Point of Convergence

In the long history of the modern UFO Phenomenon, a key and iconic moment stands out as of particular import. I speak of a rumored crash of a sophisticated aerial vehicle in the desert terrain near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The event prompted an initial acknowledgement by the government that this was indeed a moment of the greatest significance: the crash of an actual alien craft, apparently not of this world, and piloted by beings of a decidedly non-human nature. Of course, as many of us now know, that initial acknowledgement was quickly retracted, giving rise to a series of ever more mundane and suspect explanations, involving a downed weather balloon and the like. And when rumors spread that the crashed vehicle included actual entities, the cover story was that these were merely crash test dummies, mistaken for living, breathing beings of extraterrestrial origin. While many deeply invested in ufological history long questioned the official account of what happened that night all those years ago in the American desert southwest, evidence to demonstrate that the prosaic explanations were propaganda aimed at covering up something more world-shaking was scant. That was, at least, until 1997 - some 50 years after the event in question - when a retired Colonel of the U.S. Army emerged to offer a new account of what he claimed really happened that night. His claims provided sweet vindication for those long convinced that what slammed into the New Mexico desert in 1947 was anything but conventional. Colonel Philip Corso - the man making these claims - suggested not only that an alien craft really was recovered that night, but that indeed alien entities were also “at the wheel”, as it were. He even claimed to have laid eyes on one of these aliens in a later turn of fate while he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. And his claims didn’t stop there, he also stated that he came to be involved in a scheme to take technology recovered from the craft and farm it out to American industry, in order to jump-start the American advantage over adversaries of the time such as the Soviet Union. He also suggested this was done under the cover of a “foreign technology desk”, done in such a way as to cover the tracks of the true origin of this revolutionary tech. It goes without saying that these claims are as bold as they come. If true, they are truly world-shaking - with implications that effectively rewrite not just the history of the 20th century, but once and for all settle the matter of our place in the universe. But how credible are these claims? And what historical lines of evidence exist to either support or refute them? These are the very matters we’ll seek to delve into in this, the 65th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

When strange and sophisticated aerial vehicles were first spotted buzzing in and around our skies in a series of flaps during the period of the 1940s, many assumed these represented the visitation of an extraterrestrial species. The beyond next-gen characteristics of these advanced craft – where they could travel at incredible rates of speed, hover in place, and make 90 degree turns on a dime – suggested to most that these could not logically be the property of any known nation-state actor. The technological prowess of these so-called unidentified flying objects was simply too advanced to be of terrestrial origin. It is therefore not surprising that the seemingly logical conclusion that many came to was that these simply must be visitors from beyond our planet. At first, when the barrenness of the planets of our own solar system was not yet fully realized, many assumed these to be visiting Martians or Venusians. And then as our surveying of the planets of our own solar neighborhood showed them to be lifeless, ufologists and the public alike began to wonder from which extra-solar source these beings were coming from. But again, the assumption was still that these must be visitors from “outer space”. After all, that seemed to be the only frontier we had yet to explore. Since those early days of the flying saucer phenomenon, other – and to most, more exotic – hypotheses have arisen, suggesting these Others may be interdimensional in nature, or perhaps even time-traveling humans from our future. Some researchers suggest both extraterrestrials and interdimensionals may be in the mix. In the course of that conversation, again, the assumption has been that these must be something non-terrestrial in nature, because the sophistication of the craft themselves suggest no known nation-state actor could have developed such beyond next-gen technology. However, there is one key assumption being made here: and that is that it is only the known nation-state actors: The United States, Russia, etc, that could possibly even get close to this level of technological prowess. The pertinent question to ask here is: is that a fair assumption to make? Is it only nation-state actors that we need to account for? Or is it possible that some other human group, not usually accounted for, could actually be responsible for the design and development of these UFOs – or at least some of them? Perhaps to many people’s surprise, there is a rather daunting amount of historical evidence suggesting the possibility that these craft – or again – at least some of them – could actually be the property of a rogue group of scientifically-oriented techno-military elites that may have broken off from conventional society sometime during the middle part of the 20th century, not long after, we should note, the first series of sightings of disk-like craft. But what is the nature of this evidence? And does it get even close to passing muster in terms of suggesting that a truly sequestered society might exist, in our very midst? Is it possible that some of the beyond next-gen vehicles that have been spotted in our skies might actually be of terrestrial origin, after all – even if that terrestrial origin is of a non-conventional nature – one that exists beyond the scope of our nation-state global system? These are the very questions we’ll seek to engage with in this, the 64th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

