UFO MAGAZINE: LEHMBERG ON CSICOP

I’ve decided that Alfred Lehmberg is the Keith Olbermann of anti-chronic skepticism.

Lehmberg, as many of you who read these UFO blogs know, is either respected and liked, or considered a “troublemaker” (At best. After all, he did win the
2006 Zorgy Award for ‘best UFO/paranormal troublemaker.’)

The usual division continues: the dysfunctional skeptics attack, and in typical fashion, respond with outrage when called on their stuff. Those that respond to the chronic skeptic’s actions are harassed, stalked, followed, insulted, mocked, hacked, lied to and lied about. One anti-UFO, chronic skeptic has a banner on his blog: The Lehmberg I Hate You Foundation, which doesn’t make sense to me, but then, much of the skepti-loons insults and humor is full of non-sequitors.
Another suffers from the paranoid delusion that I have “sent” Lehmberg to his blog to act up and “fight” on my behalf. (If only I had that kind of power! )

Others call him a loon, and worse. Even those who still can’t make up their minds if they’re in or out regarding UFOlogy don’t get it: they take issue and end up siding with the Pelicanists when it comes to Lehmberg. That’s not surprising though; for if they weren’t in the position of fence sitter and hill hopper they wouldn’t be so confused to begin with.

So the lances are still being thrown at the rest of us, and when we pick them up and throw them back, we’re accused of “name calling”
on the same level of a racist flinging slurs, and stirring up trouble simply because, (they accuse, and falsely) we have nothing better to do. All kinds of arrogant, paranoid, and defensive behaviors rise up like some ugly, slime covered, multi headed sea monster. Like some ugly, slime covered, multi headed possessed sea monster, for they do not give up. Not ever. They trail behind them grudges, old insults and injuries, and when they can’t reach back there to pull one out, they simply lie. They may flag, but they never quit.


A recent program on
20/20 (which I never watch, but just happened to catch the last few minutes of recently) reenacted the famous psychological Milgram experiment (That is a whole other topic for a very different column.) Among other things, the new experiment suggested that a moral/ethical voice, a positive voice, even if in the minority, can change things for the better. That one lone voice can change the actions of others. That’s a very good thing of course, and in the context of UFO Land, a reason to encourage others, as I always say, to speak up. To tell their stories, their experiences. And to speak up against chronic skepticism.

There have been some recent comments on pathological skepticism from other bloggers,(including myself) - it’s about time. Daniel Brenton’s


An Open Letter to the UFO Community is one.
In the January issue of UFO Magazine, Alfred Lehmberg’s column An Alien View, is titled CSICOPING a Feeling. (Of course, the recent news is that CSICOP, in a sort of Keystone Cops kind of move, renamed itself CSI )

Whenever one of us goes on about all the types of skeptics; all the qualifiers and modifiers: skeptibunkies, chronic skeptic, fanatical skeptic, skepti loon, pathological skepticism, irrational rationalism, etc. one thing that always happens is the knee jerk denial. “Why, I’m a skeptic! How dare you call me that?!” and no matter how many times you explain to the hopping little Pelicanist that “if the shoe doesn’t fit, don't wear it” they can’t hear it. All the games played around the disingenuous denial that they are a skeptic are just that: games. Designed to distract, deny, and most of all, discourage.

Lehmberg writes:

”True skeptics are never the issue,reader.

I know that, many of you know that, but the ones that need to know that don’t. Skeptics, Lehmberg writes, are a good thing. But it is not skeptics he is holding up for the thick minded thugs they are; it is, to repeat:

”Skeptics[tic are not to be confused with scurrilous skepti-bunkies, ponderous Pelicanists, or insipid CSICOPians and scurvy klasskurtxians.”

Lehmberg addresses many aspects of CSICOP and their lie that they are concerned with skeptical thought:

”Since the very beginning and as typified by the Dennis Rawlins imbroglio over the StarBaby paper, any research critical of or in opposition to that CSICOPian party-liners remains remarkably non-included in these not so efficacious bibliographies. Why was StarBaby published in FATE Magazine and not in the Skeptical Inquirer?

