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The Devil is in the Details…
Are UFOs Only Playing by the Rules of Your Own Mind Games?
By: Bernard O’Connor
"In the late Spring of 1976, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), headquartered in Arizona, forwarded two very interesting UFO reports to Dick Ruhl, their lead investigator in New York State, to look into. Both reports came in at almost the same time. Dick was APRO’s photographic expert and the first case involved numerous photographs taken of strange objects in the sky. What was unusual about this case was that the witnesses, who lived in upper New York State, claimed the UFOs were making regular, almost daily visits to their rural homestead, both during the day and late evening.
When Dick examined these photos via microscopic blow-ups, the photos that were captured in the day revealed they were not solid objects at all, they appeared to be made up of tight circles upon circles. The ones taken in the evenings were blobs of white light, with no discernible features. These pictures were taken in both color and black and white.
The second case involved a supposed UFO landing in a field that was witnessed by a man driving home from work one night. This occurred several towns over from the location where the UFO photos were being taken. Dick made arrangements to visit both witnesses to interview them and he invited me to go along with him, which I gladly jumped at the chance and accepted immediately. It was at least a four-hour drive one way, so we made plans to stay overnight in a motel.
Upon arriving upstate, the first stop we made was at the local police station, as was proper protocol during field investigations. This was to alert the police that we were in the area, for Dick to present his credentials as an authorized UFO investigator, sponsored by a legitimate national organization. This way, if they received any reports of strangers in the area, asking questions, they knew who we were. It also gave Dick a good opportunity to find out if any local reports of UFOs had come into the station house. There were none, so we proceeded to our first appointment.
We met with a gentleman who had came upon a landed disc shaped object on the road while on his way home from work one night. He reported seeing a classic Flying Saucer shape, about 50 feet across and maybe ten feet high. It had a bright, white glow around it and as soon as his headlights hit it, the object rose straight up into the air, paused a moment or two, and then shot off, at high speed in a northerly direction. He was well dressed and obvious from his measured demeanor, well educated. A professional man. He seemed very sincere but clearly, and repeatedly stated, “He wanted to remain anonymous.”
After Dick recorded the man’s eye-witness account, we managed to get permission from the owner of the field to enter the landing site to look for possible physical traces. The tall grass looked disturbed, as if a heavy weight had settled down on it, but there were no defined indentations to indicate “landing gear” or burn marks. We took measurements, drew a map of the location and took pictures of it. By then it was very late, so we grabbed a bite at a local diner with the witness and then retired for the night.
Come the next day we visited the local paper, again in pursuit of any more possible UFO reports. As it turned out there were none, but the editor, like the police station, kept Dick’s contact information and promised to alert him if he got any calls coming in from people “Seeing Flying Saucers.”
We arrived at the home of the next witness in late afternoon, as it was arranged. Actually there were three witnesses to the ongoing UFOs but only two of them took the pictures. The principle witness was a woman in her late thirties, then her two sons, who were young teens. The mother and the older boy, 14, were the photographers. The second son, 12, was the additional witness. The sightings had been occurring on and off for over the course of several weeks. They had many more photos than the ones they had sent to APRO.
Dick was anxious to examine the cameras that they took the pictures with. They were just relatively cheap, everyday Kodak cameras, Instamatics, which were a mainstay for home photography back in the seventies. He wanted to check the lenses to see if there was a pattern scratched into them that would create the circle upon a circle effect visible in the pictures. On close examination there was none. Because the cameras both had exposed film in them, they could not be opened for internal examination.
Dick also wanted to see the original negatives of the photos and they were quickly produced. Dick had brought along his photographic loupe, which is also called a negative magnifier and is used to inspect processed film or prints. It would reveal any tampering of a negative. They appeared to be clean.
While Dick was examining the film, I was speaking with the witnesses and taking in the surroundings. The house was clean and well kept. The witnesses were pleasant and their testimony was pretty straight forward. There seemed to be no evidence of a hoax so far or any kind of exaggerations in their claims.
On one side of the living room was a big book case and as I glanced over at it, I began to make out some very interesting and surprising titles. The library was mainly made up of books dealing with the occult, witchcraft, Wicca, how to cast spells and curses, incantations and ghosts. But the lion’s share of the books was about, of all things, Satanism!
This led me to ask about the books and who read them. It turns out the woman was currently separated from her husband and was in the process of filing for a divorce. He was a practicing Satanist, and she couldn’t take it anymore. “All this magic crap had to go!” She added.
