Little Green Meme?

Almost a year ago I emailed an editor of one leading UFO magazine about potentially writing an article for them for publication. I sent some of my work that I had written up to that point and he seemed interested in me potentially expanding one of my original articles for Binnall of America. So with that in mind I worked somewhat diligently at the task for a few months. At the same time I commissioned my girlfriend Ashley to do artwork that would appear in the magazine. Eventually for reasons that I'm still not too sure of the article never appeared in the magazine (I think the editor quit and then the magazine folded or something) and because of this I've sat on the article for quite some time. But I've finally decided to share it with you guys, including Ashley's original artwork, to help me get back into the swing of regular updates as I'm out of school for the summer. Presented below is the article in it's entirety (be warned it's a bit lengthy, after all it was going to appear in a magazine). Hope you enjoy!

Little Green Meme?

When the modern UFO era began after Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting of objects near Mount Rainier, Washington sightings of flying saucers began to be reported from all over the world. Not long after these sightings people also began to report seeing the occupants of the disks. People from all different walks of life were apparently sighting a myriad of strange creatures. In South America little hairy dwarves were sighted, while in other parts of the world the sightings of 9 foot tall monstrosities were reported. But whenever anyone refers to the occupants of these crafts, especially in the 'mainstream' media they only speak of “little green men”. The reason for this is the events of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Case, the aftermath of which is that the term “little green men” would enter the vocabulary of the population and became an infective meme that would be with Ufology for years to come.

On an August night in 1955, Billy Ray Taylor and his wife were visiting the family of Lucky Sutton. The Suttons; Vera Sutton, JC Sutton, Alene Sutton, and three Sutton children, lived in the rural town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Glennie Lankford, June Taylor and O.P. Barker were also visiting the Lucky Sutton house. Early in the evening Taylor went outside of the Sutton house in order to get some water from the outside pump. Just a few minutes later Taylor rushed back into the house exclaiming that he had just seen a flying saucer fly over the house, hover around the woods, and descend into a gully located nearby the home. No one in the family took Taylor's claim seriously as no one went outside to investigate.

An hour later the Sutton’s dog began to bark, so Lucky and Taylor grabbed their guns and went outside to see if they could find what was upsetting the dog. The frightened dog ran under the house and would not return until the following morning. While outside of the house, Lucky and Taylor were amazed to see a 3½ ft tall being approaching them with its arms raised up. They later described the being to researchers as having a large round head, long thin arms that extended nearly to the ground, and legs that did not appear to move. The hands of the being were out of proportion to the rest of its body, and looked more like the talons of a bird than human hands. While the being's eyes appeared to be glowing with a fire that was the shade of yellow.

Being the good country folk that they were, Lucky and Taylor decided to shoot first and ask questions later. When the bullets from their rifle and shotgun struck the creature it back flipped, landed on its feet, and ran back into the darkness. At this point the men went back into the house to check on the family and tell them what had happened. When they rejoined the group in the living room they were astonished to see the same, or similar to it, being at the window. Again, Lucky and Taylor took a shot at the creature. This caused the being to flip backwards and retreat into the shadows. At this time the men were certain that they had either killed or at least wounded the creature(s), so they went outside to see if they could locate the bodies.

Taylor walked outside, but paused on the porch for just a moment. Suddenly, from the roof, a talon reached down and grabbed his hair. Alene pulled Taylor back into the house. Lucky fired upon the creature which caused it to release Taylor and fall from its perch. At this point, it’s not clear who, but someone noticed that one of the beings was in the tree. So both Taylor and Lucky fired at the creature knocking it from the limb, however, instead of falling straight down, the being appeared to float in a falling leaf motion to the ground.

