Paracrap

Earlier this week I was strolling the forums and wound up over at the Paracast. I noticed that one guy had started a thread and was relating his UFO experiences. Nowadays I don't contribute much at the Paracast forum because there are a bunch of people just out to debunk matters, in my opinion. The guy forwarding his UFO sightings got one reply that I just have to show here. Here's the reply;

1) Never signal a UFO. You are just asking for trouble. See The Allagash Abduction, etc.
2) If you see a UFO don't tell anyone. It never works out and you will no doubt tell the wrong people.
3) Never touch a UFO or anything that you think may have contacted a UFO.
4) If you happen to be lucky enough to take a picture or video of a UFO keep it to yourself. See 2 above.
5) If you are contacted by UFO occupants don't believe anything they tell you.
6) Never approach a landed or hovering UFO.
7) Never submit to hypnotic regression in an attempt to regain lost memory about a UFO or anything else for that matter.
8. Contact with UFO occupants and/or cooperation with them could be considered collusion with foreign powers and you could also be considered an accomplice in any crimes they commit. Although this has never happened to my knowledge these legal ramifications of contact seem only logical. There does seem to be a real problem in "reporting" such an event in an attempt to avoid these problems though which gets you back to number 2, "Don't tell anyone." Jim Sparks is a good example of someone who, if his story is true, by his own confession is an accomplice colluding with foreign powers to commit kidnapping, theft, and human experimentation and should be the subject of a criminal investigation. He is either a fraud or a "traitor." (Sorry Jim but that is the reality of the situation)

Well, the first question that came to my mind when reading these "guidelines" is; 'how is an independent, objective UFO researcher able to collect data when everyone would abide by the rules laid out here?' Following these rules basically ensures that there wont be matters to investigate, so the proposition, in my book, is disingenuous from the start. Don't tell, don't touch, don't ask. That's what it basically amounts up to.

1) Signaling a UFO is not a guarantee that you'll have bad experiences. There are lots of people that reportedly signaled a UFO with no negative consequence whatsoever. Most of the times nothing happened. In a few cases, if you delve in to the literature, something bad happened. In my opinion this proposition is false.
2) Don't relate your UFO experience. Wow, what a proposition. Sure, it can have negative consequences. Your employer might take it the wrong way. UFO believers might run away with it and then there are the debunkers that might attack your character. For the field itself that investigates the UFO phenomenon it is detrimental if no one would report a sighting. Taking that in to account I personally find this proposition totally false.
3) Don't touch a UFO. Might be correct, I'm not sure. Some folks (in UFO literature) have mentioned that they were warned not to touch a UFO. What I find strange is that this particular item is handled like something radioactive. Doesn't have to be.
4) Keep pictures and video to yourself. Totally false. See 2 above.
5) Don't believe anything a UFO occupant would tell you. Hmm. How about healthy skepticism and discernment instead of debunking something from the get go?
6) Don't approach a UFO. Think most people would go the other direction anyway. I would say: trust your intuition and go from there.
7) Yes, the debate revolving around hypnotic regression. Difficult. Maybe people should be informed about the pro's and cons before they take a session and make the judgement call themselves.
8) Having contact with UFO occupants can have legal consequences. Another disingenuous proposition because aliens are currently not recognized in any court of law (and probably wont be in the foreseeable future), which makes the argument totally irrelevant.

Sadly enough, in my opinion the Paracast forums have become a meeting place of a bunch of people set on debunking the UFO phenomenon. There are probably many reasons for this. Dissatisfaction with not finding answers, research that progresses outside their comfort zones, or maybe just plain old fear of the unknown. Discouraging proper UFO research (as shown above) might be the next step for these folks. Personally, I don't want any part in that.

Forum Epiphany

I've been visiting a forum lately where there was an entire thread about people in ufology, who, well, basically sucked and should be put in a 'hall of shame' on a certain website. Many forum participants threw in their 2 cents and the list of people that suck grew quite large. And I was thinking to myself, 'are you really that much better?' 'How would you fare if your life was really scrutinized?' A sketch came to mind from the late Richard Jeni who brilliantly showed that it's best to take a hard look at yourself first, before you criticize others because something always can be found on you as well.

