Around the Orb

Blog News

Trickster Northwest; I've added a link list of other blogs and sites that discuss paranormal things in their states. So far I only have Oklahoma and New Mexico, but I'll be adding more.

The Skeptoid Zone has been renamed to avoid confusion with Skeptoid blogs, etc. of which there seems to be a few of. It's now called Chronic Skepticism.


Farah Yurdozu
I'm very pleased to announce that Farah Yurdozu has joined Women Of Esoterica and is now a contributor to our blog. There are now five female contributors: Richelle Hawks, Lesley, Kithra, myself and Farah.

Binnall of America
Be sure to read all the columns on Binnall of America, and listen to the interviews! Tim always has great guests on.
As I mentioned here previously, I didn't comment on the Stephenvill UFOs until very recently, where I wrote The Stephenville, Texas UFO Sightings: The Trickster And The Aftermath for Trickster's Realm on BOA.

Invisible Aliens
I wrote about some of my experiences with invisible aliens on UFO Digest. I expanded this and a related article will appear in the issue after next of UFO Magazine.

I received a nice email from a woman in her seventies who said she's experienced the same thing her whole life.

These things, this phenomena, have been around us for centuries upon centuries. Why we continue to deny this is the real mystery.

Facts and Stephenville and the Other Story

This fluff piece from the Washington Post: New UFO Sighting Reported In Stephenville Texas Fired Reporter Angelia Joiner Sparks Conspiracy Theories, by Emil Steiner is interesting for its lack of interest. It makes no snese, just another filler piece about UFOs that, on the surface, says nothing, but for those of us obsessed with parsing and dissecting semantics, it says a lot. Or, it says a lot about nothing. No, wait, the “nothing” is a big huge something -- that is, the UFOs -- so it’s the nothing about the something that’s something. Oh, forget it. Moving on. . .

Any official denial can be labeled a cover-up. In the end, it often boils down to a he-said-she-said scenario.

Isn't’ a denial covering up? Given the context of the Stephenville sightings, the fact is that the Air Force did deny having anything to do with the activity in the skies, then turned around and said they were engaging in military exercises. After they said the sightings were probably caused by witnesses mistaking reflected sunlight off airplanes for UFOs. And denying that fighter jets were chasing UFOs. If that’s not a cover-up, what is? Attempts at misdirection and causing confusion; cousins of covering-up.

Steiner goes on to quote Angelia Joiner, the reporter from The Empire Tribune who was fired for her reports on the sightings. I’m not sure why he includes a quote from her about military exercises (see below) because it has nothing to do with her firing, which is a fact.

He ends his piece with this comment:

But who can we believe? The truth remains unidentified.

Who can we believe about what? The UFOs? The ones seen by dozens of witnesses, caught on video? That’s a “truth” and it’s easy to “identify.” Who can we believe about Joiner's firing? It’s a fact she was fired. (Haggling over details: she offered to resign at first, etc. don’t count: reality is, she was fired, (not allowed to resign) her computer confiscated, and her body escorted out of the building.) What “truth” does Steiner mean?

I don’t mean to pick on Steiner, I don’t know him and giving him the benefit of the doubt, he’s just writing a column. He’s certainly not of the ilk of a Randi, McGaha, Shermer, etc. But pieces like this are a good example of the disingenuousness (a form of marginalization)that often surrounds UFO reporting.

The facts remain. People in Stephenville Texas are seeing some very weird things, and that’s a fact. What those things are is another story. This other story is equally important, almost, as UFOs from outer space. Because is they’re not from outer space, they’re ours. And, as Steiner quotes Joiner:

According to Angelia Joiner, the reporter who wrote the original UFO stories, there was another UFO sighting on Saturday. "If the military is testing a secret military device, why do they keep doing it here?" she asked me. "If it's not a secret why do they keep scaring the bejesus out of people?”

Exactly. This is the other story about many UFO sightings. Certainly the Black Triangle UFO sightings fall into this category. Are we to allow, and accept, the fly overs of top secret scary ass weaponry above our heads as a matter of course? Are we being conditioned for blind acceptance of in our face military and covert activities around us? These are concerns that don’t seem to be addressed much by UFO researchers, witnesses, or reporters. The focus seems to be on the dichotomy of UFOS as ET vs. Something Else. What if that something else isn’t ET, but something possibly more sinister? (that’s assuming of course that ET isn’t sinister. I’m no Space Brother groupie.)

Articles like this don’t serve any purpose, they just add to the fluff factor and so further muddle up the perception of UFO activity. Which is a fact. In other words, we shouldn’t get away from the fact that UFOs are a fact. What they are, well, that’s to be determined, and many are going about that in different ways, from the Disclosure Movement to Exopolitics, etc. The more we spiral out from the fact -- UFOs seen in Texas -- the more we dilute the reality that UFOs are here. Which is probably just what “they” are trying to do.