2017 was the year that saw a sudden uptick of mainstream interest in the notion of UFOs following revelations arising from a groundbreaking article in the New York Times. This article described so-called “unidentified aerial phenomena” - modern nomenclature for what had traditionally been referred to as “unidentified flying objects” - UFOs. These revelations suggested these objects and/or phenomena had been documented and studied as part of an official Department of Defense program. This tacit acknowledgment of an official UFO program marked a sharp right turn when compared with the historical trend, where the government had traditionally sought to suppress, dismiss and even ridicule the notion of UFOs, as a part of official policy. Ever since that trailblazing article was first published the interest in this topic has grown by leaps and bounds in the mainstream - even if it still feels painfully slow and incremental to those more familiar with the wealth of data suggesting there really is a there there, and that there has been for a long time. But nevertheless, the presence of these apparent vehicles, that appear to be under intelligence control, has led to inevitable questions around who might be behind them - either at the wheel - so to speak, or piloting them remotely from somewhere else. Industry insiders attest to the beyond next-gen capabilities of these craft, suggesting - startlingly - that they couldn’t possibly belong to any contemporary nation-state player. And of course, in people’s minds that leaves open one enticing possibility: the notion that these may be the property of an extraterrestrial intelligence; a biological exo-planetary species who’ve come here to study us for reasons thus far largely unclear. For some people in our civilization this notion is most welcome, because the thinking is that these more sophisticated others may be able to help us address some of our most intractable problems. For others, it prompts feelings of fear, forcing a reckoning around the notion that we may not be the apex species on the block after all. Of course, for those of us much more intimately familiar with the breadth and depth of the historical literature on this topic, these questions - while certainly profound - are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. And that’s because a deep dive into the actual data gathered over the decades suggests the presence of one or more extraterrestrial species in our midst may not be sufficient to explain the bizarreness of what has been observed and encountered by human beings around the world and across time. In the 1970s trailblazing figures like Jacques Vallee and John Keel emerged, provocatively suggesting that the traditional nuts and bolts ET hypothesis was not the best fit for the events described in the literature. Vallee surprised many by drawing parallels between modern UFO encounters with supposed space aliens and encounters with the so-called faerie folk of deep human lore. By comparing and contrasting the nature of these various entities, Vallee forced a 20th century populace to wrestle with the notion that what we might be seeing is just a modern-day manifestation of a presence that had been with us since the very beginning. While Vallee’s postulation is certainly a compelling one - after all, these striking parallels do exist - it’s also important not to prematurely leap to that conclusion based solely on fairly superficial similarities. And of course, this begs the question: how much overlap really exists between ancient faerie and even religious tradition, and the modern-day UFO Phenomenon? And how might we distinguish between a single intelligence with multiple manifestations, and the presence of multiple intelligences perhaps arising from very different source points? These are the very matters we’ll seek to engage with in this, the 63rd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Over the course of the history of this podcast, we’ve covered events and experiences that are so bizarre, seemingly irrational and even absurd, that one can’t help but come away from an exhaustive examination of this data wondering how on Earth it fits into our notion of reality at all. Put simply, I don’t think it does. But not because the data is somehow in error.  After all, at this point, there’s simply too much of it, with too much cross-cultural, cross-temporal consistency for that to be the case, even allowing for a healthy dose of filtering for cases involving misrepresentation, misapprehension and/or mental instability. No, it being the case that this is a bonafide phenomenon - happening to real people, in real ways - and has been since time immemorial, the problems must lie not in the data, but in our very conceptions of reality. In today’s episode we’ll be unwrapping this enigma even further, but not in the form of a new case we’ll be studying, but rather in the form of questions and answers. The questions submitted this time around for this Inquiring Mind feature were - again - of the highest caliber - and my thanks go out to all who took the time to submit a question. Since I don’t have the time to answer all of the questions submitted, I’ve chosen to engage with several that I think help us to keep our eye on this central question regarding the ultimate nature of reality. And with that in mind, let’s get right to it, in this, the 3rd installment of The Inquiring Mind, in this, the 62nd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

