Update on: More New Mexico Inspired Work

Update: larger images, and more of my artwork in general, can be seen here: ArtWanted.com

I don't often post non-UFO items here, but sometimes I do. Global warming, the "war" (occupation), animals, some politics, for example. And after all, it is all connected. The piece below on the UFO sighting in Shiprock inspired me to post three more of my New Mexico inspired paintings. I hope you enjoy them.

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Another Southwest, acrylic on canvas, 2005



Coming Back, acrylic on canvas, Regan Lee 2006


Before I Got There, acrylic on canvas, Regan Lee 2004

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Shiprock, New Mexico UFO

Shiprock, New Mexico, by Regan Lee 2004 acrylic on canvas

From Brian Vike's HBCC UFO reporting site: a UFO seen in Shiprock, New Mexico. Interesting comment by the witness of feeling "drained" the next day. The sighting was reported in August of 2005, but posted February 16, 2007.

New Mexico is a beautiful state. I spent a couple of days there about three years ago and ever since, have been wanting to go back. I'm much more of a water/ocean/coastal woods type of person, but I can see myself in New Mexico. I think there is something magical, or mystical, indeed about the place. (Which doesn't seem to do a thing for the blatant bigotry I witnessed there. Not everyone is a New Age happy shiny person.)

As many a UFO writer has wondered; are UFOs "attracted" in particular to places like this? Are they a product of such places, or do they come to these places because of the "energy?" Assuming of course they're something other than man made objects.

Okay, I'm beginning to sound too New Agey for my own good. I'll stop now.

Squeaking 'Alien' Creature: Guitarfish Fish

On the very excellent blog BioFort, Scott Maruna's blog, is an item on the "alien" Russian fish. Er, alien. No, really, it's a fish. A guitarfish.

Weird looking creatures. I know I'd seen them somewhere, as I mentioned in the article on UFO Digest. I thought it might have been a skate; others think sturgeon. Sturgeon or pike always seem to be the explanation for weird things in the water; for Ogo Pogo, Champ, Nessie. That, or giant rotting salmon corpses, as in the case of Nessie. Yes, there really was a mega-skeptic that offered that theory to explain Nessie of Loch Ness.

LAST WORD ON ROBERT A. LUCA, JR.

As I wrote earlier, it’s obvious he’s a troubled person. Knowing a bit more about him from various sources, combined with the overall tone of his website, I think it’s best for UFO researchers to ignore him.

What’s sad about this -- aside from the unhappiness and negative energy this man is going through, and, seems to inflict on others -- is the fact this “revelation” is being used by many anti-UFOists to say “Ha! It was all just a hoax!”

Nothing of the kind, of course. And those who use the words of Ray Luca, Jr. to “prove” that the Betty Andreason Luca experience was a “hoax” reveal their lack of knowledge, and thinking abilities.

For these two reasons: the innate sadness of another human being, Ray Luca, and,the fact this proves nothing, nothing at all regarding the veracity of Betty’s experiences, serious UFO researchers and students should just put this to rest.

Of course, this is all just my opinion. As the good Lesley said recently in her article
“What Am I?” for her Grey Matters column over on Binnall of America, I’m just babbling.

As we all are.

But, I don’t think I’ll be babbling about this topic any more.

'Sky Lanterns:' A Few Thoughts On A Non-Issue

A few items have been appearing about the ‘UFOs’ that are really balloons, or lanterns. Sky Lanterns , or ‘glo-laterns’ are some terms for them. You can buy them on-line. Popular, and used at parties, weddings, celebrations, etc. these lighted orange balloons light up the night skies with (what I assume) is a delightful display.

At first, there were some misidentifications. Not knowing what they were; balloons, they were considered “UFOs.” Which, taken literally, they were. Very quickly, everyone realized they weren’t flying saucers from Mars, or anything paranormal, alien, or weird; just pretty lights with a prosaic purpose.

People have been making and releasing lights in the sky for decades. Pranksters, hoaxers, have been playing with candles, lights, clear garbage bags, etc. for a long time just to goof around.

And if you, or I, saw some odd lights in the sky, and couldn’t readily identify it, it’s a UFO. What’s wrong with that? What else are we to think? Of course it’s a UFO. It’s unidentified, and we don’t know what it is. Are we to ignore it and move on? Is that what the dominant paradigm wants us to do? So big deal, it turns out it’s a sky lantern. No harm. Good to know.

But some feel it’s important to go on about this non-issue and beat us about the head with the obvious. Sometimes I feel like I really am living in Alice Land. Up is down, mountains are molehills, molehills are mountains, the elephant in the room has just stomped on your dog and no one mentions it. We’re immersed in minutia while ignoring the huge big great immense awful mysterious lying deceitful poisoning wondrous stuff out there. Black is white, green is pink, and people get intellectually bent out of shape over nothing, while ignoring meatier issues.

