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Third Australian
National UFO Conference Review
Saturday 14th and
Sunday 15th June 2003 Brisbane Australia
Reviewer: Sheryl
Gottschall
The National
UFO conference for 2003 was hosted by UFO Research Queensland
in Brisbane and held at the Italo-Australian Centre.
Saturday began
with opening remarks and an official welcome by UFORQ’s
Chairperson Tino Pezzimenti. Following this was Tino’s reading
of an announcement by Mr Keith Basterfield from AURA in
Adelaide. Keith was to be a conference speaker but was unable
to attend the National Conference due to ill health. His
planned presentation was entitled ‘Disclosure – An Australian
Perspective’ and this was an exploration of the history of
‘disclosure’ in countries to date, a close look at the recent
US project, a review of Australian disclosure and a proposed
strategy for an Australian disclosure project. Keith’s
announcement was in relation to the launch of ‘Disclosure
Australia’. For more information about the project go to
http://disclosure. freewebpage.org.
Lee Heather
The first
speaker of the day was Lee Heather and his presentation was
entitled ‘Remote Viewing ETs’. Lee is a registered nurse and
was initially trained in remote viewing at the Farsight
Institute in Atlanta in 1996, one year after it was
declassified. He was the first person from Europe to train in
the method and later also learnt other forms of remote viewing
from some ex-military teachers. Lee began his presentation
with an in depth description of the mechanics of remote
viewing, which is a psychic spying technique. Many people
confuse the technique with astral projection but it is more
akin to bilocation. This is where one’s mind is so immersed at
the target that visual impressions are received where the
remote viewer is sitting rather than the viewer actually
becoming out-of-body.
Lee began with
a brief description of the mechanics of remote viewing
followed by information gleaned by this technique relevant to
UFO research. Some of the information he covered related to
the Voyager satellite to Mars. Remotely viewed information
showed that something lifted off from Mars, came towards the
satellite, shone a beam onto the satellite to scan for life,
found there was none and shut the satellite down. Another
incident was the malfunctioning Phobos satellite. Remotely
viewed information revealed that an object was next to the
satellite and this was supported by a photograph taken by a
Russian cosmonaut showing an object next to the satellite.
Lee went on to
speak about crop circles and the video clips taken showing
small spheres sometimes captured on video flying over them.
Military remote viewers had previously revealed these spheres
to be natural, semi-soft and not man-made. Other remotely
viewed information declares that people are living under the
surface of Mars in pressurised containers. These people know
we have the ability to detect them but we are still a long way
off from making contact with them. Finally, the CIA are aware
that objects are lying all over the desert in the US and that
UFOs are using these as guiding beacons.
Lee constantly
stressed throughout his presentation that remotely viewed
information should be taken lightly until such time as
feedback or corroborating evidence confirms the information.
Sometimes this may take up to ten years.
The next
speaker (identity withheld) was ‘Paul’. Paul is a promising
Disclosure witness and told an interesting story about an
experience while in the Navy with HMAS Voyager. In 1962 Paul’s
ship was travelling towards Bass Strait to pick up one of its
officers. At the time of his watch he was in the conning tower
receiving messages about course settings and directions. About
half an hour after he began his watch he received an order to
increase speed and change direction, then to increase speed up
to three quarters and again change course. This speed was held
for 20 minutes. He was then given another order to increase
speed to full and make a further compass change. After 10
minutes of full speed at 40 knots he received another order to
resume original speed and direction. Later, radar personnel
advised they had picked up a metallic object travelling
underwater which was quite large and the ship had given chase.
It eventually disappeared off radar at over 100 knots. After
half an hour the crew were given orders not to discuss the
matter with the press and to keep quiet about it.
Unfortunately the ships log and records went down with the
ship in 1965 and the captain is now deceased.
Rex Gilroy
Following Paul
was well-known author and researcher Rex Gilroy, whose
presentation was entitled ‘Australian Mysteries of Time and
Space’. Rex began with traditional aboriginal Dreamtime
stories of worlds in the sky that had mountains, great forests
and watercourses that were inhabited by heroes who came down
from the sky to teach man about their beliefs and culture. One
story from the Cape York area speaks of a great mountain
descending from the sky, landing, and some aboriginal people
boarding it. It then lifted off and disappeared and these
people were never seen again. Far back in the Dreamtime was a
story of a great red egg descending from the ‘sky world’ and
crash-landing on Earth. Out of this emerged white-skinned
‘culture heroes’ and their children. The adults could not
accustom themselves to the atmosphere but the children adapted
to the new environment and carved and painted the likeness of
their parents on cave walls to perpetuate their memory.