In recent years numerous accounts involving the UFO Phenomenon have been made public that contain a broad assortment of bizarre, paradigm-stretching, and, for many, credibility-challenging, elements of so-called High Strangeness - i.e. elements that seem to contradict our consensus understanding of the possible. Recent books such as <em>Skinwalkers at the Pentagon</em> have helped to turn the spotlight on these co-arising elements of paranormality that tend to emerge alongside standard UFO sightings. Some might look at these recent revelations and wonder if perhaps these elements are only now being presented because paranormality has become “in vogue”, so to speak. In other words, skeptics might look at these recent revelations and suggest ufology has become corrupted by the imagination of the time - as if people’s reports have become sprinkled with elements they internalized while watching too much Netflix, or something of the sort. But the truth is, these elements of High Strangeness are not new. Not in the slightest. The truth is that the reason we see more reporting of these elements today is because there is less repression of these elements and these particular encounters by the ufological gatekeepers who, historically, wanted to present a cohesive nuts and bolts narrative so as to garner the attention and, they hoped, respect, of the scientific mainstream. In other words, historically, ufologists themselves often censored elements of high strangeness in the data that was collated. But again, these reports have always existed. Paranormality and UFOs go together like the ocean and sand; in other words, not only do they simply co-exist together, but they seem to be directly linked in some kind of causal chain - even if the specifics have long eluded the grasp of researchers and theorists alike. The curious encounters of a French man who, in order to maintain his privacy, came to be referred to simply as Dr. X, is a perfect case in point. This case is from the late 1960s, long before the current era’s focus on ufological high strangeness, and yet, it has it all: physical healing, the spontaneous appearance of triangular skin marks, memory manipulation, future-casting, poltergeist & hitchhiker effects, multi-generational impacts, etcetera. What are we to make of this bizarre menu of elements that seem to - effectively - turn on their head almost all of our modern notions as to how reality is supposed to unfold? Do these elements merely demonstrate the impressive capabilities of a more sophisticated extraterrestrial intelligence, or do they perhaps provide hints regarding an origin for some of these mysterious others that flies in the face of the standard hypotheses put forth to make sense of this Phenomenon? These are the very matters we’ll seek to explore in this, the 61st episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

When it comes to the so-called UFO Phenomenon, the levels of complexity go much deeper than the general public and the political and media mainstream generally realize. In other words, the conversation that’s – finally – being had in those circles, because of revelations arising primarily since 2017 – is still a far cry from the nature of the discussion being had by people really familiar with the nuances of this thorny but enthralling topic. The first layer is the notion that sophisticated alien entities may be in our midst, supposedly piloting – or at least controlling, even if remotely – the strangely exotic craft that have been regularly spotted buzzing in and around our skies. That part of the conversation is finally being had – in at least some elements of the mainstream, though widespread acknowledgement of this fact is still a long way off. Further inward from that surface layer of the proverbial onion is discussion regarding how these alien others seem to be both contacting and ongoingly interacting with human beings, as we speak, and most likely have been for as long as our species has been around to have such experiences. Another layer deeper from that part of the narrative, which is already much more than the general public and the political and media mainstream are willing to even discuss, is a notion even more shocking: that being that some people are taking a proactive role – and are reaching out to these alien others; taking the front-foot, as it were, in the contact and communication process. CE-5 – short for “close encounters of the 5th kind” is a term used to describe a certain form of this kind of interaction with alien others. CE-5 involves a series of general protocols designed to peacefully invite contact with sophisticated, non-human intelligence. A person may, for instance, communicate, via the aid of meditation and directed intention, a desire to see a craft – presumed by many, if not most, to be extraterrestrial in origin – to show itself in a particular place in the sky at a particular time. Interestingly, while CE-5 is the most familiar form of proactive, human-initiated contact with apparently non-human, alien intelligence, it is not the only method that has, and is, being employed. Astral travel is another form of contact/communication/communion that is being used to reach out and bridge whatever divide separates us and “them”. Of course, the fact that astral travel seems to – after the correct kind of training/preparation – be just as effective in achieving this close encounter contact as is CE-5, this only begs the question as to the nature of the divide that does actually separate us from them. Indeed, the fact that we seem to be able to travel, via consciousness, as it were, without “physically” going anywhere, and still not only contact these alien others, but even spend time aboard their in-orbit spacecraft, suggests that the nature of the contact (or at least, some if it) is perhaps not what many first assume it to be. And really, once you really think about it, it becomes clear that the implications here even call into question the very nature of what we call “reality”. Without