Folks like Jimmy Carter spring to mind for clearer reference, or Farrakhan convicted in a rage; why, my brother and his wife have equal weight and they're more "real" — call it "anecdotal evidence"... be brave.

See, I've boiled all the video that I've seen to twenty minutes —give or take unsettling seconds to and fro— and what there is remaining is beyond the strangest thing, and a 'teaser' for the one who "wants to know."

Spread the Word!

By Robert Hastings

In the months following the July 2008 publication of my book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, I have posted online a number of excerpts from it.

The book contains dozens of interviews with former or retired U.S. Air Force personnel who were involved in highly-classified, UFO-related incidents at various nuclear weapons sites, including missile launch facilities, nukes storage areas, and bomb/missile test sites during the Cold War era. In some cases, the missiles’ functionality was reportedly compromised immediately after the UFOs hovered over them.

How is it that a half-baked idea ends up being widely accepted? Why are so many people willing to accept a supposedly authoritative statement without even a cursory analysis?

Perhaps it is just sheeple syndrome. Why bother to think when it is less trouble to simply parrot the grave declarations of “conventional wisdom”? It is a thing we do in our society. When we are in school we are “taught” from textbooks liberally imbued with a limited, one dimensional view of reality. We are told these are the facts and that’s it. You don’t question the textbook. If you want to fail your science test, try putting in different answers than appear in the textbook.

The book and the school are there to fill your mind full of stuff which some anonymous authority decided was a right and true reflection of what is. But sometimes, it ain’t. The problem with our schools is that they don’t, for the most part, teach critical thinking. They teach us what to think, rather than how to think. It is easier to control us that way. And it removes us from the messy process of having to think or weigh things for ourselves.

AND, it sets us up for a kind of robotic reiteration of old clichés that have no correspondence with what is true or real. The bit of cerebral “cheez-wiz” I am referring to here is the old idea that, if we were to learn or be told that aliens exist (e.g. government disclosure) then PANIC would ensue.

Okay, I’ll take that on.

I am always amazed at how people in our UFO community jump to conclusions without any background investigation. Actually, it's eerie how that happens, because you think that UFO investigation would involve one skill: investigation. Yet, folks in the nonfield of ufology get away with some of the most incredible leaps based upon nothing but personal opinion. But even personal opinion can be very revealing, as in the recent comments by Frank Warren.

For openers, I didn't know there was a ufology dress code. Most UFO people dress in a variety of ways for their presentations at conferences and on television. For example, you can usually find Stan Friedman in his blue blazer and tie. Rich Dolan prefers a sport jacket and tie, while MUFON investigators usually dress for the weather.What does Frank Warren wear as he sits at his computer opining away about the wardrobe of others? Is he deshabille or a plate from a Ralph Lauren catalog?

On UFO Hunters, to settle this question once and for all, the network usually calls the shots on what we're supposed to wear based on the jobs we do. Pat, for example, is really "action Pat," rappelling down cave walls, scaling steep hills, and being lowered into to wells (see next week's Aurora Airship Mystery episode). Ted is "Dr. T from MIT," the preppie casual physicist cum MBA who is at a perpetual loss to explain phenomena that defy what he and photo analyst Terrence Masson say should and shouldn't be in videos.