UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.”

˜Mademoiselle Rose Bertin, French milliner and dressmaker to Marie Antoinette

UFOlogy is a senile discipline. By this I’m not referring to its age, or how after more than 60 years it hasn’t seemingly come any closer into solving the enigma which spawned its existence. What I mean is that UFOlogy as a field has the terrible tendency of narrow-sightedness, and of forgetting the valuable lessons from the past. Some of our critics on UFOs: Reframing the Debate, for example, complained we weren’t really saying anything particularly original compared to the thinkers and ideas of the late 60’s and early 70’s; our defense was we weren’t actually trying to be novel so much as remarking what was pointed out by the true mavericks preceding us, but hasn’t been paid attention to enough by the newer generations… to the detriment of the study of unidentified flying objects, and the intelligence(s) in control of them.

Take for instance the controversial topic of the Contactees: Most people believe it was in the 1950’s when common citizens like George Adamski or Truman Bethurum began claiming to be in contact with extraterrestrials hailing from Venus, Jupiter –or far more exotically-named planets like Clarion– and the main concern of our Space Brothers was the proliferation of nuclear weapons in our world, and the threat they posed to the survival of Humanity… or even to the stability of the entire Cosmos. Psychologists have tried to explain the sociological phenomenon of the Contactees as stemming out of Cold War anxieties, and a religious need from saviors from on-high repackaged for the consumption of the Space Age.

But those psychologists –and even most UFOlogists– would be surprised to learn warnings against a nuclear Armageddon can be traced back before the start of the Cold War and the Space Age –before even the fission of the atom had been experimentally achieved for the first time by German chemist Otto Hahn in 1938! And these warnings didn’t come from long-haired Venusians on board silvery saucers, but from a secretive individual who claimed to be in possession of a powerful legacy of knowledge, assembled from the scattered remains of a lost civilization.

These warnings came from an Alchemist.

The story I’m about to tell can be found on a book I consider to be indispensable reading by anyone interested in these topics: “Le Matin des Magiciens” (Morning of the Magicians) by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Alas, this gem is barely known among most English-speaking UFO circles for three main reasons: It was published in 1960 (strike one); its main topic is not UFOs but philosophy and secret knowledge (strike two) and it was written by two French men (strike three! You’re out!!).

Louis Pauwels (1920-1997) was a writer and journalist with a life-long interest in Eastern mysticism and the philosophy of Gurdjieff. In 1954 he met Jacques Bergier (1912-1978) whose life is probably more deserving of a motion picture than any lazy 80’s remake: Born in Ukraine and of Jewish descent, he was a writer as well as a chemical engineer who became a resistance fighter and spy during the German occupation of France, was later captured and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. After the Liberation he played a key role into the discovery of the Nazi nuclear program, and how far they have gone into the development of atomic weaponry.

Bergier was credited by his friends for having a prodigious intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge. When he was 6 years old he saw an ancient woodcut illustration of two old alchemists working on their lab, which sparked his interest in the forgotten lore of Alchemy. To him the modern discoveries about radioactivity and the composition of the atom held the promise of unlocking the true secret behind the transmutation of the elements, and creating a bridge between the Past and the Future.

But his contemporaries not only considered Alchemy a superstitious nonsense (the way we still do to this day) but even nuclear energy was still regarded a ‘fringe’ subject in theoretical physics, with no possible applications in real life (just like electricity and magnetism in the XVIIIth century). In 1933 Bergier is scolded by a teacher of his –one of the best chemists in all of France– for wasting his time in such ‘infantile’ interests as nuclear physics, and admonishes him to pursue a ‘sensible’ career in the sugar refinement industry instead.

Thankfully to us Bergier was not only smart; he was also stubborn, bless his heart. He disregards the advice and continues his ‘reckless’ studies in both cutting-edge physics and ancient Alchemy. From 1934 to 1940 he became a collaborator of the eminent physicist and chemist André Helbronner, who was among the first scientists trying to unravel the secret behind atomic energy, before he was murdered by the Nazis in 1944.

It was at the behest of Helbronner that Bergier had a strange meeting with a mysterious individual on June of 1937, two years before Germany invaded Poland and WWII began. The meeting took place in an empty testing lab owned by ‘Gas Society’ of Paris. The strange man started the conversation by saying he knew Bergier assisted Helbronner in the quest of the atomic secret, and mentioned their recent success in unleashing radioactivity in polonium.

