ABSTRACTS

David M. Jacobs, Ph.D. - UFOs at Fifty: Some Personal Observations

Since I have been researching the UFO phenomenon, we have had a steady increase in our knowledge of it. There have been setbacks, strong tracts, and enemies, but our understanding of the phenomenon has grown. As the new knowledge accrued, we have had to reorder our assumptions and engage in new paradigms to understand the phenomenon. We must continue to work for clarity free from New Age entanglements, upgrade our profession, and engage the expertise of others as we enter into the twenty-first century.

Beth Collings and Anna Jamerson - Connections: A Lifetime of Shared Experiences

Our talk will be presented in segments, each of us describing our individual reactions and feelings about the abduction phenomenon as we delved deeper into our pasts. CONNECTINS: Solving our Alien Abduction Mystery , which we co-authored, will be the basis for our talk, since the book describes not only our shared experiences, but more importantly, how we dealt with those experiences and what we discovered about ourselves along the way.

The talk will be accompanied by slides depicting recalled experiences, presumed alien beings we've both witnessed, and in some cases had interaction with, and the interior and exterior of craft seen over many years.

Dan Wright - FIVE THEMES - Further Findings of the Abduction Transcription Project

In this latest report on the Abduction Transcription Project, five themes forming the core reasoning for abduction events are presented. Despite obvious differences in physical appearance and abilities, separate entity groups interacting with persons across the continent are shown to have common agendas. Prominently illustrated among over 140 passages from hypnotic and related sessions are the development of a "hybrid" species and a critical task which the subject must "soon" carry out. A strong interest in abduction episodes by our Government is revealed as well. The controlling theme in many cases is apparently an enigmatic connection between captive and captor.

Cynthia R. Hind - Sightings From an African Casebook

When I think back over the years I have been involved in UFO-lore in Africa , I feel I have had a really unique opportunity to record cases which are essentially untarnished by the media and certainly uninfluenced by Western civilization. Of course, it doesn't apply in every case and sometimes when recording events of a UFO-contactee, I wonder if perhaps thoughts are not transmitted from one English-speaking person to another, irrespective of the distance and diversity of backgrounds, thus making the witness totally honest in his-her recording of events, without their being aware of this global influence.

But where the witness involved doesn't even speak the same language, but uses Swahili, Sesotho, Zulu, Ndebele, Mashona or Chinyanje and their culture is quite different from that of the Western witness; could they then receive these global messages too? Can telepathy transcend thousands of miles, different languages and diverse cultures when it is not even an accepted science?

Bruce S. Maccabee, Ph.D. - June 24, 1947: How it all Began - The Story of the Arnold Sighting

NO ABSTRACT

Warren P. Aston - An Analysis of the 1940 UDO Wartena Case

My paper examines a day-time 1940 landing and contact case from Montana which has remained unpublished in UFO circles until now. The witness spent over two hours with the humanoid pilots of a large craft who explained to him the purpose of their mission, personal details and the propulsion system enabling them to achieve faster-than-light travel. I have spent more than three years of investigation, including visits to the U.S. locating and interviewing the people involved and in related research. Because of the quality of the information resulting, I believe that this case will come to be recognized as a landmark in Ufology.

After presenting the facts of the case, analysis of the implication, I will draw conclusions - supported in every instance by other cases - regarding the agenda of at least one alien group which has long visited our earth. In the process I discuss the duality within the UFO phenomenon which researchers ignore at their peril, question what is really happening in "abductions" and discuss new reasons for government cover-ups.

The paper will then examine a major new advance in engineering science, demonstrating for the first time how it relates to many aspects of reported UFO technology and revealing a possible link between this scientific field, MJ-12 personnel and recovered craft dating back to the 1940s.

The paper will question some of the assumptions of mainstream Ufology and its direction, raising issues of particular relevance to all Ufologists as we approach the dawning of the new century.

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos - Monitoring Air Force Intelligence
(Spain's 1992-1997 UFO Declassification Process)

The author played a key role in stimulating the Spanish Air Force to start in 1992 the release of UFO files, kept secret since 1962. This so-called declassification process, which just finished in the last weeks, has been monitored by the author thanks to a loose cooperation agreement Mr. Ballester Olmos established with the intelligence unit in charge. It has permitted him to watch over the process rather closely and to exert some influence to a certain extent with the purpose to make the Air Force search for missing reports in various times. The discreet interaction with the author, MUFON representative in Spain and a long-time UFO researcher, ensures the integrity of the full disclosure of Defense UFO archives. Told for the first time, this paper shows the detailed history from the inside. As an added value, it also presents a statistical overview of the military cases.