Rex told of a
case from 1932 where an aboriginal woman was out hunting for
bush tucker outside Charters Towers when several men in
metallic clothes emerged from the scrub, grabbed her and
dragged her into a large gleaming silver craft. She was tied
to a table where strange experiments were performed on her.
She observed the craft flying into the sky through a large
oval screen that she could see overhead. The craft returned
and she was allowed to escape.
Another
abduction case Rex reported was that of a friend who was
riding his motorbike when he saw a bright silvery saucer
hovering over the road above the trees. He stopped and then
found himself floating up into a craft where he was
telepathically told ‘all was well’. A section of the wall slid
open and three beings appeared, all in grey body suits. He was
then led into another room where he was poked and prodded and
then blacked out. He awoke and was taken to an area where
there were domed and pyramid-shaped habitats, oddly shaped
furniture and fruit and vegetables in plastic-like containers,
which he was encouraged to eat. He was told that he had been
taken to another world located in another time period and on a
higher vibration from where he had come. Eventually he was
returned to his motorbike where he awoke 30 minutes before the
time he had been taken, yet he believed it could have been
months, if not years, that he was gone. This story
demonstrates that super-civilisations may have conquered time
travel. Rex has hundreds of recorded cases of people who have
unexpectedly stepped ‘through the window of time’. This will
be the title of his next book so keep a look-out for it.
Rex also spoke
of the many UFO sightings in the area of the Burragorang
Valley near the Blue Mountains, and the phenomena of planes
and helicopters becoming invisible as they fly over the area
while their engine sound can still be heard. He has also
received reports of armed Australian and American forces being
seen in the area as well as strange lights being seen over the
area dating back to the 1950s, and he showed sketches of the
different craft reported over the area.
Our next
speaker was Reverend Bill Gill who spoke about ‘UFOs over
Papua New Guinea.’ This series of sightings began in 1953 and
climaxed in 1959 when Bill, as he asked to be called, was
witness to a large silently hovering UFO over the Boianai
mission where he was stationed. Bill told us he knew nothing
about flying saucers, which UFOs were called in those days,
except those he had heard rumours of. Bill told his now famous
story of seeing a large, close, silently hovering craft near
the mission from which emerged four beings to stand on top.
One of the locals standing on the beach with Bill at the time
thought to wave at the craft and to everyone’s astonishment
the beings waved back. Although some beckoned the craft to
land it never did, but it was seen hovering nearby over three
consecutive nights. At one stage it hung in the sky for so
long that eventually Bill decided to go inside to eat dinner.
Flabbergasted, one of the audience participants asked why he
did and his reply was ‘well you have to eat sometime.’
Bill was very
candid about his sightings saying that it didn’t occur to him
to think about what he saw. He also stated that what he
witnessed had no impact on his personal views, values or
beliefs at the time or to the present day.
Doug Moffett
Doug Moffett
was our next enthusiastic speaker whose presentation was
entitled ‘UFOs The Last Taboo.’ Doug spoke of the uniform
sincerity of the witnesses he had interviewed to-date and the
small amount of misidentified sightings received compared to
those that remained unidentified due to the public’s growing
ability to know what they are witnessing. In an attempt to
explain away the remaining UFO reports, sceptics often offer a
blanket statement pointing at the public’s lack of credibility
as witnesses merely because they are members of the general
public. Sceptics continue to get away with undermining the
credibility of the public as witnesses and this problem causes
further watering down of the validity of such reports,
hampering the potential effect of these reports on society.
Doug identified the prison that witnesses can become trapped
in due to ridicule and the too few places for people to tell
their story. The long-term impact of such a process will leave
its impact on the psyche of witnesses unless the situation is
improved. This is further exacerbated by the public’s passive
interest in the UFO subject leaving the current climate still
fairly cold and non-receptive to such reports.