This attack lasted for a little while longer before the group could no longer stand it. Everyone ran to their cars and took off towards the police station in Hopkinsville. When they arrived and began telling their story, it was obvious to the officers on duty that something had happened to these people as they were clearly shaken. A few sheriffs’ deputies and the chief of police, Russell Greenwell, accompanied the Suttons and Taylors back to the house. Once the police arrived they searched for a long time, but could find no apparent trace of anything out of the ordinary. They did, however, see plenty of buckshot meaning that shots had been fired on the grounds of the home that night. The police couldn’t directly tie the buckshots to the sightings of the numerous beings, however in a few places that Taylor and Lucky had fired on the creatures there appeared to be a strange green luminescence on the ground, the source of which the police were never able to determine. A photograph was taken of the luminous patch of grass but a sample was not collected, upon returning the following day the patch had mysteriously disappeared. Police also interviewed neighbors that live close to the Sutton house, most reported not only seeing strange lights flying around in the sky that same night but also heard the gunshots that came from Lucky and Billy’s guns.

Ultimately unable to truly prove anything, the police left the family to resume their duties. A little later that night once the police had finally gone and the family tried to go to sleep, Glennie Lankford spotted another one of the creatures back at the same window and told her son Lucky. Of course Lucky wanted to shoot it, but Glennie told him not to as the creatures, although certainly bizarre, had actually done nothing to harm them that night. Lucky fired at the creature anyway and once again the bullet had no effect and the creature retreated back in to the darkness. The being’s presence at the home lasted until dawn.

The following day the story was repeated in the Kentucky New Era Newspaper and the Sutton Farmhouse became a huge tourist attraction. The family was interviewed about the events of that night and no matter how many times the story was recounted it was always the same. A man named Andrew Ledwith, who worked with WHOP a radio station in a nearby town, interviewed each of the seven adults involved in the incident separately and each told the same story and described the creatures almost identically. Except that the female witnesses thought that the creatures had a more husky build than what the male witnesses described. Ledwith, who was also an artist, was one of the first people to illustrate what the witnesses saw. As later newspapers picked up the story over the weeks and months that followed, they began to refer to the beings as “little green men” although the original descriptions had been that they were in silver suits or were silver themselves.

After the initial media attention, people began to swarm the Sutton house. If the Suttons believed that the worst of their ordeal was over they were sadly mistaken. They were inundated with people seeking proof, stories, or in some cases even autographs. Sadly this was not all that the Sutton family had to deal with. Local public opinion almost immediately labeled the incident as a hoax. Eventually the family could no longer take all of the negative publicity and they started to charge the thrill seekers that came to see them. This only fueled the charges that the family was hoaxing the entire event simply to exhort money from people.

The Sheriff’s department, to its credit, took the family at their word. Chief of Police, Russell Greenwell had a few things to say about what had happened that night. When he described his initial meeting with the Sutton Family the night of the events he said that they appeared to have been frightened “beyond reason, not ordinary”. He would also remark to Ufologist Isabel Davis that when he and the other officers arrived at the Sutton household that, “In and around the whole area, the house, the fields, that night, there was a weird feeling. It was partly uneasiness, but not entirely. Everyone had it. There were men there that I’d call brave men … they felt it too.”

The local police were not the only group to get involved in the investigations or to take what happened seriously. The US Air Force, upon hearing about the incidents, sent officers from the nearby Fort Campbell to do some investigations. Although the Air Force investigation also turned up empty handed for any kind of concrete evidence, this incident remains as an open case to this day. Project Blue Book, the official Air Force UFO investigation from the time period, never did an official investigation but kept a file on the incident none the less. They labeled the case as an 'unknown' which is something they were not very fond of doing at the time.

Eventually the family got completely fed up with all of the attention they were getting, so they sold the property to extended family and moved away. To this day, the surviving witnesses to the event are hesitant to ever talk to anyone about the case. Although on the rare occasion that they have told anyone their stories, they are exactly as they were on that late night oh so many years ago.

Persons that were skeptical of the case almost immediately came forward with alternative theories as to what the Suttons may have actually seen that night. One of the most obvious alternative explanations was that the family simply hoaxed the entire event. As it stands, although others may have also seen unidentified lights in the sky that night, only the families involved in the incidents ever claimed to have actually seen the beings. The local community seemed to accept this theory pretty readily at the time, as a matter of fact they wrote the entire saga off as a drunken hoax that had simply gotten out of hand. It's unlikely that this was the case as Glennie Lankford was known for not allowing the consumption of alcohol at her house, especially when young children were present.

