textfiles/ufo/ruminate.ufo

The following is a point of reflection on the current state of the UFO
community as it is being portrayed by some of the material that has been
circulating through Paranet.
                                    Brad Langton : 1 December 1988
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   Over the course of the last few months I have been watching the drama
unfold over the UFO enigma. In this time I have seen many examples of
thoughtful, deliberate dialog on a subject that is at the very least, highly
controvertial. Unfortunately, I have also seen examples of the very worst in
behavior exhibited by what I will call zealots within the UFO community.
Most recently this charge would have to be awarded to Bill Cooper who has
just uploaded one of the most animated and paradoxical documents I've yet
seen.
   While stating his allegience to the Republic, he has gone to extreme
lengths to discredit 90% of all the FOIA documents that have been tossed
around over the past few years. Additionally, Mr. Cooper states that he has
known that Majestic 12 was not a legitimate document. Mr. Cooper draws a
vieled inference regarding his association with John Lear who along with
himself "...know the real truth." I have to wonder why Mr. Cooper has become
so nervous as to run about proclaiming his allegience to the government
over and over again. I am also concerned about Mr. Cooper's claims that the
Aquarius and MJ-12 materials were "obviously a hoax" when those are the very
documents of "proof" that John Lear sent to me earlier in the year in
support of his hypothesis.
   Does Mr. Cooper want us to believe that he is being pressured from above
to defuse documents that are being widely referenced both in this network,
the UFO books, and the recent plethora of television specials? In a similar
vein, is he trying to set himself and John Lear as the GURUs of UFOlogy?
This is all very confusing to me, especially in light of the materials John
Lear sent me.
   Looking back over the Paranet message base dumps of the last few months,
I'm equally confused by the online behavior of Mr. Lear, Mr. Cooper, and
some others that were cooresponding with him at the time. I am in no way
surprised that Jim Speiser finally had to act to prevent total anarchy in
the message base!
   Here at Paranet Lambda, one of our users has attempted to cast a viel of
mystery around the removal of the B-49s (Flying Wings) from the Airforce
back in the '50s. I went on to cast a fictitious viel around the possible
"hidden agenda" of my BBS! Tongue in cheek, I think I have demonstrated how
being too anxious to find mystery where in fact, none exists, can easily be
constructed around ANYTHING.
   Jim referenced my perspective of "open-minded skepticism" in a mid
November post regarding the mission of Paranet. I would like to examine that
perspective at this time. Basically, I feel that there are clearly
mysterious circumstances surrounding many aspects of the UFO phenomenon.
Each incident must be examined critically with an open, rather than an adle
mind. This is to say that we do not procede from ANY premise except that
there is a strange event... only after examining the facts, and this can be
expert testimony, can we ascribe an S/P rating to the event. We should
NEVER eliminate traditional explanations or assume that every blinking light
is an extraterestrial craft. Likewise we should NEVER assume that ONLY
traditional explanations can possibly account for all UFO sightings or that
UFOs can NOT be extraterrestrial or even interdimensional in nature. The key
is to make NO assumptions that we can't place a probability on based on
testimony or physical evidence. Lear's initial approach of placing his
conclusions in the form of a hypothesis was faithful to this end.
Unfortunately, subsequent coorespondence produced other, less professional
responses and claims. We should never discourage hypotheses but we must
clarify them as such and not get carried away without reason.
   So where does this leave Paranet? In my understanding, we are to be a
clearing house for UFO and paranormal information. All material is worthy
of an initial investigation and subsequent debate. We should NOT be a
mirror of CSICOP. As I see it, CSICOP begins with the assumption that
everything is explainable in terms of commonly known phenomenon or basic
fakery. We don't want to assume that everything is automatically strange
and outside of our sphere of experience... we must be the middle ground. Jim
is doing a great job of mediating this fine line and is to be commended
for all of the tremendous effort that this takes. In my small way, I try
to do likewise here at Paranet Lambda, although I don't have the supurb
resources and contacts that Paranet Alpha has developed.
   Another possibility, and well within the scope of this network, is the
possibility that the EBEs are not necessarily from another planet, but
from another dimension or perhaps, even our own future. A recent article
presented within the physics community (who I am sure are revered by
CSICOP) states that it may in fact be theoretically possible to travel not
only forward, but BACKWARD in time! The philosophical implications here
are incredible and threaten to force us to completely alter our
perceptions of causality, religion, everything! This would also explain
why EBEs do NOT want to become visible to us, their past. See how easy it
is to present hypotheses? For the record, I am NOT proposing the above as
anything more than an intellectual exercise but I hope it makes my point
without ruffling too many feathers.
   Well, I've probably already said enough to become a controversy all my
own so I'll leave now and encourage you to give Paranet Lambda a call at
716-377-3985 and let me hear from you... I'm sure that some of you have
plenty to say regarding my ruminations. Lambda does support 2400 baud so
if money is a problem, as it is so often with me, compose a response
offline as I have here and upload it to Alpha or preferably to Alpha
AND Lambda. I look forward to hearing from you all!

Brad Langton  --<< Paranet Lambda >>--