“You are very close to success, as are many other contemporary wise men,” said the stranger (remember Hahn’s experiment in ’38) “but the work you and your peers are doing is terribly dangerous. And it is not only you who are in peril, but the whole of Humanity.”

The man explained to Bergier the liberation of nuclear energy was easier than what was believed at the time, and the resulting superficial radioactivity could poison the entire planetary atmosphere in just a matter of years. He also warned that atomic explosives could be manufactured using only a few grams of metal and they would have the power to vaporize entire cities. “We Alchemists have known about this for a long time.”

Before Bergier could protest or ask any questions, the man continued: “I know what you are going to say –that Alchemists didn’t know the structure of the atomic nucleus, didn’t have electricity or any detection methods. Therefore they could never release the nuclear energy. I shall not try to prove what I am about to tell you now, but I beg you to repeat this to monsieur Helbronner: It only takes certain geometric assemblies, without the need for electricity or a vacuum medium. And now I will limit myself to reciting a few lines…”

The man took from over a desk a book written by Frédéric Soddy: L’interpretation du Radium (The Interpretation of Radium), found a passage and read:

“I believe there existed in the past civilizations who knew the energy of the atom and were totally destroyed for the misuse of that power.”

The man closed the book and continued his exposition, asking to an astonished Bergier to entertain the possibility of partial techniques of such ancient knowledge being able to survive throughout the ages. That knowledge had been kept in the safe hands of men who tempered their experimental curiosity with moral and religious concerns; whereas our ‘modern’ physics in his opinion was a “Science without Conscience,” having been born during the XVIIIth century for the amusement of “lords and libertine rich men” –here the Alchemist was no doubt referring to the Royal Society of London, founded in 1660 under the auspice of King Charles II, which saw considerable expansion in the late 1700s.

The strange man kept explaining to Bergier he had tried to warn other researchers like him about the dangers of their work… to absolutely no avail.

Bergier finally managed to ask a question: “If you yourself are an Alchemist, monsieur, I cannot believe you employ your time in the attempt to make gold, like Dunikowski or Doctor Miethe.” –Dunikowski was a Polish engineer who had announced in Paris he had discovered a new kind of radiation capable of transmuting quartz into gold, but was found to be a fraudster; Dr. Adolf Miethe (not to be confused with Richard Miethe, a name often mentioned in the swampy subject of Nazi-made flying saucers) of the Photochemical Department at the Berlin Technical High School claimed to have found small deposits of gold inside the mercury vapor lamps used on his lab as a source of ultraviolet light. In 1924 he claimed to have changed mercury into gold in a high-tension mercury vapor lamp. Alas, he had produced approximate $1 worth of gold… at a cost of $60,000 due to the staggering amount of energy employed in the process.

Bergier continued: “For around a year I’ve tried to document myself on the subject of Alchemy, and have only stumbled upon with either charlatans or interpretations I find ludicrous. Could you, monsieur, tell me what your own investigations consist of?”

The Alchemist replied: “You are asking me to summarize in 4 minutes 4,000 years of philosophy and the efforts of my entire life! You are also asking me also to translate in clear language concepts which do not admit any plain explanation. I can, nevertheless, tell you this: Surely you are aware that in the official Science now in progress the role of the observer is evermore important. Relativity and the Uncertainty Principle show just how much the observer intervenes in natural phenomena” –Let’s remember the Copenhagen interpretationof quantum mechanics was proposed in the late 1920s.

“The secret of Alchemy,” the man revealed to Bergier, “is this: There is a way to manipulate matter and energy in such a way that it produces what contemporary scientists would call a ‘force field’. This field acts upon the observer and places him on a privileged position in the Universe. From this vantage point he has access to Realities that space and time, matter and energy tend to hide from us. This is what we call The Great Work (Magnum Opus).”

“But, what of the Philosopher’s Stone?” asked Bergier. “What of the making of gold?”

“That is nothing more than applications, particular cases” answered the Alchemist. What’s essential is not the transmutation of metals, but that of the experimenter himself. It is an ancient secret which few men will find throughout the centuries.”

“What do they transform themselves, then?” questioned Bergier.

“Perhaps, one day, I shall find out,” were the final words of the mysterious man.