Link:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2008/02/
new_ufo_sighting_reported_in_s.html?nav=rss_blog

Reminder To Self: The Trickster Is A Part Of It

Wow. Things like this, I keep reminding myself, are excellent examples of what I consistently put out there: that the Trickster is an innate part of the UFO phenomena.

Those videos of UFOs -- giant space machines just having a big party up there -- appearing on Rense.com lately? Some guy with a special souped up telescope managed to capture all kinds of craft missed by others with less magical telescopes. Well, according to the skeptic blog Forgetomori (“extraordinary claims. Ordinary explanations,”) in Walson’s World, the author comments that these images are one big hoax, and the person behind them, a certain Walson, is one big hoaxer. Maybe. Kind of. Or not. That is, if “Walson” is even his name. Or, hers. Whoever.

But, as readers of The OrangeOrb know, I’m paranoid enough to both believe a good part of this story as well as be suspicious of it, all at the same time.

There is a lot of tangled elements preceding the following, which I found extremely interesting for obvious reasons:

pringer, from ATS, claims that a license plate of a van in the video could be traced back to a company that is located near a military airbase. That, along with the refusal to disclose any actual details of their methods, led to the expulsion of one of Walson’s spokespersons (or Walson himself, who knows). The whole case is now tagged as a HOAX on ATS.

And plenty of stuff following that that is crazy interesting.

One small part of this whole thing -- whatever this really is, keep in mind -- is the time and effort spent on creating this, um, thing. Why? Is it that funny to the creator? Guess so, clearly someone found it amusing. I’m not not amused; just a curious observer. I just wonder at the expended energy in continuing a saga like this. What’s the payoff for him/her/them? (I suspect there’s more than one person involved.)

It’s too over the top to be disinfo, but maybe I’m being too kind to some fellow UFO researchers and witnesses. But none of it much matters, because as long as there will be UFO, paranormal and Fortean events, there’ll be things like this right alongside them.

MYSTERY BLACK HELICOPTERS CIRCLE FARM UNMARKED-MILITARY UFO

Night Visitor

This is a snapshot of a painting I did in 1994. It's called "Night Visitor on Sherbourne Dr." which is the name of the street I lived on in Los Angeles between the ages of about five until I was fourteen.

The painting is acrylic, on Masonite. It's about 30 by 30 but I'll have to dig it out and check. I realize it isn't the best image, I did this quickly, using my built in Mac camera on to take an image of the image. . .I'll try to put something up that's better later on.

But I found this interesting, I'd forgotten about this painting. At the same time I did another painting of these dancing type stick figures with oval heads (no faces) "dancing" in the little entry way of my childhood home on Sherbourne.

Hmmm...the subconscious and its images. Memory and dreams.

Happy Birthday to UFO Magazine's Nancy Birnes!

Lesley let us know on her blog The Debris Field, and on Women Of Esoterica that it's UFO Magazine's editor Nancy Birnes birtday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANCY!

As Lesley said, Nancy works very hard to put the magazine together each month. Bill gets the fame and glory, lol (UFO Hunters, other UFO TV shows) while Nancy toils away behind the scenes.

So a big buncy of orange colored orbs, or balloons, for Nancy!

A Haunted Road

You can read about my experiences on a haunted road outside of the Eugene area in A Haunted Road, on Trickster Northwest.

Random Things

Women Of Esoterica on Untamed Dimensions
Richelle Hawks and I were interviewed by Adam Gorightly the other night for his Untamed Dimensions podcast. It was fun. You can listen to it here.

Texas UFOs
I haven't commented too much on the Texas UFOs, what's there to say? Everyone else is saying it. I did comment a bit on it on my recent Trickster's Realm column for Tim Binnall's site.

Binnall of America
Speaking of Binnall of America, I wore my UFOs Are Real; Get Over It hoodie sweatshirt today. Nice and cozy for a cold rainy Oregon day. No one commented though; however, this is Eugene, so not surprising. You can order cool things like the sweatshirt at Binnall of America. If you do, you'll be supporting the site! (No, I don't get a damn penny from them!)

UFO and Fortean Entertainment
Glad Torchwood is back for its second season. I love that show!

I didn't see the Sci Fi UFO Hunters; did watch the other one on History channel though. I thought it was interesting, but my first thought was "where are the women?" and the program's getting some criticism. I haven't delved into that much but whatever they may have exaggerated, or whether or not the entire thing was a hoax (hmmmm...) there are some very suspicious connections concerning the entire case. Typical UFO Trickster stuff to be sure.

Bigfoot Threads
What is it about the JREF (James Randi Educational Forum) and Bigfoot threads? They have something like eight seperate threads about Bigfoot. I comment here and here about the Bigfoot thread wackiness.