Good questions. There are more:

Why can’t Dr David Rudiak get a peer review for his Mogul-balloon investigative work in the same canted CSICOPian rag? Frank Feschino for Shoot Them Down? Stanton Friedman for MAJIC? Robert Hastings for UFOS and Nuclear Missiles? Richard Dolan for UFOs and the National Security State?”

As Lehmberg notes, “why indeed.”

Excellent article. And UFO Magazine overall this month is very good; in fact, since they went back to the newsprint and once a month format, the magazine is better than ever.

DON'T USE THAT RENSE

Jerome Clark, who I do respect, has been criticized recently by some for his per snickety comment that Mac Tonnies (Posthuman Blues blog) term “cryptoterrestrial hypothesis’ is “pretentious.” I agree with that criticism; it did seem huffy, to say the least. But Jerome Clark did say something I appreciated concerning Jeff Rense:The Rense site on UFO Updates.

I haven’t checked out the Rense site in awhile; and I’ve realized I don’t need to. The same kind of information,sans the purple tinted yellow hyperbole, can be found on other sites that don’t stoop to anti-Semitic hysteria, thinly veiled misogynist columnists, and paranoid xenophobic articles.

And Clark is correct in saying that UFO and Fortean studies have always had a taint of anti-Semitism.

You are 82% in tune with the paranormal!

 

You believe to a certain point, but you don't see the paranormal in everyday life like true believers do.

How Much Are You In Tune With The Paranormal?
Create a Quiz

(Thanks to Lesley of the Debris Field Blog; that's where I stole the quiz)

LOCAL RADIO STATION DEMOTES COAST TO COAST

If you live in the Eugene-Springfield, Oregon area you know that AM radio station KPNW replaced the first hour of Coast to Coast with -- of all people -- Lars Larson. (Larson is a right wing radio dj) From 8:00pm to 11:00pm we get Lars. C2C follows. (On Saturday C2C airs at 10:00pm.)

Why they did this, who knows. But if you’re in the area, or even if you’re not, letting them know this is unacceptable would be appreciated.

A few years ago, KUGN, the rival AM radio station, pulled Jeff Rense from its programming. I'm not fan of Rense, but I did like the fact that we had two Fortean/UFO programs -- at the same time -- to choose from. If I didn’t like the guest on one, I could tune to the other.

Now we only have one, C2C, and not the whole program at that.

CHRONIC SKEPTIC CAPERS

(credit goes to writer and Fortean Colin Bennett who coined the term "chronic skeptic")



There’s a handful of anti-UFO, chronic skeptic/mega skeptic/skepti loon blogs out there. Usually it’s best to take the usual daily lurk and move on. Some days -- blame it on bio rhythms or solar flares -- you just feel compelled to call them on their silliness. Today’s one of those days.

From the UFO Iconoclast blog, we have this comment on the O’Hare UFO sighting:

Whether or not a bona fide UFO was sighted remains to be determined.

Since no one seems to know what it was/is, it’s a UFO. Maybe they believe the modifier “bona fide” forgives their clumsy attempt at splitting that poor hair even further.

Then there’s interesting choice of gender specific analogies:

The episode has become a laughing stock, and further emasculates the UFO phenomenon,

Hmmm. They really are taking this to, er, heart.
And this:

which remains as elusive as ever, and now relegated to the bottom of society’s concerns, except as a joke stimulator.

They’re reading the right book but are on the wrong page. UFOs will always be elusive. It’s also always been at the “bottom of society's concerns.” The infrastructure won’t allow anything else. And yes, UFOs -- outside of entertainment -- are a “joke stimulator.” Always has been, always will. They have it backwards; the reasons for this are related, but it’s basically a defense mechanism of society that causes these perceptions, not UFOlogy’s “behavior.” (See George P. Hansen:
The Trickster and the Paranormal.)