And all this while, a lot of people want One Big Final Answer to Everything, so we can all go back to bed.

As if that will stop anything. Once we the Big Final Answer to Everything, surely that will only bring up more questions.

Red Ice Radio; Trickster's Realm

Tim Binnall, creator of the Binnall of America website (where he very kindly publishes my column Tricksters Realm twice a month,along with Lesley of Debris Field, Khyron, and others) and interviewer himself of many a solid UFOlogist, like Stanton Friedman, etc. (his latest with John Greenwald Jr. was very good) was interviewed himself recently.

You can listen to the interview on the Red Ice site.

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This week's Tricksters Realm:
You can read my latest piece for Binnall of America on my Trickster's Realm column, where I say "thanks" to all those out there who give us so much UFO news, resources, etc. and virtually for free, using their own monies in order to give us these things. Taking Things for Granted,

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New UFO Blog: UFO Media Matters

Just found this blog: UFO Media Matters, author is Joseph Capp. From what I can tell, it's only been up since last month. Lots of good items over there.

UFOlogy in Russia: Development and Review

A bit of a tie-in to my recent piece on the Russian "alien" eaten by fishermen; THE DEVELOPMENT OF UFOLOGY IN RUSSIA,UFO AND POLITICS
Several Episodes in the 40-Year History of Soviet UFOlogy
by Lev Chulkov March 1993, over on Aileen Garoutte's blog, UFO Experiences.

Aileen Garoutte is in Washington state, and "retired as Director of the UFOCCI (Ufo Contact Center International) " but still retains an interest in UFOs, as her blog shows.

SICK AD ON GOOGLE SQUEAKY THING FROM THE DEEP

Over on UFO Digest, where my article (see below) on the "mysterious" creature pulled from the deep was eaten by hungry fishermen in Rostove, Russia, there is embedded a 'Google Sense' ad. An ad for "Bear hunting tours' in Russia.

Anything to do with canned huntes, or so-called trophy hunting, makes me ill. And I was sad to see that.

Squeaking Alien Eaten: UFOs and High Strangeness in Rostov, Russia

My recent piece for UFO Digest on the "alien" creature eaten by hungry fishermen:

Did It Taste Like Chicken?

Squeaking Alien Eaten: UFOs and High Strangeness in Rostov, Russia
The other night Keith Olbermann aired a bit on a green fishy creature of unknown origin, eaten by (apparently) starving, or at east way hungry, townspeople. I wasn’t paying much attention to Keith ;(though I love him, as Stephanie Miller says, my future husband -- if I weren’t already married) working away on my laptop. But the combined images of mysterious green entity that squeaked, eaten by hungry citizens, in foreign lands, was too much for me to ignore, and I had to find out more. So I searched and found this article: Russian Fisherman Catch Squeaking Alien and Eat It. I couldn't resist a title like that.

You can read the rest of the article on UFO Digest.

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PYTHON TREK

This is great; the "real" Star Trek, and Monty Python.

Luca Land: Did Betty Andreason Luca Lie?

I saw this post on UFO Updates; a post by a member of the Luca family, who has just come out to tell the world the whole Betty Andreason Luca UFO experience was a hoax. Their website, Luca Land, explains it all for you.

The following legal notice appears on their web page:

Legal Notice: All material published on this website is based upon my own personal opinion thus you may take it for what you think it
is worth and decide for your own self as if you agree with it or not as I do not wish to be political in my statements, but to only give my
own personal view point and logical conclusions and let you decide if you agree or not.

That’s fair. But does this mean that there is no proof that Andreason Luca lied, since it’s all “personal view point?”

There are pages of autobiographical material related to the experiences of thirty years ago, and it's highly interesting, which goes without saying.

I cannot begin to delve into this, and wouldn’t dare to be so presumptuous as to make all kinds of pronouncements about who's telling the truth, who's lying, who's unbalanced, etc. Obviously, there is a huge tangled mess here of family history that has elements of alcoholism and all kinds of other issues. I don’t know anyone from this family, and am not a psychologist.

That said, this is a big “wow” and worth exploring, for a variety of obvious reasons.

At this point, I’ve only skimmed over this; it’s going to take a good chunk of time to read all that’s there. So far, the site appears to be a blend of airing unpleasant family history, personal views on UFOs which wildly jump from “skeptical” to belief, some weird thing about getting a pass to be an advanced user on the site, and also how to get a Yahoo website, and stuff for sale. Also a blog, and links, and all sorts of things I haven't gotten to yet.