In any event it wasn't too long before a member of the Air Force was ready to offer a very down-to-earth explanation for the strange firefight that had occurred on that August night just two years prior. Speaking in 1957 U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert came to the conclusion that what Lucky and Taylor had been shooting at was none other than an escaped monkey from a circus that was dressed in silver. There are a few problems with this explanation however. While it is true that a circus was in town during the week of the sightings, the circus never reported losing a monkey. Additionally if Lucky and Taylor shot nearly as many times at the creatures as they have said, there would have been a body of some kind that was discovered by the Police or other investigators that night.

The most recent terrestrial explanation for what had occurred that night was first proposed by French Ufologist Renaud Leclet. He suggested that perhaps the beings the family had sighted that night, were in fact Great Horned Owls. The owls would match the descriptions of the beings 'glowing' eyes and would explain some of the apparent otherworldly abilities displayed by the entities. As the owls fly silently it is unlikely that either Lucky or Taylor would have heard the owls flying around from say a limb to the top of the porch. Another part of this explanation that would seem to solve this case, is that the Great Horned Owl aggressively defends its nest. Perhaps, the theory goes, when Lucky and Taylor first started firing on the beings they must have accidentally hit the owls nest causing them to attack for most of the night. The problem with this explanation is not unlike the circus monkey theory. Where are the bodies? At many times Lucky and Taylor apparently hit the beings dead on, so if they were simply misidentifying owls, bodies would or should have been found somewhere at the house. Not only that none of these theories can explain the luminescence patch of ground that was seen, nor the very eerie feeling that was reported by all present at the house the night of the siege.

As with most cases of UFO occupant accounts, the skeptics are still skeptical and the believers still believe in the basic validity of the story. No official explanation has ever been offered by either the police that investigated nor by the Air Force. The surviving members of the incident still maintain that the testimony that was given on that fateful night in 1955 is what actually occurred to them. The legacy of the case, besides offering yet another anecdotal story of human / non-human interaction, is the term 'Little Green Men'. The term has become a meme that has been picked up by people ever since. To this day you will still hear people mockingly refer to the occupants of UFOs as little green men. The next time you hear this, you can smile knowing where this term originated.

Update to Napoleon the Abductee

******Update******

Thanks to Ken Summers of Moonspenders for finding the following. As it turns out my thinking that this read like something out of the Weekly World News wasn't too far off the mark. 

Follow the link to see essentially the same article about the implant found in Napoleon's skull from an edition of the Weekly World News circa 1997. 

Until next time Forteans, stay classy!

Cryptozoology meeting

Continuing on last nights theme of aquatic monsters, there was more cryptozoological news today from the Zoological Society of London. On July 12th they hosted a meeting entitled “Cryptozoology: science or pseudoscience?” This meeting apparently had a very large turnout for people who were interested in learning how cryptozoology could and should be considered as a part of biology and / or zoology. Follow the link to read more from one of the speakers that presented at the meeting. 

It has always seemed that Cryptozoology has been in a better position to be taken seriously by 'mainstream' science more so than any other Fortean topic. This is true for a number of reasons. One we have a precedence of finding weird or unusual creatures that were once thought to not exist. The Mountain Gorilla was once the stuff of legends, the Coelacanth was believed to have been extinct until oops it was found by some fishermen in 1944, and more recently evidence has (no pun intended) surfaced to prove the existence of giant squids. 

Looking good for something that's supposed to be extinct, right?

 It's probably for this reason that many cryptozoologists rarely like to delve into the more esoteric or paranormal aspects of mysterious creatures. Stories of Bigfoot vanishing right in front of witnesses eyes crop more often than not, as do sightings of said creatures in the vicinity of UFO flaps or waves. I can't really blame them of course. Everyone wants to be taken seriously and cryptozoology has a better chance than say ufology, assuming of course that what they are searching for is in fact a physical phenomena.

Maybe there is a physical aspect to the phenomena or maybe it's more paranormal in nature, who knows? It is nice to see that some aspects of the Fortean are being taken seriously by someone. I just hope that people don't fall into the same trap that befalls many ufologists. Where the researcher believes that they know the answer (ie that Bigfoot is a flesh and blood creature) instead of just letting the evidence lead to whatever the real answer maybe.