The husband had relocated to Florida, and she was waiting for him to come back and get his books, ceremonial robes and occult supplies, that were still there stored in the house. After this discovery, our interview took a totally different direction.
The conversation quickly switched from UFOs to discussing poltergeist phenomena, ghostly visitations, disembodied voices and the ubiquitous cold spots found in every haunting. The boys started to relate tales of little men who would sit on their bureaus at night in their bedrooms. These little men would also appear and disappear at different times, all throughout the house.
In the living room, hung a very dark, ancient looking painting. This belonged to her husband. It was a family heirloom handed down to generation after generation in his family. It depicted that of a very young boy standing in a field. He had a deep frown on his face. In the picture’s background, an old fashioned water well could be seen. The story attached to the painting was that the child later drowned in the same well, at a very young age. Definitely more going on in this case than just UFOs.
By now it had grown dark and it was decided that we should go outside and wait for any UFOs that might appear. Dick had brought his profession grade camera with him and it was capable of capturing high resolution images of anything in the night sky. The yard was spacious with many trees and bushes, all well cared for. Butting up to their yard was a spacious farmers field. The sky was clear with no clouds and the moon was beginning to rise. A perfect night for a skywatch. And we waited.
Suddenly, the younger of the boys said, “Mom, what’s that?” This caught every bodies attention and we turned towards him. He was pointing at a tree, and up in the branches, was a pair of two small, but very bright lights. They looked perfectly like a set of eyes.
At first, we all thought it was an animal or an owl up in the tree. Dick took a few pictures of the “eyes” and we continued watching them to see if, it was a bird, it would soon fly away. Or if it was an animal it would have to eventually climb down from the tree and scurry away. The “eyes” did neither, they just blinked out.
With that, they quickly reappeared on the other side of the yard in a different tree. Then blinked out again and appeared higher up in another tree. By now, these “eyes” had everyone’s full attention. Dick continued to take pictures of them. This game of “hide and peek” went on for a good full hour or so. Each time someone tried to approach the eyes, they would blink out and instantly reappear in another part of the yard.
Finally, the “eyes” settled in a small bush in the middle of the yard. Thinking we had whatever it was cornered, the five of us spread out and quickly surrounded the bush. With our arms outstretched, we all began to walk in unison, taking slow steps towards the bush, thinking that we would flush it out into the open. While we were slowly approaching, the “eyes’ kept changing position in the bush. We thought by performing this maneuver, we were about to finally get to the bottom of this mystery.
It didn’t work.
All five of us were practically standing on top of the bush, so we would have been sure to see anything run out of it, but they abruptly blinked out and were gone. Just like that. They disappeared and never came back. We continued to wait around, but they never came back.
By now our excitement level was very high. We abandoned the skywatch and returned to the house. Dick tape recorded each of us separately while we recounted the evening’s unusual experiences. After all the interviews were completed, Dick and I made our thank you’s, and headed back to the motel.
We, along with everyone else, were exhausted.
Very early, the next morning, we headed back to New York. Upon getting back into town, Dick rushed his film to be developed by the professional lab he used. Anxiously, the next day, we both went to the lab first thing in the morning to get the developed film and prints. We were disappointed at the results. The pictures plainly showed trees, bushes and people, but there were no “white eyes” present in any of the photos!
We were both at a loss for words. Dick was an award winning photographer, a real pro. He commented, “I don’t understand it. I manually adjusted the exposure settings on each shot I took to allow for the natural lighting conditions. What happened?” We couldn’t explain it.
That evening, Dick went home, dug out some Christmas lights, and recreated the same conditions as the backyard we were in. These shots came out fine. The rigged-up lights appeared in every picture. Thus, proving it wasn’t a camera malfunction.
So, what can we make of these events? Here, in relatively the same locale, we are presented with two significant and categorically different UFO events. One, a pretty straight forward, classic UFO landing report. The type of which there are hundreds. When Dick followed-up this one, he asked the witness “If he had experienced anything unusual after the sighting?” The reply was “No, I just saw what I saw and reported it, end of story.” Case verdict: An incredible thing happened to a credible person – unexplainable.