I think it’s important, however, to not get lost or consumed by this very personal and intense family story, and use it as an excuse to dismiss Betty’s experiences, merely based on the content of this website.

What’s true, what isn’t? This person seems to be searching for something, for the truth, and it’s all wrapped up with a lifetime, literally, of not only family dysfunction, but UFO high strangeness, and religious weirdness. You don’t have to be a psychologist to realize that this is an incredibly complicated mess for a person to wade through, and I don’t wish that on anyone. No matter what you think of the Andreason story, this individual, or his website, I think we can all agree he has had a very rough time, and is just trying to make some sense out of it.

It may seem like the easy way out to laugh him out of the equation and make fun, cast sneers and sarcasm his way. I admit to wanting to do a bit of that myself; we can all find things to nitpick about.

But for those out there who are going to take this on and tackle it, trying to get at the truth of the Andreason story (which is very likely impossible) or, use this as a smug way of utterly trashing everyone involved, I suggest some compassion.

We’re dealing with human beings first, and UFOs second.

Marginalization of UFO "Buffs"

Two related blog entries by two blog authors on the marginalization of UFO "believers." Lesley, of the DebrisField blog, has good comments about this. In her essay Ufology: A Cult of Personality she writes:

Beyond that, for ufology to be a cult there would need to be a belief system that everyone followed. Anyone who is a member of ufo updates would quickly realize that ufologists agree on almost nothing. They all have their own theories and personalities and anyone who thinks they would all agree on anything, except that there are strange things in the sky, has never spent any quality time with a ufologist.”

Exactly.

As Lesley points out, sure, there are the “cults” within UFOlogy; the Raelians, etc. To consistently use those groups as an accurate representation of UFOlogy is dishonest, as those who rabidly attack UFO studies know full well.

On the Sanity for Sale blog, there is a good piece:

UFOs: To Believe Or Not To Believe.
The author writes:

”You may have noticed that, in the media, UFO believers are usually referred to as buffs, a term used to diminish and marginalize them by relegating them to the ranks of hobbyists and mere enthusiasts. They are made to seem like kooks and quaint dingbats who have the nerve to believe that, in an observable universe of trillions upon trillions of stars, and most likely many hundreds of billions of potentially inhabitable planets, some of those planets may have produced life-forms capable of doing things that we can’t do.”

In contrast, those who believe in Jesus, God, other forms of mainstream religions are not only acceptable, but considered honorable, trustworthy people. A recent poll (I forget where I read about this) revealed that the majority of voters would not trust an atheists as president. The tension between Upstanding Religious Person and UFO “Believer” is hypocritical, one could say, but it’s a given oppositional juxtaposition in the realm of the Trickster.

As both articles point out, many mega-skeptics and anti-UFOists refer to a “belief” in UFOs, which automatically calls up the memes of: faith, blind faith, miracles, religion, cults, craziness, delusions, and hallucinations. With such labeling, the UFO witness, writer, researcher and investigator are dismissed. People who study UFOs are “buffs” as the author of the Sanity blog says, or they’re “enthusiasts” which some anti UFO skeptics insists on calling those of us who are involved in UFO research (meaning, from a non chronic skeptic perspective) “enthusiasts,” as if we’re all fanatical NASCAR fans. Both terms further trivialize the subject, and more to the point, those who are involved in its study. By consistently using these terms and phrases: buffs, enthusiasts, fans, believers, etc. the topic of UFOs, and those involved with UFOs in whatever way, are presented to the culture as goofy, eccentric, unintelligent, uneducated. Certainly not a topic to be taken seriously, nor the humans involved with the topic. (Unless it’s to debunk, deny, and discredit the topic. Then those people count of course.)

Our culture -- our infrastructure -- has many ways it perpetuates anti-UFOism, along with anything outside of the mainstream. Misdirection, disinformation, appropriation, trivialization, marginalization, outright lying and dishonesty, questioing the patriotism, morality, sanity, intelligence and or honesty of UFO "believers," are among the dozens of ways this populates throughout our culture.

Raelian Swastika Update

Update on the Raelians and their swastika fetish: Greg Bishop on UFOMystic has a good piece on this: Raelians Revive Swastika Symbol.

More Skepti-ness: Randi’s “Challenge”

From the PsiPog.net blog, an entry on the author’s experiences with members of the JREF forum, (James Randi Educational Foundation) Randi himself, and an assistant.
Beware Pseudo-Skepticism I’m not at all surprised by what the author (who calls himself Peebrain) has to relate; it mirrors much of what I’ve personally experienced and observed through the years. And, as so many of us ask: why can’t people just be nice? Sheesh, such a prickly bunch. Far more important of course, and the real issue, is the lack of forthrightness on their part.