Magazine article updates!

I've mentioned a number of times on this blog in the past that I had been working on an article for a UFO magazine. If published, it would be my first article in such a medium. Needless to say I was pretty excited to get it finished. In addition to writing the article I was requested to get some illustrations made, so I roped Ashley into doing those for me. Well last night (finally!) I was able to send off the article and illustrations, and at this point I am only waiting to hear back from the editor if it will indeed be published. If it does I will certainly let you guys know which one it is, also if this works out (and even if it doesn't) I have to say that the process has certainly been a learning experience.

Much like this blog and of course my article over at Binnall of America, I have been trying to both improve my writing skills (which I hope have gotten better) and perhaps learn a thing or two. Hopefully we will hear back, sooner rather than later about the article. If not, I will simply try again. Also I have recently taken the plunge back into the dreaded 'facebook'. You are more than welcome to friend me if you wish. I suppose that's about all I have for tonight.

Oh before I forget one last little thing, I'm just about half-way through reading Steve Volk's Fringe-ology (which I can't recommend highly enough) so expect a review here in the next couple of days. Until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean Philosopher saying, stay classy Internet!

Great Daily Resources (or these sites don't suck)

There have been a few posts in the past that have demonstrated how I got frustrated with the Alien/UFO section on ATS, which if you haven't read yet you can find here and here. The conclusion that I came to after the first of the posts was that I will look for resources that I enjoy and that actually teach me a thing or two. Because beyond hopefully coming to a better understanding about Fortean topics, I'm really hoping to actually learn something from this endeavor. Because, if I'm not learning anything, really whats the point? So with this in mind allow me to take this post to plug some of the better resources for learning that I have come across thus far. Among them are some of the biggest influences on my current model of how the Fortean functions. These are sites that I check on a daily basis.(Also they are in no particular order by the way, they are simply in whatever order that I happen to remember them in).

First up is a blog that I highly recommend people check out. Paul Kimball's The Other Side of Truth. This blog has a little bit of everything; UFOs, politics, religion, philosophy, and most importantly Paul Kimball's transformation as he stays on top of the Ufological/Paranormal world (but mostly as an observer). Paul Kimball is a film director whose credits are far too many to list, but the main one I would recommend (and do regularly) would be his 2007 film Best Evidence. It collects the 10 best UFO cases, and you would be hard pressed to disagree with the choices he has made.

Next is one I only discovered recently, and that is Who Forted?. This is a blog that takes a look at the realm of the Fortean in the only sane way you can, with a big sense of humor. They definitely seem to know there stuff as far as Fortean topics are concerned, but at the same time they have an excellent sense of humor about all of it. (For example check out their review of Syfy's Haunted Collector Reality TV series.) When not openly mocking people, which I mean come on who doesn't love that right?, they have some really cool stuff up on their site daily. Definitely a must visit daily site.

One of the better Paranormal podcasts in existence is Tim Binnall's Binnall of America. The show, which has been running now for I think 6 years, has literally interviewed everything one in the realm of esoterica that you can think of. And even some folks that you can't think of, or in my case may never have heard of until they came on Tim Binnall's show (Bruce Rux I'm looking at you). The show mostly comes out on a bi-weekly basis and is a definite must listen to.

In addition to an amazing series of interviews, the show also is home to some of the best writing on  fringe topics in the columns section of the site. Leslie, Regan Lee, Richard Thomas, Marla Pena, Richelle Hawks, Tina Sena, Bruce Priddy, and to a lesser degree yours truly the original Closet Anomalist Tony Morrill. With the exception of Bruce Priddy and myself, the other writers have archives that go back years that are full of all kinds of Fortean goodness.

On the topic of podcasts, Greg Bishop's Radio Misterioso is another must listen to. Especially now that Greg Bishop seems to have gotten his old show archives sorted out and seems to be adding them back to his site. Radio Misterioso is great because, in addition to some of the coolest music you are likely to ever hear, Greg Bishop interviews a lot of cool people. The conversations always seem to go in weird and unexpected places, and I can easily say that this show has introduced me to many of the people that have shaped my understanding and reasoning on Fortean topics. Definitely should check on this one daily.