Bergier never saw the Alchemist again. As for his true identity, it remains unknown to his day. Bergier himself was convinced the man was none other than the mythical Fulcanelli, the pseudonym of an anonymous individual who was the author of two books which are highly regarded as among the best in the whole Alchemical bibliography:”Le Mystère des Cathédrales”(The Mystery of the Cathedrals) and “Les Demeures Philosophales” (Dwellings of the Philosophers). Fulcanelli had a protegé, Eugène Canseliet, who was the one entrusted by his master to publish his books in the 1920s. Pauwels and Bergier were convinced Fulcanelli had survived the war but had gone into hiding, never to reveal anything more about his hidden knowledge.

It is said the last time Canseliet met Fulcanelli was in Spain during the 1950s, and he had gone through an incredible transformation. Instead of being an old man, like his pupil remembered him, the Alchemist had miraculously rejuvenated and acquired an androgynous appearance, proof that he had managed to complete the Great Work, and the reward was a total physical –and spiritual– metamorphosis. The caterpillar had been changed into a butterfly.

What to make of this wonderful, and yet unprovable story? We only have Bergier’s word that the meeting between himself and the man (possibly Fulcanelli) took place. The source for the account is a book that was published in 1960, 15 years after the reality of nuclear energy had been proved in the most horrendous way possible, with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What I personally find fascinating about this pre-WWII warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons, is not only that it preceded ALL of the similar admonitions given by the so-called ‘Space Brothers’ to the Contactees in the 1950’s and 60’s –and isn’t it interesting how those ‘superior beings’ were often described as having androgynous features?– but also that, if it really happened as admitted by Bergier, all of the things declared by the Alchemist were essentially true: In 1986, the radioactive cloud produced by the Chernobyl nuclear plant literally covered the entirety of Europe. The Hiroshima bomb contained only 141 lb of enriched Uranium –not “a few grams” like the Alchemist had claimed… although maybe there are methods to further amplify the destructive power of fissible material we (luckily) haven’t discovered yet. And after the Allies defeated the Nazis they discovered Heisenberg’s rudimentary Uranium battery, consisted of extremely pure substances placed together on an specific geometric disposition –the Germans hadn’t placed it on a vacuum, just like the Alchemist had ‘predicted’.

But I guess what has fascinated me the most about Alchemy, ever since I read Morning of the Magicians in my early teens, is the idea of an ancient knowledge which parallels our current understanding on the nature of energy and matter, and perhaps even surpasses it. And yet, unlike our modern times, the men who’ve possessed that knowledge knew they had to keep it away from kings and rulers, lest it would be corrupted –or worse, used to unleash a power capable of wiping out our entire civilization… as it might have happened before.

Werner von Braun said that “Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.” Perhaps so; or perhaps these are words meant to acquiesce the conscience of a man who had no qualms in killing innocents in his selfish pursuit to achieve his dreams to conquer the stars. “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet,” von Braun is credited of saying with regards to his V-2 rocket bomb launched against London. “If we don’t do it first, somebody else will” have been the words used to justify everything from the creation of bacteriological weapons to automated killing drones. Science without Conscience, indeed…

In Morning of the Magicians, the authors tried to interest their peers in the hidden treasures buried beneath the dusty manuscripts and codices written by the ancient Alchemists, which managed to survive into our era –thousands of volumes, and yet a pittance when compared to all the scrolls turned to ashes in Alexandria. They argued that chemists, engineers, and even nuclear physicists should team up with historians and symbologists in order to crack the codes of those treatises, and see if they contained techniques and processes which could be of any use in our modern industries and laboratories. A fool’s errand, some might think, and yet Pauwels and Bergier claim that after the war in Europe was over, there were many American agents trying to get their hands on any alchemical book their could find. Bergier also narrated how when he was collaborating with the French government in the study of the nuclear capabilities of the Germans –something nobody paid any attention to in Europe… prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki– he was asked to meet with an anonymous American commander, whose real interest was not the Nazi nuclear program, but finding the whereabouts of Fulcanelli.

Given how Dr. Jacques Vallee’s recent studies with UFO’s ejected material seem to point out to a reingeneering of seemingly common metals which are almost suggestive of a bonafide alchemical transmutation —the way I speculated upon recently at The Daily Grail— perhaps it is not unreasonable to assume the art of Alchemy is one of the key pieces missing in the UFO puzzle, and that someone in the high echelons of power may be in hot pursuit of the alchemists’ ancient secret.

And yet, if they are, then I suspect they will never find it. Because if Alchemy is the true Science with Conscience, as Rabelais –and our anonymous Alchemist– maintained, then the ultimate goal of this ancient art goes far beyond the gaining of material wealth and power. And the Great Work can only be fulfilled by men of ambitions tempered in the melting pots of their laboratories, through years and years of indomitable hard labor. Until they find themselves transformed from common humans into… something more.

