—PHILIP J. KLASS
(Note: The Biographical portion of this entry was written by Gary Posner.)
Klass’s UFOlogical Principles:
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 1: Basically honest and intelligent persons who are suddenly exposed to a brief, unexpected event, especially one that involves an unfamiliar object, may be grossly inaccurate in trying to describe precisely what they have seen.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 2: Despite the intrinsic limitations of human perception when exposed to brief, unexpected and unusual events, some details recalled by the observer may be reasonably accurate. The problem facing the UFO investigator is to try to distinguish between those details that are accurate and those that are grossly inaccurate. This may be impossible until the true identity of the UFO can be determined; in some cases this poses an insoluble problem.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 3: If a person observing an unusual or unfamiliar object concludes that it is probably a spaceship from another world, he can readily adduce that the object is reacting to his presence or actions, when in reality there is absolutely no cause-effect relationship.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 4: News media that give great prominence to a UFO report when it is first received subsequently devote little, if any, space or time to reporting a prosaic explanation for the case after the facts are uncovered.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 5: No human observer, including experienced flight crews, can accurately estimate either the distance/altitude or the size of an unfamiliar object in the sky, unless it is in very close proximity to a familiar object whose size or altitude is known.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 6: Once news coverage leads the public to believe that UFOs may be in the vicinity, there are numerous natural and manmade objects which, especially when seen at night, can take on unusual characteristics in the minds of hopeful viewers. Their UFO reports in turn add to the mass excitement, which encourages still more observers to watch for UFOs. This situation feeds upon itself until such time as the media lose interest in the subject, and then the “flap” quickly runs out of steam.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 7: In attempting to determine whether a UFO report is a hoax, an investigator should rely on physical evidence, or the lack of it where evidence should exist, and should not depend on character endorsements of the principals involved.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 8: The inability of even experienced investigators to fully and positively explain a UFO report for lack of sufficient information, even after a rigorous effort, does not really provide evidence to support the hypothesis that spaceships from other worlds are visiting the earth.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 9: When a light is sighted in the night skies that is believed to be a UFO and this is reported to a radar operator, who is asked to search his scope for an unknown target, almost invariably an “unknown” target will be found. Conversely, if an unusual target is spotted on a radarscope at night that is suspected of being a UFO, and an observer is dispatched or asked to search for a light in the night sky, almost invariably a visual sighting will be made.
UFOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE 10: Many UFO cases seem puzzling and unexplainable simply because case investigators have failed to devote a sufficiently rigorous effort to the investigation.
—PHILIP J. KLASS
Kottmeyer, Martin S. (b. 1953) Martin Kottmeyer is one of the world’s leading experts on the psychosocial aspects of the UFO phenomenon. He holds an associate’s degree in science, but his knowledge of the history of UFO belief is the source of his achievements.
Kottmeyer has written dozens of articles exploring different facets of UFO lore while tracing the cultural sources of UFO and extraterrestrial imagery. His work has appeared in such publications as The Anomalist, Archaeus, Magonia, The MUFON UFO Journal, The REALL News (newsletter of the Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land), UFO Magazine, and The Wild Places. He works a farm in America’s heartland.
Address:
10501 Knolhoff Rd.
Carlyle, IL 62231
U.S.A.
POSITION STATEMENT: UFO belief is permeated by paranoid themes that include furtive activities, spying and reconnaissance, influencing machine fantasies, worldwide conspiracies, invasion fears, persecution, miscegenation and degeneration, grandeur, cosmic identification, and a ubiquitous stream of world destruction fantasies. Interpreting the diverse range of UFO experiences in terms of materially real, but perpetually furtive, aliens runs against many inconsistencies involving the differences among the cases and assaults against known science like the absurdities of the hybrid program and man-sized bugs. Study of the repetitive elements with emphasis on their historical development lets one achieve an understanding of UFO culture that the ETH forbids. Over two hundred predictions premised in the extraterrestrial hypothesis by encounter claimants and UFOlogists have been offered over the past half-century and they have uniformly failed. Further belief in it is not recommended.