Along those same lines, Greg Bishop writes for another site that some BOA writers and Nick Redfern all contribute to. UFO Mystic is a great place to visit at least semi-daily for all sorts of great writings by Nick Redfern, Greg Bishop, and a seemingly never ending supply of contributing writers. All in all a great site to visit.

As a general all around great resource for news, there are actually two that tie. First is Daily Grail, which isn't just a news site but that is like my favorite part of it. Seriously I check there daily for a great list of crazy Fortean news stories. The second one is very similar to this, The Anomalist. Like Daily Grail, the Anomalist collects all kinds of random Fortean goodies for you the reader to enjoy. You know now that I think about it, Fortean Times also has this same kind of feature. A Daily roundup of weird news.

Well that about wraps it up. The sites that I have listed above are the ones I visit on a daily basis in order to get my Fortean fix. If you have any suggestions for sites that I should visit, please let me know.

Sorry short post tonight

I have to study for another exam tonight and then I will be passing out. I apologize for not doing a proper post tonight guys and gals. But I wanted to share this interesting piece of information and see what you all think about. 

Quote:

The rumors are finally confirmed, during a special screening of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial at the White house in 1982, Ronald Reagan did make a comment about everything in the movie being true. However, Spielberg says he is pretty sure Reagan was only joking around.

For more check out the link here.

Personally I never really put any stock into this story myself, but what about you? Be sure to leave a comment and let me know. Until next time, take it easy Forteans! 

News follow up

I related in last nights early post, that after weeks of procrastinating I was finally able to complete the article that I will be submitting to a UFO magazine (to be named once confirmation has been received that the article is being published for sure). For many reasons I had put off completing the article, some legitimate others not so much. Either way yesterday around 2 in the afternoon I had finally completed the damn thing. Once it was done I wanted someone to read over it, you know to make sure that I didn't sound like a complete imbecile (which is something I suspect when or if I ever re-read previous posts here at Forteania or my column Fortean Ramblings over at Binnall of America).

My girlfriend, who is my unofficial editor, was at work so that ruled her out. My brother has an extremely bizarre sleep schedule and likely wouldn't be awake for another few hours and I really wanted to get the rough draft sent in the event that the magazine editor decided that they no longer wanted to use my article. Then I thought about a friend of mine who is very supportive in all of my writing exploits (he even listened to every episode of my very short lived podcast I did with another friend). I texted him to see if he too was at work or at home. His response was that he would be out of town for the remainder of the day. At this point I was so desperate for anyone to read my article that I actually contemplated running out into the streets and flagging down cars just to have someone read the damn thing.

Luckily for me it is unbearably hot outside right now where I live, so that option never left the planning stages. Instead I thought, 'Fuck it I will just send the article anyway'. Kind of a lay it all on the line scenario. Plus I had already decided that if, for whatever reason, the magazine didn't want the article I would just sell it to another magazine. So with all of this in mind I emailed the editor my rough draft of the article and spent the rest of the day not thinking about the email at all.....




I wish. As soon as I sent the email, I immediately regretted the decision and wanted to call it back. Unfortunately I'm unaware of any way to So the rest of the afternoon was spent with me secretly checking my phone for an email response. Even though I knew it was unlikely that he would have gotten back to me so quickly. I managed to more or less go about a normal daily routine. Posted up a couple of things up here, watched a movie or two, and read some more of Wake Up Down There: The Excluded Middle Anthology. Finally I went to bed pretty late. When I woke up just a few short hours later (I have a terrible sleep cycle, if I'm lucky I will get 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night) and there was an email waiting for me on the phone.

I checked and, as you could probably guess, it was from the magazine editor. With much trepidation I slowly opened the email, took a deep breath and slowly began to scan the message. Immediately I breathed a huge sigh of relief, he liked the article a lot and thought it was really good. I was ecstatic. Now the only thing that stands between me and being a published writer are a few illustrations that my girlfriend (remember she is also my editor) is working on for the article. Once she has these completed, I will send everything to the editor and hopefully not too long after you will be able to pick up a magazine from the newsstands that has an article written by yours truly.