And there’s this; the mantra of the chronic skeptic, who believes with blind, fanatical faith, that anyone “pro” UFO is a loser:

The UFO community’s delusion of a resurrected interest in UFOs is as misplaced as the all the copy being invested in by UFO diehards and persons seeking their daily dose of silliness (to enliven their boring, petty lives.)

And to that last comment we say: “pot calling kettle black.”

Sex and UFOs

Before you say "Hey, not you too, I just read at least two other blogs that wrote about this" I say:

You all heard it here first dahlings!

Sex and UFOs (Don't know why the image is broken, sorry for that.)

An Open Letter to the UFO Community

From Daniel Brenton's 'Meaning of Existence blog.' As I said to him the other day, he says it well and clearly. And the more UFO bloggers that say this the better. (I also told him I say similar things all the time here; I'm just usually crankier.)

An Open Letter to the UFO Community.

I MISSED IT!

UFO OVER CHICAGO’S O’HARE AIRPORT

I don’t mean I missed the UFO over Chicago, of course I did, I’m in Oregon; wasn’t in any airport at the time.

I mean I missed the article my husband so thoughtfully put aside for me the other day. Yes, our local paper, the Eugene Register Guard, actually had an item in the paper on the UFO in Chicago. And just when I recently commented that the local papers, and it seems many papers, haven’t been printing UFO items in recent years. Not like they used to. (post September 11th?)

So my darling puts the paper on the ottoman so I’ll find it when I get home from work, say “oh, how nice of him!” read it with glee, cut it out, and put it in my files. But instead I walk in, see the paper left out, and put it in the recycling, which he puts out that night. Trash came and took it away the next morning.

Encouraging to know that the newspapers around here still print UFO stories.

This UFO sighting is interesting of course; as, as always, the really Very Silly Chronic Skeptic Nonsense going on over this on places like the JREF. To be expected, to be sure.

They're not sure what was hanging out for several minutes in the restricted airspace, but they are upset that no one in power has taken the matter seriously.

A United spokeswoman said there is no record of the UFO report. She said United officials do not recall discussion of any such incident.

"There's nothing in the duty manager log, which is used to report unusual incidents," said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. "I checked around. There's no record of anything."

Reminds me of the response, or, lack of response, during the Phoenix Lights event. (yet later the United employees were asked to draw pictures of what they saw, and not discuss it.)

And yes, one official had an explanation: it was a weather balloon.

MORE BOOKS!

Still reading Colin Bennett's Looking for Orthon, his book on Adamski. Which, among other things, has me curious to read Timothy Goods book on Adamski.

More Christmas books arrived today; Greg Bishop's Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, and Nick Redfern's Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at The Heart of the Roswell Story.

This should keep me busy! And there's one more still to come; Redfern's Spies book.

ZORGY AWARD WINNERS

The votes have been counted, and Mac Tonnies, author of Post Human Blues blog, won for "best UFO blog" with Kevin Randles coming in second for his blog A Different Perspective, and me, dahlings, came in third, but that's fine! As they say, it was a pleasure and an honor to be nominated.

Congratulations to Tonnies; his blog is an excellent one.

And congratulations to Alfred Lehmberg, of Alien View blog, for "best troublemaker." (!)


The Zorgy awards was the idea of Kimball of blog. Other side of Truth" blog. You can read more about them there.

TIME: A SOMEWHAT CRYPTIC AND PERSONAL COMMENT

Hmm, in my universe, "three weeks" does not equal fifteen months. Oh well.

WELL, GLAD THAT’S ALL CLEARED UP!

"Skeptics longs [sic] knew (scratch that ... long suspected) that the very nature of UFO sightings -- always occurring away from urban areas . . ."

But no matter, because:

” . . .UFOs don’t exist.”

And here's the quote of the week, on why one would hoax a UFO photo:

"Stories also tended to make girls scared, and thus with a little alcohol, they could be hit upon."