…Perhaps the Philosopher’s Stone is the true Red Pill.

What is the reality — if any exists at all — behind the UFO phenomenon?

This question has been asked for decades already, and still we collectively don’t seem to have any real answers that help instruct us as to whatever “reality” may constitute serious, tangible data on UFOs.

Way back in 1955, Edward Ruppelt, the first director of the USAF’s Project Bluebook, wrote that, “I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess as to what the final outcome of the UFO investigation will be, but I am sure that within a few years there will be a proven answer.”

I often wonder if Ruppelt would ever have foreseen that well after the turn of the next century, we would still be awaiting that final “proven answer” that he anticipated.

At the very least, we might say that, based on what anecdotal evidence has been collected in UFO witness testimony since the end of World War II, there appear to have been varieties of unusual aircraft seen in our skies for decades now. Their origin, however, remains a matter of conjecture, due to the lack of physical evidence to support the range of theories that have been proposed in this regard.

Hence, with little more than decades of witness testimony, and the occasional (though scant) physical evidence that turns up rarely, perhaps one of the most important questions that should be asked is, “how useful is the anecdotal evidence at our disposal?”

At this point, it would seem appropriate that I give a disclaimer: what follows in this article is intended for readers that are still perplexed by the subject of UFOs, as I am, and are willing to ask serious, sober, and scientifically-informed questions about it. The points addressed will likely be of disdain to the willful believers that are already “certain” (in their minds, at least) of an extraterrestrial reality, and of space brothers who came here long ago to instruct humankind, or perhaps even save us from our own destructive potentials. In equal measure, dogmatic skeptics may be similarly discouraged from bothering with reading further; particularly those who have convinced themselves that nothing exists behind any UFO reports whatsoever (even those which seem indicative of clandestine, experimental manmade aircraft… which constitutes a perfectly reasonable potential solution to at least some alleged UFO reports).

For those willing to continue in the spirit of open-minded, but discerning skepticism, we must return again to the question of anecdotal data: what does it really tell us about the UFO enigma?

While unable to provide physical evidence that can be tested under laboratory settings, the point is frequently argued that anecdotal evidence, particularly gathered from multiple sources, is often what must be relied upon in a courtroom; especially in cases where physical evidence is lacking. I realize fully that this argument does little to sway the minds of skeptical scientists, who demand (and rightly so!) physical proof before they can commit to belief. However, the point to be made is that in the face of numerous instances where testimonies given by individuals seem to match, or are otherwise relatable in some way, perhaps some anecdotal data should be given consideration, as it is presently all that we have to work with.

Recently, a pairing of questions were posted at the Paracast Forums, where one of the users, operating under the amusing moniker of “Greer’s Event Planner,” raised several points of contention about UFOs in modern times. Among these had been the following:

“As a total body of evidence there is nothing that would pass scientific muster and there are no reliable multiple witness cases that prove the aliens in physical ships hypothesis.”

The thread had been partly in response to a recent appearance on The Paracast’s subscriber show by researcher Paul Kimball (also a friend and colleague of mine), who similarly offered that, “There may be a paranormal / supernatural component to it all, but I don’t see anything that even remotely indicates structured craft from an extraterrestrial source.”

Indeed, while we have a plethora of UFO reports that have piled up over the decades, some of which lend descriptions of strange beings or other phenomena, where has there been any hard evidence of extraterrestrial visitors?

This raises a common, but important misconception about the broader UFO phenomenon: that if proof of unidentified flying objects were obtained, it would therefore mean that proof of aliens exists.

Not so.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has long been a favorite among UFO theorists, but it is by no means a consensus view among UFO advocates. The UFO phenomenon remains far too ambiguous and varied to be able to present a good case for any conclusive origin. If anything, it could be argued that early interpretations of UFOs as being evidence of extraterrestrial visitors probably relied heavily on the influences of science fiction books and films on our culture (both in America, and abroad). Also influential were our expectations about space travel in the coming decades, and our own projections for how space travelers from elsewhere might get here, from the perspective of a civilization only on the cusp of going off-planet ourselves.

Old ideas die hard, of course, and this seems to be the case with the extraterrestrial hypothesis. While it seems evident that a variety of expectations (and misconceptions) were likely informing our bias toward “alien” visitors, that meme has stuck throughout the ages… and still today, many see the concepts of “UFOs” and “aliens” as being indistinguishable.