The UFO Police

For 3,5 years now I've been a member of the Paracast forum which of course is related to the internet radio show the Paracast with hosts Gene Steinberg and David Biedney. The hosts themselves have done marvellous work with their paranormal talk show which can be downloaded for free. I don't have many remarks to make about the show itself, both Steinberg and Biedney are excellent interviewers and keep their listeners captivated. David Biedney does have a temper which shows itself on rare occasions, but don't we all to some degree? My remarks here are more directed at the Paracast forum which in my opinion changed over time from a 'everything is up for discussion' to a situation where a group of posters more or less police information regarding the UFO phenomena.

On a forum you'll always have people from all walks of life and with different opinions. That's only natural. It's also natural to disagree with other contributors on a forum, that's what it's for in the first place. A forum is a meeting place for the discussion of questions for public interest. That's straight out of the dictionary. A forum becomes something else when certain types of information are immediately rejected by a group of posters holding similar views.
It's one thing to be critical, it's another thing to be mindlessly critical. The latter meaning that you already have an automated response to certain issues without thoroughly examining what the issue is about or what the other party is really saying. And this is what has been happening on the Paracast forum for quite some time now, in my opinion. When I forward a UFO report related to a case and all I get in return is " I gotta puke", that's hardly a rational discussion.

The group of members I'm referring to also plays the credibility angle in great frequency. UFO researchers rather quickly receive a label 'credible' or 'not credible'. I suppose that's also a natural thing to do since ufology isn't an exact science. Naturally researchers who publish similar views to theirs receive the label 'credible' while others who go off the reservation are 'not credible.' To solidify the (precomposed?) position that some researchers are 'not credible' something negative has to be found on them that will stick. When they make a mistake, that's something you can use to one's hearts content.
The duplicity here is what kind of mistake has been made, (if any). Is it an honest mistake, a serious mistake or a mistake intended to deceive? From my perspective that's not really an issue when it comes to folks labeling UFO researchers 'not credible.' For them it's a matter of moving forward with their opinion while not examining or questioning it. Often no attention is given to the good work some of the 'not credible' researchers have done. When you're really objective you weigh the positive against the negative. More importantly, aren't people allowed to make a mistake in the field of the unknown?

What's even more disturbing is that the credibility issue is taken to the next level. 'Guilty by association.' When researcher A who is credible, is (even remotely) connected to researcher B who is not credible, then that reflects badly on researcher A. Like researcher B is carrying a deadly contagious pathogen which has to be avoided at all costs. The connection between A and B can in fact be trivial, for example they can both attend the same UFO conference. That doesn't imply they agree with each others work. Yet the suggestion is made if A associates himself with B, then that will have bad consequences. Isn't that a kind of intellectual blackmail? Remember what we are talking about here. We are talking about ufologists here, not neo Nazis. Practically all things in ufology are theoretical and open to interpretation.

I fear that the Paracast forum will continue on its current polarising path, shutting out alternative ideas until a point of stagnation is reached. Having a determined group that basically acts like the UFO police will accomplish exactly that. Maybe that's also a natural process but that's one I don't want to take part in. In my opinion forums are there to learn from each other and hopefully we all get a little wiser at the end of the day. Maybe I'm an idealist stating that and for believing in freedom of speech. Maybe the bottom line is that we all (myself included) need to get a better understanding of that elusive concept - agree to disagree.

Tiresome Cranks

""Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false.[1] A "cranky" belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted truth as to be ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate an often futile task.

Virtually universal characteristics of cranks include:
1. Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts.
2. Cranks insist that their alleged discoveries are urgently important.
3. Cranks rarely if ever acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial.
4. Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, and often appear to be uninterested in anyone else's experience or opinions.
In addition, many cranks
1. seriously misunderstand the mainstream opinion to which they believe that they are objecting,
2. stress that they have been working out their ideas for many decades, and claim that this fact alone entails that their belief cannot be dismissed as resting upon some simple error,
3. compare themselves with Galileo or Copernicus, implying that the mere unpopularity of some belief is in itself evidence of plausibility,
4. claim that their ideas are being suppressed, typically by secret intelligence organizations, mainstream science, powerful business interests, or other groups which, they allege, are terrified by the possibility of their allegedly revolutionary insights becoming widely known,
5. appear to regard themselves as persons of unique historical importance." (From Wikipedia.)

