UFO community

 

The following is a point of reflection on the current state of the UFO

community as it is being portrayed by some of the material that has been

circulating through Paranet.

                                    Brad Langton : 1 December 1988

------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Over the course of the last few months I have been watching the drama

unfold over the UFO enigma. In this time I have seen many examples of

thoughtful, deliberate dialog on a subject that is at the very least, highly

controvertial. Unfortunately, I have also seen examples of the very worst in

behavior exhibited by what I will call zealots within the UFO community.

Most recently this charge would have to be awarded to Bill Cooper who has

just uploaded one of the most animated and paradoxical documents I've yet

seen.

   While stating his allegience to the Republic, he has gone to extreme

lengths to discredit 90% of all the FOIA documents that have been tossed

around over the past few years. Additionally, Mr. Cooper states that he has

known that Majestic 12 was not a legitimate document. Mr. Cooper draws a

vieled inference regarding his association with John Lear who along with

himself "...know the real truth." I have to wonder why Mr. Cooper has become

so nervous as to run about proclaiming his allegience to the government

over and over again. I am also concerned about Mr. Cooper's claims that the

Aquarius and MJ-12 materials were "obviously a hoax" when those are the very

documents of "proof" that John Lear sent to me earlier in the year in

support of his hypothesis.

   Does Mr. Cooper want us to believe that he is being pressured from above

to defuse documents that are being widely referenced both in this network,

the UFO books, and the recent plethora of television specials? In a similar

vein, is he trying to set himself and John Lear as the GURUs of UFOlogy?

This is all very confusing to me, especially in light of the materials John

Lear sent me.

   Looking back over the Paranet message base dumps of the last few months,

I'm equally confused by the online behavior of Mr. Lear, Mr. Cooper, and

some others that were cooresponding with him at the time. I am in no way

surprised that Jim Speiser finally had to act to prevent total anarchy in

the message base!

   Here at Paranet Lambda, one of our users has attempted to cast a viel of

mystery around the removal of the B-49s (Flying Wings) from the Airforce

back in the '50s. I went on to cast a fictitious viel around the possible

"hidden agenda" of my BBS! Tongue in cheek, I think I have demonstrated how

being too anxious to find mystery where in fact, none exists, can easily be

constructed around ANYTHING.

   Jim referenced my perspective of "open-minded skepticism" in a mid

November post regarding the mission of Paranet. I would like to examine that

perspective at this time. Basically, I feel that there are clearly

mysterious circumstances surrounding many aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

Each incident must be examined critically with an open, rather than an adle

mind. This is to say that we do not procede from ANY premise except that

there is a strange event... only after examining the facts, and this can be

expert testimony, can we ascribe an S/P rating to the event. We should

NEVER eliminate traditional explanations or assume that every blinking light

is an extraterestrial craft. Likewise we should NEVER assume that ONLY

traditional explanations can possibly account for all UFO sightings or that

UFOs can NOT be extraterrestrial or even interdimensional in nature. The key

is to make NO assumptions that we can't place a probability on based on

testimony or physical evidence. Lear's initial approach of placing his

conclusions in the form of a hypothesis was faithful to this end.

Unfortunately, subsequent coorespondence produced other, less professional

responses and claims. We should never discourage hypotheses but we must

clarify them as such and not get carried away without reason.

   So where does this leave Paranet? In my understanding, we are to be a

clearing house for UFO and paranormal information. All material is worthy

of an initial investigation and subsequent debate. We should NOT be a

mirror of CSICOP. As I see it, CSICOP begins with the assumption that

everything is explainable in terms of commonly known phenomenon or basic

fakery. We don't want to assume that everything is automatically strange

and outside of our sphere of experience... we must be the middle ground. Jim

is doing a great job of mediating this fine line and is to be commended

for all of the tremendous effort that this takes. In my small way, I try

to do likewise here at Paranet Lambda, although I don't have the supurb

resources and contacts that Paranet Alpha has developed.

   Another possibility, and well within the scope of this network, is the

possibility that the EBEs are not necessarily from another planet, but

from another dimension or perhaps, even our own future. A recent article

presented within the physics community (who I am sure are revered by

CSICOP) states that it may in fact be theoretically possible to travel not

only forward, but BACKWARD in time! The philosophical implications here

are incredible and threaten to force us to completely alter our

perceptions of causality, religion, everything! This would also explain

why EBEs do NOT want to become visible to us, their past. See how easy it

is to present hypotheses? For the record, I am NOT proposing the above as

anything more than an intellectual exercise but I hope it makes my point

without ruffling too many feathers.

   Well, I've probably already said enough to become a controversy all my

own so I'll leave now and encourage you to give Paranet Lambda a call at

716-377-3985 and let me hear from you... I'm sure that some of you have

plenty to say regarding my ruminations. Lambda does support 2400 baud so

if money is a problem, as it is so often with me, compose a response

offline as I have here and upload it to Alpha or preferably to Alpha

AND Lambda. I look forward to hearing from you all!

Brad Langton  --<< Paranet Lambda >>--