Jan L. Aldrich - 1947: The Beginning of the UFO Era

After more than two years of extensive investigation, the huge amounts of new material I have found reveal interesting facets of the beginning of the modern UFO era. There are indications that officials in other countries did indeed recognize that strange and aerial objects required investigation much earlier than previously thought. After examining more than 45% of the available 1947 newspapers in North America , many new observations are available for analysis. The new material shows that the official investigators drew conclusions and made decisions on the UFO problem with only a small amount of the available evidence.

Stanton T. Friedman, M.S. - The Roswell Story, 1997

Mostly, because of the movies and various television shows, much of the world has become aware of the notion that one or more flying saucers crashed not too far from Roswell , New Mexico , in the summer of 1947. People are also more or less aware that the U.S. government supposedly collected the saucers and alien bodies and has covered up the wreckage and the bodies ever since with both intimidation of civilian and military witnesses, and stonewalling of the general Accounting Office's attempts to get more information. Unfortunately, much of the information put out in the media is either flat-out wrong or seriously misrepresents the facts. With the feeding-frenzy expanding at the approach of the 50 th anniversary (July 2) of both the crashes near Corona, and in the Plains of San Augustin, New Mexico, and of Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting of June 24, it appears useful to review recent developments.

John S. Carpenter, MSW - Encounters: Now and Then

This paper shall present information on present-day encounters occurring around the world as well as extensive documentation of unexplained encounters from records kept over many centuries. Are the same kinds of extraordinary events occurring both now and then? Are biblical "burning shields" the same as present-day glowing discs? Are tales of magical fairies abducting children and adults the same as those of small-figured aliens floating people away? How can common folks on the remote island continent of Australia describe the same details about bizarre visits from reptilian beings, praying mantis creatures, and little gray humanoids with big black eyes? Whether it is here of there, now or then, strange encounters with unusual beings have been occurring worldwide, presently, and for centuries.

Budd Hopkins - The UFO Phenomenon and the Suicide Cults - An Ideological Study

The media attention recently afforded the Heaven's Gate Suicide cult presented serious UFO researcher with a unique opportunity. We were able to demonstrate the contrast between our laboriously acquired knowledge of the UFO phenomenon and the suicide cult's uninformed, quasi-religious co-option of UFO imagery.

Unlike the followers of Marshall Applewhite, scientifically oriented researchers freely admit that the answers to most of the basic questions about the UFO phenomenon are still unknown. For example, we do not claim to know who the UFO occupants are, where they come from, or what ultimate plans they have for us. Put starkly, the bottom-line question - whether the UFO occupants will turn out to be friends or foes - is still very much open.

On the other hand, through careful investigation of physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, UFO researchers have amassed a great deal of information about the aliens' patterns of behavior and the physical psychological and emotional procedures they regularly inflict upon their human captives. Surprisingly, though members of "UFO" cults like Heaven's Gate usually have detailed answers to all of the open questions I've listen above, few of them claim to have had personal UFO experiences. As I've written elsewhere, the cults are all beliefs and no miracles, whereas the UFO phenomenon can be said to be all "miracles" and no beliefs.

Centrally, I address the theme common in various suicide cults and in the writings of some influential figures within the UFO community. "Life here on earth is so flawed that only godlike UFO occupants can save us from ourselves. The planet is dying, governments cannot be trusted, religions cannot be believed, and most of mankind is morally bankrupt." I demonstrate how such sweeping negative ideas have been promulgated by suicide cults, factions within the UFO community, and right-wing, racist militias. Pessimistic politics makes strange bedfellows.

J. Antonio Huneeus

A few general observations about sociocultural attitudes regarding ufology and credibility of cases in the Far Eastern countries. China : Historical UFO cases in ancient china. The birth of modern ufology in the late 1970's and the creation of the China UFO Research Organization (CURO) Examination of U.S. Government documents obtained under the FOIA regarding Chinese cases, including the mass sighting of July 24, 1981. The contribution of Chinese researcher and author Shi Bo; two landing cases in the Gobi Desert . Interview with CURO President, Prof. Sun shi Li, and discussion of a physical evidence case in Guizhou province in southern china in 1994; a near collision case with a Chinese airliner in 1995; and the abduction case of Zhao Guo in Harbin . Japan : an update of the Cosmo Isle Hakui space museum and the many rumors preceding its official opening on July 1996; refutation of these rumors. South Korea : a visit to Seoul in January 1997 to lecture at a large UFO exhibit. Some UFO photo and video cases in 1995.