For some years now I've been a moderator on a Yahoo UFO forum. Well, not 24-7 of course but I logged in when I had the time and energy for it. There were also times when I was absent for many months due to family circumstances and illness. During that time as a moderator I noticed a decline of sorts. There are always arguments of course and differences of opinion regarding Ufological matters but what I failed to notice was a more sinister plot by person(s) best described as crank(s). Maybe 'disnformation agents' or 'agent provocateurs' could apply just as easily.
Just recently I started looking back on that forum and in its archives, also focusing on the times when I was away. This endeavour was charged by the discovery that there were many blogs around - highly criticising the forum I was moderating for. Those blogs, around 8 to 10 of them in total, gave me the appearance that one or two persons were behind them. The layout was often the same, they shared the same articles, they were all 'monetised' and to top it off there were links redirecting to the other blogs. Names by the author however differed in some places.
Naturally those blogs gave me the impression that someone had it in for the forum and I recalled that in the past some persons were put on moderation or were banned when they repeatedly broke the rules or misbehaved themselves. So I began digging in the forum archives starting with the names that were visible on those blogs. Well, it didn't take me long to find the right suspect.

One name was indentical to a blog author that criticises the forum. I started reading what that person posted and what they were writing about. While you may think that UFO believers are of the 'feel good' kind, some folks are just the opposite. The person who caught my attention had a very dark, nihilistic view. He acknowledged that UFOs were there but pretty much everything else was wrapped in a dark blanket. He was so disturbing to other folks (who got upset with him), that he was put on moderation which means that his posts had to be approved first.
I continued to read the posts in the archives and quickly discovered another poster (using an internet alias) who held the same views. Looking at what he wrote, what words he used, what topics he liked to discuss and what kind of ideology he adhered to, it didn't take me long to figure out this was the same person. This new persona was a bit more cautious, probably because he didn't want to be discovered, but maintained his views allbeit not so strongly as before. He was also nicer to some other folks on the forum. He made a minor adjustment to his name and continued pushing people's buttons until his ideology was so apparent to other folks that he had to admit he was the previous poster that caused the disruption in the first place.
He was immediately banned from the forum for not following the rules and being a disruptive element. The same day he was banned he reconnected to the forum under yet another alias. This time a woman's name. I discovered that in retrospect because over time his method operandi became apparent again. As of this writing I found out that this person used 8 aliases in one year and there's a good chance I missed a few.

When I was aware of what that shady person had done on the forum combined with his scathing blogs, I decided to post on the forum and make people conscious of what had been going on and who was behind the 'anti-movement'. Well, should have known of course that that person was also a cyberstalker because in one hour I received an email followed by 20 more in the next 24 hours. While half of those emails were from different addresses, I couldn't help to think that most of them were made by the same person again.
I received many emails referring to his blog posts and why our forum and which it stands for basically sucks. Not a single remark was made of his dealings in the past on the forum. He invited me to his own Yahoo club which with some irony has the word 'rational' in the title. Next I continued to press him (in emails) for acknowledgement that he used so many aliases even while after he was banned. I showed him all the information that made denial practically impossible and finally he admitted that he was the one. Rather amazingly he showed no guilt or remorse with his confession, quite the contrary, it was almost like he was proud of it.
Reluctantly I joined his forum in the hope I could talk some sense into him and avoid recurring incidents on the forum I was moderating for. I guess he knew what time it was because he avoided having a discussion with me but he did continue presenting his blog posts and ideology. Other members of his Yahoo club were more willing to discuss matters but to my dismay a number of those folks held some of the ideas as him. It's been almost 2 weeks now but there's hardly getting through to that man. He sees nothing but his own preconceived notions and reasonable arguments don't sink in. That's ultimately very tiresome.

Reading the posts he made in a years time I can make some conclusions. He likes to debate people but mainly to display his own convictions. He basically doesn't want answers or theories from someone else. He needs an audience. (I should have written 'needs' in capital letters.) He can be nice and courteous but that's mainly to facilitate his need for an audience and it's also prevention from being banned. He likes to bait people into a particular discussion, push their buttons and inject his own ideology. When receiving criticism he replies in anger claiming the other person is filled with hate. When confronted with his own methods, he turns to stone.
I think that qualifies as being a Crank.