RIP: UFO Sightings. b. 1946, d. 2006

FURTHUR ORTHON

image source:
http://searchwarp.com/swa2005.htm

FURTHER ORTHON

A bit of More From Orthon; this time it’s synchronicity.

Ken Kesey, (author of Sometimes a Great Notion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, etc.) lived around here. There’s a statue of him on the mall; lots of people who knew him, or say they knew him, all that stuff. Yesterday's item in the local paper, the Eugene Register-Guard, had
this little entry on Ken Kesey’s estate their efforts regarding “the bus:” I don’t know if this opening sentence is intentional:

Dreams of getting author Ken Kesey's original psychedelic bus, Furthur, back on the road again have hit a pothole.

But it is appreciated.

Then I pick up my copy of Colin Bennett’s Looking for Orthon (his book on Adamski) and am amused to read this:

“ . . . prototype hippies arrived to empty the larder and spend their time contemplating the infinite than work. This was the time of Ken Kesey of course; and if Adamski had not been of a different generation to him and his followers, perhaps lights and amplifier would have strewn the sides of Mt. Palomar.

But not even Ken Kesey had spaceman dropping in uninvited for dinner. - (Looking for Othon p 50)

Related item: the news that Carl Sagan smoked pot. I like what

Greg Bishop, on his UFO Mystic blog has to say about that, and asks the very good question: “why did Sagan remain such a “dick” about the UFO question?”

I’M BORED WITH THE BORED; BUT HAPPY NEW YEAR ANYWAY

One observation I’ve made while journeying through UFO Land is that there are a handful of active, yet bored, anti-UFOists. Yes, they’re skeptics, but it’s more than that. Some are ex-UFO investigators/researchers themselves. Years ago, they started UFO newsletters, magazines, journals, groups, meetings, presentations. They investigated local UFO sightings. They researched UFO history and became familiar with the UFO cases and participants. Others never were so involved; that was, and is, beneath them. This never stopped them from commenting on UFOs, even writing books about them. While there are differences between these two; the skeptic who sneers at it all, and the ex-wonderer/wanderer who now sneers at it all, they have some things in common. And that’s boredom, with a capitol B. Bored, bored bored. They are so damn bored.

They’re so bored, they have to write about how bored they are, and tell others about how bored they are. They have the need to express their ennui with UFOlogy to others; but that’s not enough, they have to try and get others to come over ot their side. They have no qualms about being insulting to pro-UFOers. They think it’s okay for some reason; probably because, aside from being bored, they’re arrogant. They’re arrogant, because in their mind, they’re right. Their rightness gives them the right (heh) to be obnoxious towards others they deem unworthy. Those that haven’t yet turned toward the UFO side are ripe for picking; aiming their pleas at the neutral, the undecided, the newbie, the Bored ask them to come on over and join them in their anti-UFO, fanatical rationalism.

These bored types respond to anything UFO-ish with a big yawn. They often qualify their bored responses with the typical refrain of many a skeptic: “oh, I wish it would be true. I wish we’d all get the answer that a new study, a new case, a new witness, will tell us what UFOs are, and why, and from where they’ve come.”

Even if they truly did wish that, one wonders why they’re wasting so much time with telling us how bored they are.

A few of the bored blogs: (by no means an inclusive list. They differ slightly in other ways, and, as noted, there are plenty of others that incorporate even more bored bashing, but I’m not here to review them, analyze them, or get into anything. Simply point out the blatant and obvious: they’re bored, and I’m bored with their boredom.)

Aliens Ate My Buick
UFO Reality
UFO Iconoclast
Updates UFO Updates
Magonia


I’m bored with these boring bored bores. Let’s hope the New Year brings us world peace and freedom from poverty. And freedom from boring bored anti-UFO pundits.

Sadly, the chances of the first two becoming a reality are close to none, as is the latter wish.

