Engine Stoppers

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 90, November 2005

Machines fail in the presence of UFOs. Car motors stall out. Lights dim and go out. Radios fill with static. Televisions display interference. Major electrical grids have even been known to black-out in the presence of UFOs. Such claims of interaction with the physical environment - often referred to as electro-magnetic effects - have at times been felt by ufologists to be one of the most compelling proofs that UFOs must be real in a material sense. Such claims can not be reduced to hallucination.

The Alien Carried Paperwork

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 84, March 2004

In March 1980, a young rural Pennsylvania couple was interviewed concerning an experience they shared aboard an alien craft. A person attending a lecture on UFOs given by Eugenie Macer-Story told her about the couple’s experiences. She travelled to their home – they had no telephone – and they cordially allowed her to tape the story of their encounters with the aliens. Frank and Alice had not contacted any UFO organisation and there was no use of hypnosis at any point preceding or during Macer-Story’s interview.

Varicose Brains, Part 3: Headhunt: Seeking the Degenerates Amongst the Primitives

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 77, March 2002

Flying saucers mostly just flew around when they arrived in 1947. They didn’t land much and we did not see much of who was piloting them. Only four or five such cases have been found that we might fairly term Close Envounters of the third Kind (CE3Ks). This contrasts sharply with the Airship Waves of 1896/97 where researchers have found 36 detailed CE3Ks, at least fourteen of which are explicitly extraterrestrial. A few more seem to be so implicitly.

Varicose Brains, Part 2: Heading Towards the Future

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 68, September 1999

Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) is largely remembered as an important French astronomer whose textbooks were standard references for the profession. He is an important figure in the tradition of the plurality of worlds. He believed that intelligent life filled the universe like many intellectuals did, but he was an important advocate of the growing view that those other worlds would not be inhabited by beings identical to man.

Varicose Brains: Part 1: Entering a Grey Area

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 62, February 1998.

The image of the alien in UFO culture has generally been dominated by an entity with a large, bald head. Usually the being is small compared to humans. Often the limbs are described as thinner or more slender, but the more closely universal rule is that such aliens are never fat or obese. Current convention labels approximations to this stereotypical ufonaut with the term Greys.

Gill, Yet Again

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 57. September 1996.

Looks like I have some objections to deal with. Let’s start with Bullard’s four points. Firstly. Bullard asserts that the UFO of June 27 was an all-terrain vehicle, crossing not just sea but land as well, the latter being inconsistent with a ship. In the talk some four months after the encounter the object “wandered over the sky a bit”, passed behind a hill, came back, then “shot right across the bay”

Gill Again: The Father Gill Case Reconsidered

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 54, November 1995

In a 1979 survey of ninety leading ufologists, Ron Story found the case of Father Gill of Papua New Guinea was most mentioned when he asked for the strongest UFO evidence. [1]Jerry Clark had acclaimed it as “History’s Best Case” in an article for Fate magazine the year before. [2] J. Allen Hynek termed it a “classic” and said he was impressed by the quality and number of witnesses and the character and demeanour of Reverend Gill. [3]

Alienating Fancies: The Influencing Machine Fantasy, Part 2

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 50, September 1994

George Hunt Williamson greatly expanded the scope of his tale with his next work Other Tongues – Other Flesh. The origin of man is traced to a migration of spirit from the star-sun Sirius which fuses with the native apes of Earth. Extraterrestrial influence nowadays comes in two types. One comes from the Orion nebula and takes over weak-bodied Earth people making them agents subservient to their will. They are used as instruments to introduce people to other people and to ask leading questions at lectures.

Alienating Fancies: The Influencing Machine Fantasy. Part One

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 49, June 1994

Does free will exist? Is Man a meat puppet dangling on strings controlled by higher powers in the universe? Variations on these questions have fascinated thinkers throughout history. Arthur Koestler believed the dramatic motif of Volition against Fate and Puppet on Strings is one of the most powerful archetypes in literature and has appeared in countless forms. (1) Threats to individual or collective freedom arouse very primal human fears and can yield a drama of intense emotions when free will is affirmed.