Perhaps they should never really have become bedmates in the first place.

Returning again to what the anecdotal evidence says, we are faced with myriad problems. For one, there is the issue of the apparent variety of UFO craft reported over the years. While there are some general themes which have emerged consistently — “flying saucers” are probably the most well known of these — the actual variety of UFO craft reported since the end of WWII far exceeds anything that could be expected of a single, systematic survey of Earth by intelligent extraterrestrials. Varieties of craft include discs or saucers, globes, triangles, cigars or torpedo-shaped craft, and other strangely shaped aerial objects.

Granted, the term “daylight discs”, first used by astronomer J. Allen Hynek as a general classification system, didn’t necessarily mean that all such objects were truly “discs.” According to Hynek’s reasoning, this was merely to be used as a general classification system; however, a variety of objects, possessing various shapes, were placed in this category. Hence, many of the “discs”, at least in terms of statistics, actually weren’t discs at all.

Among the myriad types of UFOs that have remained present over the years, there is one type that, in the opinion of this writer, does appear to maintain a particular presence, and consistency, which sets it apart from other UFO category types. These are the so-called “Black Triangles,” which are large, ominous (and often very quiet) aircraft seen passing at relatively low altitudes by cover of night.

Even the Federation of American Scientists have looked into the possible relationship between reports of these aircraft, and possible black project programs, as outlined in the following quote from the FAS website:

“A very intriguing aircraft was been reported in the late 1980s. Some observers claim to have witnessed a vast black flying wing, estimated at between 600 and 800 feet in width, passing silently over city streets in California. The craft moved so slowly one observer claimed that he could jog along with it. The aircraft reportedly executed bizarre maneuvers in which it stopped, rotated in place and hovered vertically, pointing its thin trailing edge toward the ground. This vehicle’s unlikely gyrations suggest that it is distinct from the other sightings, and could be a lighter-than-air craft pushed by slow- turning propellers.”

On a personal note (and in keeping with our discussion about the relevance of anecdotal witness reports), I’ve collected several reports of aircraft like this over the years, which I deem to have been from reliable sources. Among my favorites is the following description, provided to me by a Canadian witness just a few years ago:

“We had noticed a very bright light on the eastern horizon but didn’t take much notice of it until we realized that it was slowly coming directly towards us. We kept checking in that direction and watched as the now amber light kept coming straight at us. When it was almost on top of us it was like we became frozen to the spot staring at this light that we could now see had a dark shape behind it.

The triangle flew directly over us. I estimate that it was about 75 – 100 ft. off the ground. I made this estimate because at one point I realized that it was so low I was concerned that it was going to hit the chimney on our 2 1/2 story house! We sat transfixed as it seemed to take the triangle forever to pass overhead due to the extremely slow speed that it was travelling at. I would estimate it was going no more than 10 mph. As it was about halfway over I realized that the triangle was so massive that it filled my entire field of vision. We couldn’t make out any detail of the underneath of the triangle; it was just an enormous black shape lit on each corner by an amber light. I really can’t think of anything to compare the size of the triangle to it was so huge.”

Unlike a lot of UFO reports collected since the beginning of the 1950s, the more recent reports of these “triangles” bear an almost peculiar consistency… enough so that, as the FAS seemed to think by virtue of their analysis of some of the triangle reports, these probably should not be lumped in alongside other typical UFO reports from the last few decades. In likelihood, the triangles are probably a top secret aircraft of some variety, and whether DARPA or some other agency was behind its development, it is the opinion of this writer that this craft is seen often enough, and described consistently enough by witnesses, that it warrants particular attention among those who pay attention to reports of un unusual aircraft in our skies. In other words, here the anecdotal evidence seems to support the idea that there have been a number of legitimate sightings of some variety of aircraft operating in our night skies.

To conclude, we return again to a quote from Edward Ruppelt in his Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, where he said, “Maybe the final proven answer will be that all of the UFO’s that have been reported are merely misidentified known objects. Or maybe the many pilots, radar specialists, generals, industrialists, scientists, and the man on the street who have told me, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it myself,’ knew what they were talking about. Maybe the earth is being visited by interplanetary spaceships. Only time will tell.”

Although time has yet to give up the secrets Ruppelt had been looking for, it is with hope that our persistence, and a bit of logic, may yet unravel a few secrets about our world, and the types of things many have reported seeing in our skies for many decades.