—MARTIN S. KOTTMEYER
kundalini A Sanskrit term, associated with the image of “a coiled serpent” at the base of the spine, and uncoiling up the spine, used to express the basic intelligence and power of the universal life-force resident in the human body/mind/spirit system. The kundalini is said to affect and influence the major and minor chakras (energy centers) in the human subtle bodies, and becomes activated during the normal course of spiritual evolution, but which can be hastened by specific meditative practices (in particular, various Eastern yogas). Kundalini is associated with various paranormal experiences, which include ESP and mystic states, healing powers and telekinesis, plus near-death and out-of-body events.
—SCOTT MANDELKER
L
Lakenheath-Bentwaters radar-visual UFOs Perhaps the most solid UFO case in the radar/visual category concerns a series of events which took place over the flat plains of eastern England on the night of August 13-14, 1956.
Objects were sighted visually from the air by the pilots of two different aircraft, confirmed by airborne radar on one of the planes, tracked by radar from three groundradar stations, and sighted visually by control tower personnel at two ground stations. The UFOs were described as round, white, rapidly moving objects that could make abrupt changes in speed and direction.
The first radar contact occurred at Bentwaters USAF-RAF Station, thirteen miles east-northeast of Ipswich, near the coast, at 9:30 P.M. (GMT). The target was moving at between 4,000 and 9,000 miles per hour, and it covered a distance of forty to fifty miles in a straight line from where it was first picked up at about twenty-five to thirty miles east-southeast of Bentwaters to a point fifteen to twenty miles west-northwest, where it vanished from the screen. The return reportedly had the characteristics of a normal aircraft target, except for its abnormally high speed.
About 10:00 P.M., another rapidly moving target appeared on the radar scopes at Bentwaters and was tracked over a distance of fifty-five miles in sixteen seconds, which is equivalent to 12,000 miles per hour—too slow to be a meteor and too fast to be any conventional aircraft. Again, the return was described as being comparable to that of a normal aircraft and, according to University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald, who later studied the case, could in no way be ascribed to anomalous propagation effects. Also, while the object was being tracked on radar, ground personnel at Bentwaters saw a blurred light racing overhead, as the pilot of a C-47 aircraft over the airfield looked down at a blurry light streaking under his plane. (There is some evidence of anomalous propagation on this night, however: Between 9:30 and 10:15 P.M. the Bentwaters radar tracked a large group of ill-defined targets that seemed to drift roughly in the direction of the prevailing upper winds at the time. A search made by a flight of one or two USAF T-33 jet trainers during this period turned up no evidence of any objects that might have been producing these radar returns.)
By this time, Bentwaters had alerted another USAF-RAF Station at Lakenheath, where both radar and visual sightings were likewise taking place. One luminous object came in on a southwesterly heading,
stopped abruptly, and then streaked out of sight to the east. This was confirmed by two radars, as well as by visual observations £rom the ground, at Lakenheath. As stated in the original Project Blue Book report: “Thus, two radar sets (i.e., Lakenheath GCA [Ground Controlled Approach] and RA TCC [Radar Traffic Control Center] radars) and three ground observers report substantially the same.” Still another sighting was reported as £ollows: “Lakenheath Radar Traffic Control Center observed an object 17 miles east of the Station making sharp rectangular course in flight. This maneuver was not conducted by circular path but on right angles at speeds of 600-800 mph. Object would stop and start with amazing rapidity.”
About midnight, while the sightings were taking place at Lakenheath, a call was placed to the chief fighter controller on duty at the RAF Station at Neatishead. Within a few minutes, a De Havilland Venom night-fighter interceptor was scrambled from nearby Waterbeach and vectored toward, first, a target that was chased and lost, and then, to a second target (over Bed£ord, just north of Cambridge) that was confirmed by the navigator of the Venom as the “clearest target I have ever seen on radar” (referring to his own airborne-radar). At that point the UFO was being tracked simultaneously from the air, both visually and by radar, and from the ground by radars at Neatishead and at Lakenheath.