doubt these implications are as fascinating as they are mind-bending; and are – without question – as simultaneously bizarre as they are profound. And these are the very matters we’ll seek to delve deep into, in this, the 60th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Over the last several episodes we’ve been discussing some of the more bizarre, even absurd, elements of the UFO Phenomenon. For anyone who’s taken the time to do a truly deep dive into the data behind this Phenomenon, it is clear that there is much to make sense of here: much that doesn’t fit well with certain cookie-cutter, predetermined hypotheses meant to make sense of the data. Two episodes ago we discussed Jacque Vallée’s groundbreaking, genre-stretching and controversial book Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers, where Vallée drew our attention to parallels between elements of the so-called UFO Phenomenon and events from both religious history and historic faerie lore. Beyond somewhat superficial differences, the overlap was clear. And in our last episode we dove directly into an investigation of the absurd or ridiculous nature of many of these encounters with supposed aliens. While we should always be wary of anthropocentric notions of how supposed space aliens “should behave”, it is difficult to look past the overwhelming degree of absurdity in many of these encounters. Are they merely so strange because we cannot make heads or tails of the actions of a much more sophisticated intelligence or species whose rationality supersedes our own? Or are the events themselves simply absurd – full stop? Following up on his exhaustive study of the data we’ve covered over the last couple of episodes, Vallée, along with his colleague, physicist Eric Davis published a position paper titled Incommensurability, Orthodoxy and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena in which they lay out the challenges that confront us in trying to study a Phenomenon that is so rich in elements of High Strangeness and paranormality. This paper, though only totaling 9 pages, is rich in detail – touching on many of the key elements that anyone studying this Phenomenon should be paying close attention to. Beyond presenting these elements in a clear and concise manner, this paper by Vallée and Davis also makes clear many of the misguided assumptions that various researchers make in trying to “pin down” the ultimate origin and nature of the apparent intelligence or intelligences behind the mind-bending activity associated with the UFO Phenomenon, while also proposing the broad brush strokes of a way forward, utilizing a multi-pronged and multidisciplinary approach. A deep dive into the informative and insightful nature of this paper by Jacques Vallée and Eric Davis is the topic of this, the 59th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Last time on this podcast we discussed Jacque Vallée’s ground-breaking and genre-stretching book Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers, which highlights striking parallels between elements found within what’s commonly referred to as the UFO Phenomenon, and distant tales that come to us from so-called faerie lore. That is to say, once you crack the veneer of more recent 20th and 21st century encounters with what are assumed to be spacecraft being piloted by alien beings who’ve supposedly traveled across the vast distances of the cosmos to get here, and the stories of our ancestor’s encounters with the likes of fawns, faeries and goblins from the annals of human history, the degree of overlap is as startling as it is, at least from Vallée’s perspective, potentially revealing. Put succinctly, Vallée, and others since he first penned this book in the late 1960s, have wondered if perhaps some kind of intelligence has been interacting with human beings throughout the entire course of our history, and either that we’ve just interpreted them differently because of our changing assumptions about reality, or that the very manner in which they appear to us is partly determined by cultural constructs. Incidentally, this latter possibility may even explain some of the differences noticed, not only across time, but also between cultures existing contemporaneously. When one peruses the full breadth of the history of these kinds of interactions with beings that appear to be decidedly non-human, one particular element stands out particularly. Here I speak of the degree of absurdity, elsewhere described as “ridiculousness”, that arises in many of these cases. And again, this is often as true of cases of what, at first glance, appear to be standard extraterrestrials flying spacecraft, as it does of faeries abducting human beings and then returning them only after having altered that individual’s relationship with spacetime, in one way or another, at least temporarily. While we might ignore elements of absurdity apparent in historic cases of faerie lore because, after all, few modern people take those stories seriously to begin with. After all, they’re “fairy tales”: a genre many take to mean “made up” or “not real” or “fantastical. However, what is disconcerting to some who like to cling to a standard extraterrestrial hypothesis to explain modern incidents of the UFO Phenomenon, here too the accounts provided reveal elements of what appears to be pure absurdity: elements of ridiculousness that surely have no place if we’re speaking of sophisticated, technologically superior entities traveling from exo-planets to survey our blue pearl of a planet. Why the absurdity? And why so often? What are we to make of this? Is this merely attributable to errors in translation or something equally banal? Or is this seeming ridiculousness pointing to something more central; something serving perhaps as a signpost pointing towards the murky origin of these various non-human Others? These are the very matters we’ll seek to explore in