The second case was much more complicated, what with repeated UFO sightings, both in daytime and at night, photographic evidence and, finally, thrown in for good measure, a generous heaping helping of paranormal phenomenon. So, the question here is, does the occult aspect in this particular case play a bigger role in bringing about these events? Case verdict: Incredible things are happening to credible people – This case too, is unexplainable.
When Dick followed up on this case, the mother became very reluctant to discuss it further. Eventually his contact with the family grew less and less, and finally, no response at all. I’m guessing the family’s troubled dynamics had a lot more to do with this sudden silence than the UFOs involved in the case.
The legendary researcher, John Keel posited: “The UFO phenomena is frequently reflective. The observed manifestations seem to be deliberately tailored to the individual beliefs and mental attitudes of the witness. Both the objects and their occupants appear to be able to adopt a multitude of forms, and the contactees are usually given information that confirms their own beliefs.’
So, the question now is, taking Keel’s lead, should a UFO investigator try to learn what the witness thought of UFOs before their encounter? What did they believe UFOs were and has that belief changed any since the sighting or encounter? The first witness who reported the landed UFO, was he a ‘nuts-and-bolts” type of person, believing in what only he can see? In other words, “An everyday Joe” and I don’t mean that in a disparaging manner. Then surely his belief system would interpret and transform the phenomena into a material craft that would behave in a manner you would expect a material craft to behave. Landing, having bright lights and then taking off and flying away.
But in the second case, what interpretative filters were at work here on the collective psyche of the family? Whether members of the family accepted or rejected all “that magical crap”, the father, if he was a dominant personality, would have imprinted an alternate occult belief system on their interpretation of life and its events. This belief system transcended material beliefs. Allowing the paranormal modality to establish itself in a person’s frame of reference to the outside world.
So, what effect did the husband’s “magickal workings” have on this episode? Did he attract an outside phenomenon to him, that then catered to his preconceived beliefs of the subject? Did it create a paranormal experience exclusively for him and those who he held sway on their belief systems? Are the intelligence’s behind UFOs capable of creating “tailor-made” experiences as opposed to “off-the-rack” reports? Or are UFO reports projections created by some psychological mechanism that limits them to being an extremely personal experience? One meant only for the experiencer?
It indeed gets curiouser and curiouser as we go further down the rabbit hole."
https://www.apmagazine.info/index.php?op...Itemid=194
Are UFOs Only Playing by the Rules of Your Own Mind Games?
By: Bernard O’Connor
"In the late Spring of 1976, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), headquartered in Arizona, forwarded two very interesting UFO reports to Dick Ruhl, their lead investigator in New York State, to look into. Both reports came in at almost the same time. Dick was APRO’s photographic expert and the first case involved numerous photographs taken of strange objects in the sky. What was unusual about this case was that the witnesses, who lived in upper New York State, claimed the UFOs were making regular, almost daily visits to their rural homestead, both during the day and late evening.
When Dick examined these photos via microscopic blow-ups, the photos that were captured in the day revealed they were not solid objects at all, they appeared to be made up of tight circles upon circles. The ones taken in the evenings were blobs of white light, with no discernible features. These pictures were taken in both color and black and white.
The second case involved a supposed UFO landing in a field that was witnessed by a man driving home from work one night. This occurred several towns over from the location where the UFO photos were being taken. Dick made arrangements to visit both witnesses to interview them and he invited me to go along with him, which I gladly jumped at the chance and accepted immediately. It was at least a four-hour drive one way, so we made plans to stay overnight in a motel.
Upon arriving upstate, the first stop we made was at the local police station, as was proper protocol during field investigations. This was to alert the police that we were in the area, for Dick to present his credentials as an authorized UFO investigator, sponsored by a legitimate national organization. This way, if they received any reports of strangers in the area, asking questions, they knew who we were. It also gave Dick a good opportunity to find out if any local reports of UFOs had come into the station house. There were none, so we proceeded to our first appointment.
We met with a gentleman who had came upon a landed disc shaped object on the road while on his way home from work one night. He reported seeing a classic Flying Saucer shape, about 50 feet across and maybe ten feet high. It had a bright, white glow around it and as soon as his headlights hit it, the object rose straight up into the air, paused a moment or two, and then shot off, at high speed in a northerly direction. He was well dressed and obvious from his measured demeanor, well educated. A professional man. He seemed very sincere but clearly, and repeatedly stated, “He wanted to remain anonymous.”