Doug went on to
speak about some of the cases he had investigated and how
witnesses had to cope with other people’s response to their
experience. His presentation highlighted to me once again how
far our society still had to go to make a change towards a
truer reality.
Martin
Gottschall
The last
speaker for day one was Dr Martin Gottschall who spoke on ‘The
Paranormal Effects of UFO Lights’. Martin began by stating
that researchers can learn quite a bit about ETs through
studying contactee stories and the consistent anomalies which
these individuals report. One of these is the type of light
reported to emit from both internal and external sources of
extraterrestrial craft. Martin listed the ‘high strangeness’
of ET lights being 1) The internal illumination of UFOs and
how the light surrounds the craft, 2) How UFOs can become
transparent, 3) How UFOs can levitate objects with lights.
Martin also
gave excerpts of contactee accounts where high strangeness of
lights was recalled. One example was an account from George
Adamski’s experience wherein he stated, ‘within the craft
there was not a single dark corner…the light seemed to
permeate every cavity…some kind of glassy transparent metal
walls’. Another was from Truman Bethrum where he looked around
and ‘was amazed at the brightness…the light was diffused…and I
could see no source…the passage had been as bright as the room
yet this light could not have come from outside yet as the sun
had not risen’. Another account was from Sam Gargett
(pseudonym) who was a woodcutter from Queensland. ‘Suddenly I
realised that everything in the caravan was clearly visible…it
was as if the light was coming from all directions…there were
no shadows…the light was the same in all the trees, this light
I saw drifted through the trees… I am used to all the shadows
that you see around the bush, on this night however,
everything was illuminated, there were no shadows whatsoever,
that’s when I thought something was wrong’.
Martin further
explored what light really is, how it might operate and the
possible physics of UFO lights. At the end of his presentation
it became apparent that although highly ridiculed 50 years
ago, contactees could not have forseen such physics at work
and which we are only on the verge of understanding now. They
had to be in the environment to observe these light features
and this proves the truthfulness of their experiences.
Bryan
Dickeson
The first
speaker for the second day of the conference was Bryan
Dickeson whose presentation was entitled ‘UFO Crashes and
Retrievals in Australia’. Bryan’s personal Australian list of
possible crashes totals approximately ten cases dating back to
1920 at Groote Island where a very bright object was seen by a
group of aboriginal people. It was seen to vanish over the
horizon followed by a loud noise and a large flash of light.
It was reported that the people who investigated the incident
didn’t return. Another report was of Australian troops in
Vietnam who were on night patrol when they encountered a UFO.
A shoot-out took place and the object appeared to explode.
Metallic samples were recovered and one of these samples was
passed on to an ex-Vietnam veteran who subsequently tossed it
in the trash when he moved overseas.
Another
intriguing case Bryan related occurred in 1958 when a craft
was recovered near Lithgow, west of Sydney. It appeared the
object had crashed but was dug up intact. It appeared to be
very ancient and the age of 5000 to 8000 years was quoted.
Bryan has found
there are no obvious patterns or concentrations of crash cases
in Australia. He went on to state that information in crash
cases is deficient as often there is very little detail
available. Other difficulties are that these cases 1) usually
consist of second-hand accounts, 2) the information from the
witness is often loaded with subjective detail that may not be
relative to the case, 3) the cases can’t be verified, and 4)
often cases included disinformation aimed at discrediting
them. Another problem is that cases can be reported on the
Internet and receive huge coverage within minutes, again
making verification extremely difficult. Obviously the most
famous case of a UFO crash is the Roswell incident of 1947.
Every time this case raises its presence in UFO circles the
same information is related giving further veracity to its
reality and moving it from UFO ‘folklore’ status to a highly
credible incident.
Bryan suggests
that UFO crashes and technology should have their own genre,
much like abduction experiences years ago, and researchers
should be receptive and open to material while maintaining
investigative standards and protocols. Bryan further stated
that UFO investigators still largely see their role as
convincing people of the reality of UFOs, but he suggests that
real acknowledgement came 50 years ago when scientists began
looking for signs of life in the universe on a large scale and
started seeing it everywhere. He suggests it’s time we moved
on, changed our attitude and began exploiting the information
we have gathered over the last 50 years.