What’s Up Doc? Part Three: Shams and Shepherds

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 46, June 1993.

Unless Colman von Kevicsky’s characterisation of the 1973 wave as an invasion should be taken seriously, the last significant expression of the invasion fear occurs in Raymond Fowler’s UFOs – Interplanetary Visitors (1974). It is presented as a possibility among a range of intentions that aliens might possess. The idea of friendly contact is raised, but is muted by concerns over loss of national pride as allegiance is transferred to their superior force.

What's Up Doc? Part Two: Swinging Through the Sixties

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 45, March 1993

The sixties were a manic time for UFO belief. Flying saucers were so real only the most bigoted sceptic could deny advance metallic piloted machines were flying around – a potential threat to the security of the world. Everyone felt something had to be done. Most of all the authorities should openly admit the reality of the problem

What's up Doc? Fear and Loathing in the Fifties.

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 44, October 1992.

 

General John A. Samford, director of Air Force intelligence, put the official position in crystal clear terms in this statement to the press after the Washington D.C. flap of 1952: "Air Force interest in this problem has been due to our feeling of an obligation to identify and analyse to the best of our abilities anything in the air that may have the possibility of threat or menace to the United States.

Universe of Spies. Part 3, Eye-Yi-Yi

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 41, November 1991

“The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder…” (1) Darwin was speaking of the problem of explaining how the eye arose through a process of natural selection when he confessed these feelings to Asa Gray, but the power of the eye to elicit this sense of the uncanny is itself a product of evolved instinct. Staring eyes provoke physiological arousal in many species of animal.

Universe of Spies, Part 2. Eye In The Sky

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 40, August 1999

Do people want to believe aliens are spying on us? Surely it’s a trick question. Nobody would want to believe anything like that. The reconnaissance theory was an exasperated effort to make sense of a phenomenon that refused to be made sense of in any other terms. Want had nothing to do with it. What a galling sentiment!

A Universe of Spies. Part 1.

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia 39, April 1991

 

Is Another World Watching? (1951)(1; Why Are They Watching Us? (1967)(2); Are We Being Watched? (1980)(3). Three titles culled from the UFO literature introduce us to a dominant anxiety fuelling the UFO mythos. Once the existence of UFOs is accepted, their purpose must be addressed. The possibilities number in the neighbourhood of two dozen, but thinking tends to gravitate to the idea of secret, stealthy, or covert observation. (4)

Entirely Unpredisposed: The Cultural Background of UFO Reports

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 35, January 1990

Culture is an admixture of repetition and variation, convention and creativity, signals and noise. It is ever new and forever old as humanity relives old dreams and nightmares or forgets and forges new ones. Part of the delight of history is the recognition that however new a given event appears, traces of the past can generally be discerned.

Abductions: The Boundary Deficit Hypothesis

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia, 32, March 1988.

 

As claims about the reality of alien abductions multiply, the assertion is increasingly heard that psychology offers little or no insight into how such experiences could occur if they are unreal. Abductees are normal people. Tests prove it. How, then, could normal people make such impossible claims as those found in abduction narratives and not be right?

The Creative Fire

Martin Kottmeyer

Magonia, No. 29, April 1988

The theatre of the UFO phenomenon is a manifestation of the drive for creative expression. This should have been obvious to me when I wrote Break a Leg; but somehow it slid by me and I ended up saying applause was the driving end of the UFO phenomenon.

Break a Leg: The UFO Experience as Theatre

Martin Kottmeyer
Magonia 27, September 1987

What is the purpose of the UFO phenomenon? Answer that question and perhaps the rest of the picture will fall into place. What they are and where they are coming from might be better answered by approaching the problem in the reverse direction.