching the controversy over unidentified flying objects in America in the mid-1960s, and has amassed over 35 years of primary research data and analytical hypotheses on the subject.
David Jacobs
In 1973 Jacobs completed his doctoral dissertation in the field of intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the controversy over unidentified flying objects in America. This was only the second Ph.D. degree granted involving a UFO-related theme. A revised version of his dissertation was published by Indiana University Press as The UFO Controversy in America (1975).
Since 1973 Dr. Jacobs has continued to devote most of his professional and personal energies to researching the UFO phenomenon in general, and the abduction phenomenon in particular. Having conducted over 750 hypnotic regressions with over 125 abductees, Dr. Jacobs is one of the foremost UFO abduction researchers in the world.
The results of his studies are reported in two books: Secret Life (1992) and The Threat (1998). Jacobs is also the founder and director of a research organization known as ICAR: The International Center for Abduction Research.
Address:
Department of History
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122
U.S.A.
E-mail:
djacobs@temple.edu
Web site:
www.ufoabduction.com
POSITION STATEMENT: Having studied the UFO and abduction phenomenon since the mid-1960s, I have gone through different phases of enthusiasm for it. At first I was thrilled with the idea that it might mean extraterrestrial contact. Eventually I was challenged by the difficulty of proving not only that contention but also of demonstrating the subject’s importance to the scientific community. By the early 1970s, the difficulty of understanding the origins and motivations of the UFOs provided me with almost insurmountable intellectual demands.
My interest in the abduction phenomenon came in 1982 with my introduction to Budd Hopkins and his work. In 1986 I began my own hypnosis of abductees. After investigating hundreds of abduction events, I have come to understand, at least partially, the nature of this phenomenon. What I have found has been unsettling. As a result of my own studies and of the research of other abduction researchers, I have begun to grasp alien motivations, purposes, and goals. The consequences have been that I have come to fear this clandestine program of physiological exploitation by one species of another for an alien agenda. I dislike what the phenomenon does to the lives of individual abductees, and I like even less the changes that the abductors intend for the society in which the abductees live.
I fully understand the fringe position that I occupy within UFO research community, but I have, unfortunately, not found an alternative theory to account for the data.
The intellectual challenges that faced me in the past have now changed drastically. I confront the subject with dread. Studying its motivations results in my anxiety. I find myself in the position of having spent my entire adult life studying a phenomenon that I have come to abhor. I desperately wish I could say otherwise.
—DAVID M. JACOBS
JAL Flight #1628 Alaska sighting November 17, 1986: Japanese Airlines pilot Kenju Terauchi was on a routine cargo flight from Iceland to Anchorage, Alaska, when he and his two crewmen saw the lights of three mysterious “craft” following his jet. One of the walnut-shaped objects appeared enourmous, dwarfing his Boeing 747, while the other two were smaller.
The objects, each of which appeared to have two panels of lights, darted quickly and occasionally stopped suddenly—once appearing in front of the cockpit. They instantly disappeared and reappeared, according to the 47-year-old pilot.
Terauchi said he briefly glimpsed the largest object in silhouette eight miles away. “It was a very big one—two times bigger than an aircraft carrier,” he said. He tried to shake the objects with evasive maneuvers, but said they followed his plane for 400 miles.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Air Force said a large object appeared on air traffic controllers’ radar screens. FAA flight control reports indicated that the object stayed with Flight 1628 for at least 32 minutes. The flight controller directing the Japanese plane reported the object on his radar as close as five miles to the jet.
When the recorded radar transmission was replayed later, however, there was no image except for the JAL cargo plane. Anchorage FAA spokesman Paul Steuche said it was possible the signal from the UFO was strong enough to be picked up at the time, but not strong enough to register on the radar recording system.
Subsequent FAA examination of the tapes showed what appeared to be a second object near JAL Flight 1628, but investigators now think it may have been a double image from the 747. FAA investigators who questioned the crew in Anchorage concluded they were “normal, professional, rational and had no drug or alcohol involvement.”
Captain Terauchi reported sighting unusual lights again on the morning of January 11, 1987, while on a flight from London to a refueling stop in Anchorage. “After landing at Anchorage I checked the map,” he said, “and concluded it was a light of a town or village” reflected off ice crystals. The first one “was a real UFO,” Terauchi added, noting that crew members (copilot Takanori Tamefuji and flight engineer Yoshio Tsukuba) also saw it.
—CORAL E. LORENZEN
References:
APRO Bulletin, The. “Giant UFO Shadows 747” (April, 1987).
Maccabee, Bruce. “The Fantastic Flight of JAL 1628,” International UFO Reporter (March-April, 1987).
Jessup, Morris K. (1900-1959). An American astronomer who championed the unorthodox, Jessup was the author of several pioneering books on the UFO phenomenon, the first of which (The Case for the UFO, 1955) became famous in connection with the Allende Letters episode. At the age of fifty-nine (on April 20, 1959), he committed suicide in Dade County, Florida, under circumstances thought by some UFO specialists to be “suspicious.”
Jessup was born on a farm near Rockville, Indiana, on March 2, 1900. He grew up with an intense interest in astronomy, which he pursued at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where, after receiving a B.S. degree, he served as assistant in astronomy (in 1925), instructor in astronomy (1925-26) and member of the University of Michigan’s expedition to Mexico (in 1926).
Morris K. Jessup
While working as an observer at the Lamont-Hussey Observatory associated with the university (1926-30), Jessup received a Master of Science degree (in 1926) and began a doctoral dissertation. Univer
sity records show that he stopped his Ph.D. work in the spring of 1931 without receiving the degree. Reportedly, he worked later at Drake University but no records of his employment can be found there.
Until he became interested in UFOs, in the mid-1950s, little is known of Jessup’s life after leaving the University of Michigan. He was a photographer on a U. S. Department of Argiculture expedition up the Amazon investigating rubber cultivation, and he was reportedly in South Africa in charge of an observatory mapping southern stars. Some tales place him in the Andes, investigating Inca ruins, and in Mexico in the early 1950s, charting alien structures.
He is the author of four books: The Case for the UFO (1955), UFO and the Bible (1956), The UFO Annual (1956), and The Expanding Case for the UFO (1957).
In April 1959 he committed suicide by placing a hose from the exhaust pipe of his station wagon into the car, while parked in a public park. Some UFO buffs suggest he was murdered to silence some secret knowledge connected with the Bermuda Triangle or the “Philadelphia Experiment,” but evidently he was a deeply troubled man who had been discussing suicide for several months.
—JAMES E. OBERG
POSITION STATEMENT: The subject of UFOs in its present stage is like astronomy in that it is a purely observational “science,” not an experimental one; necessarily, therefore, it must be based on observation and not on experiment. Observation, in this case, consists of everything which can be found to have bearing on the subject. There are thousands of references to it in ancient literature, but the authors did not know that their references had any bearing, for the subject did not then exist. The writers were recording such things as met their senses solely through an honest effort to report inexplicable observational data.