Suddenly, within one sweep (about fifteen seconds) of the radar scopes, the blip showed up behind the fighter (whereas before it had been in front), and the pilot requested additional tracking assistance from the ground. In spite of evasive maneuvers, however, the pilot of the Venom could not shake the UFO, which continued to follow the plane at a distance of about one quarter of a mile. The object then (after about ten minutes) became stationary, and the friendly fighter returned to base. A second Venom was then scrambled but had to abort its mission because of an engine malfunction. The UFO soon left the range of both ground radars, moving off the scopes in a northerly direction at an approximate speed of 600 miles per hour; though at Lakenheath, unknown echoes continued to be tracked until about 3:30 on the morning of the 14th.
The Condon Report called this “…the most puzzling and unusual case in the radar-visual files.” And Gordon David Thayer, who was the principal analyst of the case for the Condon committee, added the following comment in his entry on the case for The Encyclopedia of UFOs:
In sheer redundancy of contacts this episode is unparalleled by any other radar-visual UFO case. Three ground radars at two locations plus an airborne radar—four radars in all, each operating at a different frequency, pulse repetition rate, etc.—combined, apparently, with the Venom pilot’s vision all detected something unknown in the same place at the same time. There is simply no way that any known sort of anomalous propagation effect could account for this. In fact, any explanation even remotely conceivable seems to demand the presence of some physical object in the air over Lakenheath on that August night in 1956. This is why the Condon Report states: “the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high”—and that was written before it was revealed in 1978 that the Neatishead RAF radar also tracked the same apparent target.
To this day, the Lakenheath-Bentwaters episode remains as one of the most puzzling UFO cases on record.
—RONALD D. STORY
Lawson, Alvin H. (b. 1929). Dr. Lawson was born and educated in northern California. He received his A.B. degree in 1952 from the University of California at Berkeley, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford, in 1958 and 1967 respectively.
Alvin Lawson
He was an English Professor at California State University, Long Beach, for more than thirty years. An unusual class he originated, “UFO Literature: The Rhetoric of the Unknown” (actually a course in rhetorical techniques) was developed in response to the 1960s call for more relevance in higher education. In the aftermath of the 1973 UFO flap, student interest was high and the class was first offered in the fall of 1974 and for ten years after. Lawson operated a UFO hotline in his home for research, and callers’ abduction claims led him to Dr. W.C. McCall, his longtime colleague. They carried out the 1977 Hypnosis of Imaginary Abductees study, which found that imaginary and real abduction narratives are indistinguishable.
Lawson also formulated the Birth Memories Hypothesis, which argues that abductions are nonphysical, archetypal fantasies in which the witness’ birth memories play a central role. Lawson is retired in Garden Grove where he lives with his wife of nearly half a century, watercolorist Barbara Slade Lawson.
E-mail:
[email protected]
Web site:
www.geocities.com/
Area51/Vault/6521
POSITION STATEMENT: I am a skeptic about abduction claims and an agnostic about UFO sightings. These are unconnected phenomena and neither one has much to do with extraterrestrial aliens. CE-3s are fantasy/hallucinations and are mental rather than physical experiences. UFOs are physically real but mysterious whatevers.
Dr. W.C. McCall and I carried out a decade of successful hypnotic research into CE-3 reports, including the Imaginary Abductee Study, all of which led to the Birth Memories Hypothesis. The BMH shows that abductions are archetypal fantasies in which witnesses’ birth memories play a central role. Fantasizing encourages access to birth memories. Every good CE-3 fantasy is rich in birth imagery, such as fetal humanoids, cervical doors (open from the middle), and vaginal/umbilical tunnels and tubes. Witnesses interpret their CE-3s as actual alien visitations but, like analogous mental phenomena such as shamans’ trances and near-death experiences, abductions are all in the mind.