OK well thats all for now readers, I will return in a little while with some more posting (and likely more photos, because photos are fun). Until then remember “Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you”

A little bit of news while you wait (patiently I hope) for the latest post

I mentioned a few weeks back (see here, here, and here for more) that I had discussed with the editor of a UFO magazine the possibility of writing an article for them. He was very enthusiastic and picked one of my samples that he wanted to see expanded into article with no more than 4,000 words (which by the way goes by pretty quickly). That was on May 18th. It wasn't until earlier today that I was finally able to get the damned thing written. Mostly because I was procrastinating. I think that secretly I am afraid of criticism. It was just procrastination, if I didn't write the article and submit it, there would be no way it could be turned down. Kind of a 'if you don't try, you don't fail' philosophy.

But in between when I last spoke to him via email and today when I finally finished the rough draft, I had been doing this blog. For some reason posting every day (and having a pretty decent response from you readers) I have come to feel a little more confident in my writing or more importantly in my opinions. Or maybe I realized that it doesn't matter as long as I am enjoying it. And I have to be honest I am really enjoying doing this blog. At first I was a little hesitant, but this Sunday will have been a month and I am really enjoying it.

Anyway back to my news, I have emailed the rough draft to the editor so that he can look over it. Hopefully by this time tomorrow you will have heard back from me about how it goes. And if (in the very likely event) that he doesn't like it, I will always submit it to another magazine. Never fear though I will continue working hard at this blog. And of course there is always my column over at Binnall of America. Fortean Ramblings seems to be pretty popular as well. That's all for the moment, hopefully I will have a new post up in just a little while. Until then this is your friendly neighborhood Closet Anomalist Tony saying 'Catch you on the flip side'

Misadventures in PC Buying

OK so I took the day off from work because I felt like crap. In addition to that I start back to class tomorrow and I figured I could get away with missing a day in order to have a 'mental health day'. It felt great. Not only did I get to sleep in a few hours later than normal, my girlfriend and I ended up going to Best Buy to pick me a net book.

It wasn’t my intention today to actually buy the damn thing, after all we do have a laptop that we share. But in the last week or so since I have been posting more frequently, I have kind of been hogging the computer. With the possibility that I may end up actually writing articles for magazines, plus the fact that my classes will be starting tomorrow, we decided that the benefits out weighed the cons. So we purchased the strangely named Eee PC from ASUS. Now this is by no means a paid advertisement for ASUS, but if you are going to buy a PC definitely get an ASUS.

Anyways, I had figured that after the purchase of the net book I would quickly be able to get back to working on my article. Boy oh boy how wrong could I be? Once we got home I had to do the initial boot of the computer. That took about 15 minutes. Next I had to go about the oh so important process of installing necessary programs (read Mozilla Firefox, IE 8 can go jump off a bridge). When finally this was accomplished, I was able to set up my home group in order to move over my old documents. These included my articles for Binnall of America, backups for Forteania, and my article for the magazine. Once this was accomplished I decided to get working back on the article. Once I opened (or attempted to open) the document. Blam! A little pop up came that extolled me to either activate my version of Microsoft Office 2010 (don't have one), purchase a version from the online store (definitely not going to happen), or use the kind of shitty Microsoft Starter version of Word. So as I didn't want to do any of those things, I opted for downloading Open Office. The download took all of about 3 hours.

3 grueling hours later Open Office was finally ready to be installed. Once this process completed, which surprisingly didn't take all that long to do. It was at this moment that the computer happily informed me that 31 updates were ready to be installed for the computer. Evidently these were vital updates that, if they were not installed, could possibly result in the destruction of all mankind. Well you can sleep well tonight with the knowledge that I decided to spare all of your lives by installing the necessary updates. (No thanks needed, just send money). Finally everything was updated and I was good to go. So I opened up my article.... only to discover that I was actually working with an older version that had about 1000 fewer words than my new one. Luckily I had a jump drive nearby , loaded the latest version of the article.

So here we are almost 8 hours after the purchase of my net book and I am finally ready to get started on my article. Of course it was about that time that I realized I hadn't blogged all day, and that about brings you up to speed. I will be posting again a little later tonight, after I have hopefully gotten a chance to make a dent into my article. Until then this is your friendly neighborhood Closet Fortean (and proud new owner of an ASUS net book) saying catch you on the flip side.