Following Bryan
was Gary Opit whose presentation was entitled ‘A Biologist’s
Guide to Extraterrestrials: An Overview Based on Contact
Accounts’. Gary explained that as an environmental scientist
how he understands the way life works is through observing and
identifying patterns. The consistency of patterns such as
behaviour, colour, size etc are all used to identify one
species from another. Gary has noticed that these same
patterns exist in UFO reports as well. Just as biologists are
dependent on past reports so too are UFO researchers, and for
the last hundred years there have been reports of landed
vehicles displaying amazing technology as well as different
types of occupants. The occupants of these craft are somewhat
similar, usually bipeds 1–2 metres tall and generally fitting
into the types of life forms found on Earth. The majority
appear to be primate-like mammals but occasionally there are
reptile reports, like very advanced dinosaurs and very rare
accounts of amphibians or avians (bird/bat-like species such
as the mothman). The occupants of these craft are highly
efficient in their body and form as well as technologically,
and past records of UFO accounts reveal the same patterns of
landing, sampling and taking of humans.
Gary cited the
well-known book A Field Guide To Extraterrestrials by Patrick
Hughye and has classified different types of ETs based on this
book in an attempt to prevent confusion in identifying them.
He has been able to classify thirty different species so far,
some being the elegant humanoid, frogman, red giant, hairy
dwarfs and the pygmy humans. While speaking of the reports in
this book Gary pointed out the value of the early reports it
contained as they were not influenced by images from modern
movies. An interesting point he made was that if an ET came to
earth and visited one family in their home this ET would be
able to tell what the rest of the Earth population was like
generally. Conversely we can do the same with reports of ETs.
Food for thought!
Sheryl
Gottschall
The next
speaker was myself, and my presentation was ‘Looking For
Markers of Alien Contact.’ This explored the possible
physical, psychological and paranormal markers that may exist
within individuals who report close encounters in an attempt
to answer the question of why some people report close
encounters while others do not.
The predominant
observation by researchers is that people who report close
encounters often report an increase in their psychic abilities
or a higher than usual connection to non-ordinary realities
and this is supported by the Roper Report results. These
individuals also report a long history of paranormal events
preceding their experiences such as OBEs, poltergeist
activity, appearance of ghostly apparitions, bizarre dreams
and visions, objects in their possession changing physical
properties, electrical sensitivity, precognition, the ability
to move through solid matter and telepathic communication,
just to name a few.
I next explored
the ‘encounter-prone personality’, a term coined by Dr Ken
Ring, and how this personality could have a sensitivity to
alternate realities, meaning they are more responsive to
paranormal/other-worldly realities than others. There may also
be psychological conditions such as fantasy-proneness,
dissociation etc, that cause people to report close
encounters, but upon further exploration studies have revealed
that experiencers’ narratives do not contain elements
suggesting any recognised psychiatric syndrome, although this
may change in the future.
Another aspect
to explore are the anomalous health issues that many
experiencers share. One that I have found of most interest is
the prevalence of thyroid conditions in experiencers and how
this might have an impact on the high level of creativity
clearly demonstrated after close encounters. Experiencers seem
to be highly creative types and prone to all forms of
creativity such as writing (including alleged alien script),
in arts such as painting, sculpting, etc, composing or playing
music, and indeed even speaking alleged alien languages. To
understand this I explored the throat chakra, which governs
creativity, and how it might be affected by an alien close
encounter. I am left with the conclusion that it is becoming
clear that people who report close encounters also report
accompanying markers that point us towards emerging directions
for further research.
The second half
of the day was devoted to a close encounter experiencer panel,
which for many was the highlight of the conference. It is
extremely difficult to get individuals to speak publicly about
their experiences and for the audience to spend the afternoon
listening to five brave souls tell of their experiences first
hand was a real bonus. This was too lengthy and in-depth an
event to report, except to say the accounts were broad ranging
which left the audience and panellists with many different
opinions as to whether these experiences were of benefit or a
hindrance to humanity.
CONFERENCE
PROCEEDINGS AVAILABLE
Want to read
more? Eight original papers (including the Gill Report) are
included in the conference proceedings. Cost: $25.00
Australian (plus postage).
Email us at
info@uforq.asn.au for more
information.
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