this, the 58th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Near the middle part of the 20th century, American society became obsessed with a newfangled fascination. This pastime that took the public’s imagination by storm, prompted serious and excited discussion around interplanetary visitors. The dawning of this new era in pubic life was fueled by a series of sightings of what quickly became known, colloquially, as “flying saucers”. More generally, the term adopted was that of UFOs – unidentified flying objects. This term described what was commonly assumed to be, sophisticated technological spacecraft being piloted by alien others – Martians or Venusians or something in that line of thinking; our neighbors from the surrounding planets of our solar system. Now, while the public’s interest was peaking, the mainstream scientific establishment was much more cautious. All of this hoopla seemed too good to be true; too much like a radio drama depicting an H.G. Wells story, or something along those lines. For that reason, mainstream scientists largely steered clear of this topic. And of course, this bias was helped in large measure by what we understand now to be a dedicated disinformation campaign meant to quell public and academic interest, being perpetuated by the federal government. However, that said, there were scientists who had not forgotten that their role was to investigate anything mysterious that seemed to be manifesting, without assuming – a priori – that such things simply couldn’t be. These rare pioneers of inquiry are the kinds of people determined to let data – not preexisting bias – lead the way. One such pioneer was and is a scientist named Jacques Vallee – a living legend who has arguably done more for the field of ufology than any other person in the history of the world. What’s made Vallee so well regarded over time is that, looking back, he was always willing to go – again – wherever the data led him; letting it, rather than the “common sense” thinking of the day lead to the postulating of new hypotheses. Now, speaking of that, one such data-driven shift that happened for Vallee came when he recognized that, 1.) These supposed encounters with alien beings flying sophisticated spacecraft seemed to regularly include elements of high strangeness more akin to what are commonly referred to as paranormal encounters, and 2.) That, when examined in close detail, these elements overlapped considerably with apparently religious or fairy-tale encounters from distant human history. This inspired Vallee to do a deep dive, comparing modern-day UFO encounters with events from distant history, leading, eventually, to his controversial, consequential and ground-breaking book Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers. And It is the surprising and evocative revelations uncovered in that seminal book that is the topic of this, the 57th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

In the two previous episodes of the podcast we covered the key elements of the case of Terry Lovelace, a man who’s had a lifetime of experiences with apparently non-human, alien intelligences. Lovelace’s case is punctuated by events known as abductions, which involve human beings being visited by these alien others and then transported, by way of their technology, up into craft, either situated above a particular location, or orbiting the earth. In one instance Lovelace recounts being transported to a massive mothership, so large that it needed to be “parked” on the far side of the moon in order to not be visible to the naked eye of those on Earth. As it turns out, a case such as Lovelace’s is not terribly unique. In fact, beyond certain fairly superficial differences, this case bears remarkable similarity to a host of other cases documented within the annals of the UFO Phenomenon literature. In fact, it is not a stretch to say that this particular kind of alien interaction is one of the most commonly reported. And of course that’s precisely why I picked Lovelace’s case to highlight: because it is so representative of a larger phenomenon that speaks to a group of alien others interacting with human beings all across the planet, and over the course of multiple generations. So now that we’ve taken the time to highlight some of the specifics of Lovelace’s case, and how it played out over the course of his lifetime, in this episode I’d like to dive into the key elements of these particular kinds of cases that, again, are well attested throughout the UFO Phenomenon literature. What the data tells us is that, barring some massive disinformation campaign involving thousands of people all across the world, co-conspiring to enact some bizarre and unwieldy psy-op, these events really are happening in one way or another. This particular kind of human/alien interaction is going on, en-masse, as we speak. This answers the “what’s happening” or “what is it” aspect of the UFO Phenomenon, or at least, in relation to one aspect of it – because again, as I keep trying to drive home, from my perspective what we conveniently call the UFO Phenomenon, is likely an amalgam of numerous phenomena arising from different intelligences with likely different origin stories, not to mention different agendas. But in relation to this one key element of the larger Phenomenon, knowing what’s happening only serves to beg certain key questions, such as: Who’s involved? Why are they doing it? And how are they doing it? We might also ask, how is it that this is happening seemingly under the very noses of the world’s populace? Said differently, why the societal ignorance and/or disinterest? And to what degree are the governments of the world aware of this phenomenon, and to what degree might they actually be involved? These are the very thorny but essential questions we’ll seek to find some clarity on in this, the 56th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.