After Dick recorded the man’s eye-witness account, we managed to get permission from the owner of the field to enter the landing site to look for possible physical traces. The tall grass looked disturbed, as if a heavy weight had settled down on it, but there were no defined indentations to indicate “landing gear” or burn marks. We took measurements, drew a map of the location and took pictures of it. By then it was very late, so we grabbed a bite at a local diner with the witness and then retired for the night.
Come the next day we visited the local paper, again in pursuit of any more possible UFO reports. As it turned out there were none, but the editor, like the police station, kept Dick’s contact information and promised to alert him if he got any calls coming in from people “Seeing Flying Saucers.”
We arrived at the home of the next witness in late afternoon, as it was arranged. Actually there were three witnesses to the ongoing UFOs but only two of them took the pictures. The principle witness was a woman in her late thirties, then her two sons, who were young teens. The mother and the older boy, 14, were the photographers. The second son, 12, was the additional witness. The sightings had been occurring on and off for over the course of several weeks. They had many more photos than the ones they had sent to APRO.
Dick was anxious to examine the cameras that they took the pictures with. They were just relatively cheap, everyday Kodak cameras, Instamatics, which were a mainstay for home photography back in the seventies. He wanted to check the lenses to see if there was a pattern scratched into them that would create the circle upon a circle effect visible in the pictures. On close examination there was none. Because the cameras both had exposed film in them, they could not be opened for internal examination.
Dick also wanted to see the original negatives of the photos and they were quickly produced. Dick had brought along his photographic loupe, which is also called a negative magnifier and is used to inspect processed film or prints. It would reveal any tampering of a negative. They appeared to be clean.
While Dick was examining the film, I was speaking with the witnesses and taking in the surroundings. The house was clean and well kept. The witnesses were pleasant and their testimony was pretty straight forward. There seemed to be no evidence of a hoax so far or any kind of exaggerations in their claims.
On one side of the living room was a big book case and as I glanced over at it, I began to make out some very interesting and surprising titles. The library was mainly made up of books dealing with the occult, witchcraft, Wicca, how to cast spells and curses, incantations and ghosts. But the lion’s share of the books was about, of all things, Satanism!
This led me to ask about the books and who read them. It turns out the woman was currently separated from her husband and was in the process of filing for a divorce. He was a practicing Satanist, and she couldn’t take it anymore. “All this magic crap had to go!” She added.
The husband had relocated to Florida, and she was waiting for him to come back and get his books, ceremonial robes and occult supplies, that were still there stored in the house. After this discovery, our interview took a totally different direction.
The conversation quickly switched from UFOs to discussing poltergeist phenomena, ghostly visitations, disembodied voices and the ubiquitous cold spots found in every haunting. The boys started to relate tales of little men who would sit on their bureaus at night in their bedrooms. These little men would also appear and disappear at different times, all throughout the house.
In the living room, hung a very dark, ancient looking painting. This belonged to her husband. It was a family heirloom handed down to generation after generation in his family. It depicted that of a very young boy standing in a field. He had a deep frown on his face. In the picture’s background, an old fashioned water well could be seen. The story attached to the painting was that the child later drowned in the same well, at a very young age. Definitely more going on in this case than just UFOs.
By now it had grown dark and it was decided that we should go outside and wait for any UFOs that might appear. Dick had brought his profession grade camera with him and it was capable of capturing high resolution images of anything in the night sky. The yard was spacious with many trees and bushes, all well cared for. Butting up to their yard was a spacious farmers field. The sky was clear with no clouds and the moon was beginning to rise. A perfect night for a skywatch. And we waited.
Suddenly, the younger of the boys said, “Mom, what’s that?” This caught every bodies attention and we turned towards him. He was pointing at a tree, and up in the branches, was a pair of two small, but very bright lights. They looked perfectly like a set of eyes.
At first, we all thought it was an animal or an owl up in the tree. Dick took a few pictures of the “eyes” and we continued watching them to see if, it was a bird, it would soon fly away. Or if it was an animal it would have to eventually climb down from the tree and scurry away. The “eyes” did neither, they just blinked out.
With that, they quickly reappeared on the other side of the yard in a different tree. Then blinked out again and appeared higher up in another tree. By now, these “eyes” had everyone’s full attention. Dick continued to take pictures of them. This game of “hide and peek” went on for a good full hour or so. Each time someone tried to approach the eyes, they would blink out and instantly reappear in another part of the yard.