But as I always point out my dahlings, within my somewhat cynical and pessimist nature (though I prefer to use the word ‘practical’) (and at least I’m not bored) there’s always hope, a glimmering desire stronger than the current reality. And so, I, along with so many others, continue to do the things needed to bring about these changes.

And with that, Happy New Year everyone!

MORE FROM ORTHON: CLASSISM

I’ve just decided to up and post little gems from Colin Bennett’s Looking for Orthon,his book on George Adamski, as I come upon them. Which is a book everyone who considers themselves serious about UFOlogy should read. (I know, we all have our “must read UFO books list” right?)

One of the common folklore items about Adamski was that he was an immigrant hot dog vendor. This is often said in the same context as dismissing Adamski. Sure, he’s a lunatic, goes the thinking, but if you have any doubt about that, geez, he was just an immigrant hot dog/hamburger vendor.

The fact is, Adamski often worked with his wife in a restaurant operated and owned by his close friend Alice K. Wells. This restaurant (not simple ‘hot dog’ stand) was the stopping place for people going, or coming back from, the observatory up the road to Mt. Palomar.

Regarding the common and all too frequent meme that Adamski “sold hot dogs” (or the variant; “hamburger” vendor) Bennett cites Lou Zinnsstag, who couldn’t understand the need to dismiss Adamski, based on his alleged occupation. She wondered:

”why, in a democracy, this fact did so much to damage his image.”

It’s the American way, isn’t it? Work hard, the idea that manual labor is good, honest labor, that working at all is better than free loading. We're told that, or were, (I know I was, probably reality's beginning to set in now in these times, the further away we are from Post WWII era fantasties.) The opposite is true of course: you aren't any better off, and there is nothing dignified about living in poverty or working your bones bare til you drop.

Bennett writes, of the slams against Adamski’s occupation to “prove” that he was full of crap:

Perhaps the world still thinks as Shakespeare thought, that only those at the top of the social scale are capable of having intensely significant experiences. “

Maybe it irked the privileged classes on some level, those who prided themselves on being ‘educated’ and in a higher economic bracket, that these experiences didn’t happen to them. And that if they did, they don’t dare tell about it, for fear of being ostracized from their peer groups and their social class.

This notion that Adamski was a no account working stiff at a dead end hamburger/hot dog stand still exists. I’ve come across this snide dismissal from many an anti-UFO individual. As Bennett tells us, this kind of thinking was alive as recently as 1999:

Naturally enough, Adamski was always very sensitive about the “hamburger vendor” title some popular newspapers had given him. Even as late as 1999, the British X-Factor magazine condescendingly refers to his “hot dog stand.” From this remark, we assume that for sound philosophy, first-class restaurants are absolutely essential.”

(And that last line is one of the many reasons why I love Bennett.)

It doesn’t need saying (but of course I’ll say it anyway) that it’s become a cliché in our culture to make fun of the hick, the hillbilly, the trailer park occupant, -- the working class, the poor, the working poor, those without a higher education (or those who are assumed to not have a higher education,) the blue and pink collar workers of our country, and point to them and deride them when they tell us they’ve seen a UFO, or experienced some other anomalous event.

And yet, it is to this group of people that most often the anomalous occurs, it seems. If they do occur to the upper classes -- or those who would like to see themselves that way -- the elite, the ones with college degrees, the scientists and white collar professionals, they are keeping quiet for the most part.

There are exceptions of course; like commercial pilots, a lot of military people who’ve come forward, etc.

But the idea that it’s low life hicks and/or mere “hamburger” slingers that see UFOs or encounter the weird, is still around. Their stories are too fantastic to be believed, but we know that somewhere, it’s possible, it’s even likely, and so we tell ourselves that it’s only the unimportant in society that see these things to make us feel better. By negating the experiences of one class, we suppress the possibility of having those experiences ourselves.

__________

For more on UFOs and class, see:

Dr. Kinsey, UFOs and the Lower Class