Books
I don't know if it's menopause (oh, grow up!) winter, working too hard or what, but lately I've been coming home and finding I'm asleep by 9:00 pm. I hate that! I have several books I'm reading, or trying to, but am slow at it because I fall asleep every night. Last night I fell asleep in Red Moon. That's the book written by David Michaels and Daniel Brenton. (Daniel has the blog The Odd Little Universe of Daniel Brenton.) It's well written and very enjoyable. Lots of twists and surprises. I also have some Mothman books I want to get to, as well as contactee Dana Howard's book Beyond the Valley. I'd like to finish them soon. Maybe I need more vitimins.

U.F.O. Blog Directory

Pretty neat idea; U.F.O. Blog Directory.

Trickster's Realm: UFOs and Military Exercises: Is This Supposed To Make Us Feel Better?

My new Trickster's Realm is up over at Tim Binnall's Binnall of America:UFOs and Military Exercises:
Is This Supposed to Make Us Feel Better?

Richelle Hawks and Regan Lee on Untamed Dimensions

Richelle Hawks and I will be guests on Adamn Gorightly's podcast Untamed Dimensions tomorrow night, Tuesday the 29th, at 6 pm PST. I think we'll probably be talking about Esoteric Women, but who knows?!

MRSA and Morgellons: Jangled Messages

I moved my MRSA and Morgellons: Jangled Messages article to my Mating Hedgehogs blog. It's also up at Book of Thoth.

Mating Hedgehogs

Revamped Mating Hedgehogs a bit, felt the staid blue was too serious for the blog.

UFO Digest: "Are You Qualified?"

My rant on skeptibunker James McGaha on UFO Digest: "Are You Qualified?" (Ignore the text about Dana Howard, it looks like when they put the article up they inadvertantly added some text from my previous article on Contactee Dana Howard.)

Gleaning From “Numb3rs”

Is it ironic that a “scientific” TV show, appreciated by skeptics, is also one of my favorite shows -- and that I’ve gotten so much esoteric-Fortean use out of the show?

Numb3rs is a favorite show of mine. I like the combination of mystery, crime solving, science and mysticism. It’s also set in L.A., where I was born and raised, and I like the three lead mensch-like characters.

Besides entertaining me, Numb3rs has given me a bit of inspiration three times now for my esoteric writing. Awhile ago, I wrote an article about semantics and perceptions of UFOs, and used an example from a Numb3rs episode. In that example, the main character Don Epps, FBI agent, said, of UFOs: (paraphrasing)

“We don’t know what a UFO looks like, so how do we know one when we see one?”

That line inspired me to write several articles on the topics of UFO semantics and definitions, as well as denial and debunkery. (See my American Chronicle articles for more.)

In another episodes, the character Charlie Epps (Don’s younger, math genius brother) told his crime solving colleagues to “throw on more data.” The team was not making any progress in trying to solve a case; “throw in more data” was the solution. By including more data, the character explained, more patterns, more information, will be revealed, and the agents would get closer to solving the crime. That was the inspiration for a column I wrote recently for UFO Magazine: Throw On More Data:

What got me thinking about the UFO phenomena in light of Numb3rs was what the character Charlie (young math professor genius) said to an FBI agent when the agent asked for help in solving a mystery. No matter how many times the agent went over the data he had, he just couldn’t figure it out, yet he knew he could, knew there was an answer. If only he had the right formula, or was shown some way to get at it. The math genius told him to “throw in more data.”

Throw in more data. And by doing so, said the character, we can begin to see a “connectivity” between the clues that will lead the agent to his solution.

Throw in more data. And yet that what much of UFOlogy doesn’t do. We don’t see a “connectivity” because we’re divided, we argue, -- we downright fight and attack at times (forget the skeptoids,sometimes we’re our own worst enemies) -- we pick a theory or two and stick with it. More data, especially data that throws us off, is rejected. After all this time, we’re still arguing over nuts and bolts versus an ETH, or an ultra terrestrial theory. ~ (UFO Magazine, 2007)

This past Friday’s episode, about a serial rapist, served as another inspiration. It turned out the rapist had a MRSA (antibiotic resistant staph infection) STD. One of the agents, in explaining MRSA to her co-workers, said (again paraphrasing)

“There’s only one type of antibiotic that can kill it, but doctor’s don’t want to give it out.”

That line had me thinking about my own MRSA infection, the disconnects and jangled messages from various sources -- including doctors -- and so I wrote an article about MRSA and Morgellons and this oppositional juxtaposition in MRSA and Morgellons: Jangled Messages.(Hopefully it will be up at Book of Thoth in a day or two.)

So, thanks Numb3rs for your contributions to my continued inspiration!


Notes:
Image credits:
http://www.daemonstv.com/images/cbs/numb3rs1.jpg
amazing-tv-shows.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

American Chronicle

UFO Magazine
Book of Thoth