The Pelican
Magonia 73, January 2001
The main driving force of ufology is the belief that there is something genuinely mysterious going on behind the scenes of UFO reports and UFO lore. What keeps this belief going is a psychological need for mystery for most people, and a psychological need for notoriety, book contracts, lecture tours, etc. for a few people. Well, that's what the Pelican believes and, remember, he enjoys a bird's-eye view of the ufological scene.
There is only one rational approach to ufology and that is yes, you are way ahead of the Pelican here the Psychosocial Hypothesis (PSH). Now it might be argued that the ETH is also rational and it must be admitted that it is at least logically possible. If there are alien craft out there, they could possibly be seen flyihg through our atmosphere. Their occupants could occasionally abduct people if they had a mind to do so, but not on the industrial scale alleged by Hopkins, Jacobs, and friends. However, as it is generally agreed that most UFO reports can be explained without recourse to the ETH, then the PSH can satisfactorily account for them.
The real problem is that some people accept neither the PSH nor the ETH. Instead, they babble about UFO manifestations coming from «other dimensions" or having «higher rates ofvibrations". They employ many other strange terms which all have one thing in common. They can sound good, especially if you can say them with apparent sincerity, and without getting the giggles, but they are utterly meaningless.
There are numerous examples in the UFO literature. Take Jacques Vallee, for instance. In his book Revelations he writes: "The genuine UFO phenomenon ... is associated with a form of nonhuman consciousness that manipulates space and time in ways we do not understand" and ''The entities could be multidimensional beyond space-time itself. They could even be fractal beings." (1)
If any readers can make any sense of this the Pelican would be delighted to hear from them.
Indulgence in this sort of nonsense can ruin what would otherwise be useful contributions to the subject, particularly where alien abduction stories are concerned. A good example is a book by Ann Druffel entitled How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction. (2) Now Druffel doesn't believe that solid, physical aliens arriving in nuts-and-bolts saucers can actually float through bedroom walls, but she doesn't want to come out and say that the problem is thus one for the psychologists, psychiatrists and neurologists. She writes: "I regard the cases discussed herein as true accounts of encounters with unidentified beings who are real, at least on some level of reality." (3)
What is a "level of reality", wonders the Pelican? Do these levels include social reality, on which level the UFO phenomenon is undoubtedly real; or does she mean subjective reality, as in dreams or hallucinations, which often seem to be real, but can be experienced only by the subject? Apparently not. It seems that " ... the greys might be interdimensional in nature or, alternatively, that they may normally exist in an invisible portion of our own electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. In other words, they might not originate in our normally perceived space-time ... " (4) Again, we have jargon which is totally meaningless (at least in the context in which it is used). Let's get it straight, Ann. Either the Greys are real, physical creatures, or they are imaginary. There is no third way.
But there is hope yet. She writes: ''Even if all abduction scenarios prove to be some type of psychological aberration, as some skeptics and debunkers conclude, the resistance techniques described can still be effective for Group One through Three." (5) These three techniques are Mental Struggle, Physical Struggle and Righteous Anger. They would indeed be likely to prove effective against imaginary entities, and thus her advice could be very useful to those who think they are constantly being abducted by aliens. How these and the other techniques described could be effective against "interdimensional" beings is not clear, though.
Why, asks the Pelican, do these beings never seem to get stuck in our dimensions or part of the spectrum? Why can't they be seen by anyone who happens to be around when they appear? Why can't their appearances be recorded clearly on film or video?
Anyway, if we scrub out all the nonsense about other dimensions, etc., we are left with an interesting and possibly very useful book for abductees and those who try to help them. So what has been the response to Druffel's work by certain high profile American abduction experts? Zero. Nothing. Dead silence. In a recent article, she wonders why (perhaps a tiny bit disingenuously). (6) She speculates that perhaps her ideas do not fit in with their hypotheses, but the cynical old Pelican suspects that perhaps if these people tried out her techniques and they worked, then eventually the whole problem would be cleared up and they would fade gently into obscurity. Not a happy prospect for egomaniacs who delight in preening themselves on the stages at UFO conferences and being surrounded by admiring circles of support groups and asserted harmless lunatics.
To return to UFOs and aliens in general, the Pelican has kept the best argument against their objective reality to the end. This has been seid before, but not often enough. They are not real because they never provide any information. There is nothing in the UFO reports or literature that supplies us with any facts which are not already known, which are new and surprising, and which could be investigated and verified by scientists. Not only is this the case, but the UFO myth does not even have any consistent internal logic, and most reports are riddled with internal contradictions. Yes, there is no alternative. The PSH is the only way out of the UFO mess.
References:
- Vallee, .Jaques, Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception, Ballantine Books, New York, 1993,259
- Druffel, Ann, How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction, Piatkus, London, 1998
- Ibid., xi
- Ibid., 15
- Ibid., 16-17
- Druffel, Ann, "Victim mentaliy in abductees: an unacceptable concept", Flying Saucer Review, 45, 3, Autumn 2000, 18-21.