CE-3s long ago stole the spotlight from UFO sighting reports because abduction yarns are better at satisfying our alien fantasies. Paradoxically, human contact with alialiens would be disastrous for the weaker side. We and our religions and cultures are not ready for bright and sly ETs, and viceversa. Though humans are made to wonder about what is out there, the wonder cannot be accounted for. Man’s drive toward the stars is more mysterious even than UFOs.
—ALVIN H. LAWSON
Levelland (Texas) landings The night of November 2-3, 1957, was one to remember for the folks of Levelland, a small oil and cotton town (population 10,000) located thirty-two miles west of Lubbock in northwest Texas. The Soviets had just launched Sputnik II one hour before the UFO events would begin around Levelland, but news of the launch had not yet reached the general public.
News of another kind was being created near the formerly obscure west Texas town, as one or more giant, glowing, eggshaped UFOs seemed to be playing games with motorists on the outskirts of town. During a two-and-one-half-hour period, duty officer A. J. Fowler at the Levelland Police Department would receive fifteen telephone calls—seven of which correlate remarkably well.
The first call was received at around 10:50 P.M. from farmhand Pedro Saucedo, who, along with a companion, Joe Salaz, observed a remarkable and frightening phenomenon. They were in a small truck along Route 116 about four miles west of Levelland, when a sudden flash of light drew their attention to a field just off the right of the road. Suddenly, the yellow-white light rose up out of the field, picked up speed, and “passed directly over the truck with a great sound and rush of wind. It sounded like thunder,” reported Saucedo, “and my truck rocked from the blast. I felt a lot of heat.” Saucedo described the “object” as “torpedo-shaped, like a rocket,” (Hall, 1964) about 200 feet long, and apparently “moving at about 600 to 800 miles per hour. (Hynek, 1972)
As the glowing object approached the truck, both the headlights and the engine failed. As the object departed in the direction of Levelland, the headlights came back on and the truck could be started without difficulty.
Officer Fowler didn’t know what to make of the report when Saucedo called in. Perhaps just a drunk, the patrolman thought. Then, about one hour later (shortly before midnight), Fowler received a second call, from another motorist later identified as Jim Wheeler, who had just experienced something similar. Wheeler was driving on Route 110, about fo
ur miles east of Levelland—i.e., the same general direction in which the UFO was headed when last seen by Saucedo—when he came upon a 200-foot, eggshaped thing sitting on the road in front of him. Wheeler said his lights and motor died also, and, as the strange glowing oval rose into the sky and blinked out, his headlights came back on.
The next call came at around midnight from Jose Alvarez, who was driving on Route 51, about eleven miles north of town. It was the same story again: He saw a glowing oval object sitting on the road in front of him, and his car’s headlights and engine failed. The “object” took off and his car returned to normal.
Then, at 12:05 A.M., a student from Texas Tech, Newell Wright, was driving on Route 116 when he experienced “motor trouble.” Getting out of the car, he saw ahead of him a large oval object, which he estimated to be about 125 feet across, glowing blue-green. After a few minutes, the strange object rose “almost straight up,” headed north, and quickly disappeared. The witness had no trouble restarting his car.
Frank Williams was the next unwitting victim of headlight and engine failure. The time was about 12:15 A.M., when he encountered a similar object on Route 51, close to where Alvarez had his experience. Williams said that the light was pulsating steadily, on and off, before rising into the air with a noise like thunder. As before, the car functioned normally once the UFO left.
By this time, Fowler had notified Sheriff Weir Clem, who began searching the area for the object (or objects) to see for himself.
The time of the next sighting was 12:45 A.M. Truck driver Ronald Martin, driving along Route 116 just west of Levelland, saw his highlights go out and felt his engine die “when a big ball of fire dropped on the highway.” (The A.P.R.O. Bulletin, November 1957) Martin noted that the object changed color from red-orange to blue-green as it lauded; and then to red-orange again when it took off.
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters Page 56