Finally, the “eyes” settled in a small bush in the middle of the yard. Thinking we had whatever it was cornered, the five of us spread out and quickly surrounded the bush. With our arms outstretched, we all began to walk in unison, taking slow steps towards the bush, thinking that we would flush it out into the open. While we were slowly approaching, the “eyes’ kept changing position in the bush. We thought by performing this maneuver, we were about to finally get to the bottom of this mystery.
It didn’t work.
All five of us were practically standing on top of the bush, so we would have been sure to see anything run out of it, but they abruptly blinked out and were gone. Just like that. They disappeared and never came back. We continued to wait around, but they never came back.
By now our excitement level was very high. We abandoned the skywatch and returned to the house. Dick tape recorded each of us separately while we recounted the evening’s unusual experiences. After all the interviews were completed, Dick and I made our thank you’s, and headed back to the motel.
We, along with everyone else, were exhausted.
Very early, the next morning, we headed back to New York. Upon getting back into town, Dick rushed his film to be developed by the professional lab he used. Anxiously, the next day, we both went to the lab first thing in the morning to get the developed film and prints. We were disappointed at the results. The pictures plainly showed trees, bushes and people, but there were no “white eyes” present in any of the photos!
We were both at a loss for words. Dick was an award winning photographer, a real pro. He commented, “I don’t understand it. I manually adjusted the exposure settings on each shot I took to allow for the natural lighting conditions. What happened?” We couldn’t explain it.
That evening, Dick went home, dug out some Christmas lights, and recreated the same conditions as the backyard we were in. These shots came out fine. The rigged-up lights appeared in every picture. Thus, proving it wasn’t a camera malfunction.
So, what can we make of these events? Here, in relatively the same locale, we are presented with two significant and categorically different UFO events. One, a pretty straight forward, classic UFO landing report. The type of which there are hundreds. When Dick followed-up this one, he asked the witness “If he had experienced anything unusual after the sighting?” The reply was “No, I just saw what I saw and reported it, end of story.” Case verdict: An incredible thing happened to a credible person – unexplainable.
The second case was much more complicated, what with repeated UFO sightings, both in daytime and at night, photographic evidence and, finally, thrown in for good measure, a generous heaping helping of paranormal phenomenon. So, the question here is, does the occult aspect in this particular case play a bigger role in bringing about these events? Case verdict: Incredible things are happening to credible people – This case too, is unexplainable.
When Dick followed up on this case, the mother became very reluctant to discuss it further. Eventually his contact with the family grew less and less, and finally, no response at all. I’m guessing the family’s troubled dynamics had a lot more to do with this sudden silence than the UFOs involved in the case.
The legendary researcher, John Keel posited: “The UFO phenomena is frequently reflective. The observed manifestations seem to be deliberately tailored to the individual beliefs and mental attitudes of the witness. Both the objects and their occupants appear to be able to adopt a multitude of forms, and the contactees are usually given information that confirms their own beliefs.’
So, the question now is, taking Keel’s lead, should a UFO investigator try to learn what the witness thought of UFOs before their encounter? What did they believe UFOs were and has that belief changed any since the sighting or encounter? The first witness who reported the landed UFO, was he a ‘nuts-and-bolts” type of person, believing in what only he can see? In other words, “An everyday Joe” and I don’t mean that in a disparaging manner. Then surely his belief system would interpret and transform the phenomena into a material craft that would behave in a manner you would expect a material craft to behave. Landing, having bright lights and then taking off and flying away.
But in the second case, what interpretative filters were at work here on the collective psyche of the family? Whether members of the family accepted or rejected all “that magical crap”, the father, if he was a dominant personality, would have imprinted an alternate occult belief system on their interpretation of life and its events. This belief system transcended material beliefs. Allowing the paranormal modality to establish itself in a person’s frame of reference to the outside world.
So, what effect did the husband’s “magickal workings” have on this episode? Did he attract an outside phenomenon to him, that then catered to his preconceived beliefs of the subject? Did it create a paranormal experience exclusively for him and those who he held sway on their belief systems? Are the intelligence’s behind UFOs capable of creating “tailor-made” experiences as opposed to “off-the-rack” reports? Or are UFO reports projections created by some psychological mechanism that limits them to being an extremely personal experience? One meant only for the experiencer?
It indeed gets curiouser and curiouser as we go further down the rabbit hole."
https://www.apmagazine.info/index.php?op...Itemid=194