Ufology's Sacred Cow

I mentioned recently how I have gotten an offer to get an article of mine published in a UFO magazine. In order to get a better feel for how best to write this article I decided to head to my local bookstore and thumb through some of the other UFO magazines that are out currently on the newsstands. Since my girlfriend is my unofficial editor she also grabbed a few of them and we began to look through them together. We were flipping through the pages of a magazine that is currently out on the stands, which I will not be naming, and we began to notice something that seemed pretty odd at first. Just about every article in the magazine was about the Roswell UFO crash.

My girlfriend, who is only interested in these Fortean topics to humor me (that’s not fair she is interested in them but simply isn’t as obsessed with it as I am), was quite confused by why this topic was being given such a big presence in the magazine. As she said this it got my mind to wondering. Why indeed was Roswell almost literally in every single article? I think the answer is really quite simple and also sad.

Roswell is one of Ufology’s Sacred Cows. From the Wikipedia article a sacred cow is ‘something else that is considered immune from question or criticism, especially unreasonably so’. Hmm yeah I think that is an excellent definition of Roswell’s position in modern day Ufology. It seems to be that for many people Ufology lives or dies on Roswell. Many in the field hold the case with such high regard that it is unlikely to get a real dialogue going about what may have actually occurred on that ranch in 1947. Roswell’s importance in ufology is such a strange thing. I mean let’s be honest about the case, it happened over 63 years ago. At this point it is unlikely that anything can be definitively decided as to what happened that fateful night.

For many outside of the UFO ‘field’ (if such a thing even truly exists) Roswell seems to be the easiest target to attack Ufology’s credibility. After all, when you are over 60 years removed from the event it is really easy for a legend to be born. And sadly many of your better known Ufologists are very quick to jump to the defense of this case. But I think that’s the problem. Again for so many it’s as though if you can prove Roswell somehow you can by association prove all of Ufology as true. This doesn’t really seem to make any logical sense, however. Why do we need this one case in order to prove that there are UFO’s that are spotted all over the world literally every day of the year? Somehow proving Roswell was an Extraterrestrial event doesn’t give Ufology the credence it may deserve.

Therein, I think, lays the problem. For the Ufologists who have made their careers out of the Roswell Crash, the case seems to be the Holy Grail for the ETH. After all, at least as the common story goes; there were bodies that were recovered that night that didn’t look at all human. Since they didn’t appear to be human they must therefore have been Extraterrestrial. The most popular version of the Roswell case bolsters the ETH. Ufologists, many who already know the provenance of the UFO’s, see Roswell as the cornerstone for the theories they are trying to prove.

There are so many problems with this, but the main one is that I honestly believe that we are wasting time, money, and energy on a case that we can never truly prove. Weather balloon, alien spacecraft, mogul balloon, Japanese Biological Weapon, really it doesn’t matter at this point in time what happened on that ranch. Well at least not to the degree that the case has been elevated. At best Roswell should have been just another nail in the coffin of people denying that there is an unusual phenomena going on, rather than a Sacred Cow that is damn near deserving of our respect and veneration. It is high time that we move on, put this case down in the UFO history books and look at the sum of the whole rather than just the parts. Well that is all for today, maybe next time I will take down the Sacred Cow of the Alien Abduction Phenomena, namely the Betty and Barney Hill case. Until next time this is Fortean Philosopher Tony, saying I really could go for some beef now for some reason.

PS If anyone wishes to disagree please feel free to write a comment.

Me published?

So as I related in my posting yesterday, I sent some of my writings off to a UFO magazine in the hopes of getting published by them. Well this morning I received an email from the editor of the magazine who was generally interested in my work. As a matter of fact he wants me to expand one of the items that I had sent into him.

For the next couple of days I will be doing some intense research and re-writing of the article. Hopefully you will be able to see the article on your local newsstands very soon. Well that's all I have for now, more to come later. Oh and for what it's worth I won't let my work on the article interfere with my attempt to do daily blogging. Until later this is Tony, the Closet Anomalist/Fortean, signing off.