Monday, June 15, 2015
Nagib KARY who is in charge of the French ufologic media « Ovnis-Direct » had the priviledge to interview the famous scientist Jacques Vallée, in February 2014. This exclusive interview was translated and distributed in English in June 2014. For this interview, we appealed to four other participants who are pioneers in their field :
- Fabrice Bonvin about ufology, conscience and its evolution.
- Nagib KARY, in charge of Media Ovnis-Direct on the book « Science Interdite, Vol 2 », ufology, physics and the hypothesis of the control system.
- Philippe Solal about physics, cosmology and cryptides.
- Daniel Robin dealt with ufos and the learning program.
- Jean-Pierre Troadec about the Cergy Pontoise case, nazi saucers, abductees’ initiatic societes.
We allow you to use this interview on your website providing that you cite the source.
This interview in french and spanish.
Jacques Fabrice Vallée (born September 24, 1939
in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France) is a venture
capitalist, computer scientist, author, ufologist and
former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California.
In mainstream science, Vallée is notable for co-developing the first
computerized mapping of Mars for NASA and for his work
at SRI International on the network information center for
the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet. Vallée is also an
important figure in the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),
first noted for a defense of the scientific legitimacy of
the extraterrestrial hypothesis and later for promoting
the interdimensional hypothesis. Wikipedia
Questions of Fabrice Bonvin :
(Swiss ufologist writer, psychologist by
training who deals especially with the relation between ufos and ecology and
the psychological impact of apparitions on witnesses).
Q1 : How do you see ufology and ufological activity in 15-20
years ? What will fundamentally change -- or won’t ?
We shouldn’t be surprised if we see an increase in these
manifestations as humanity goes on to a new step of systematic exploration of
space. But the question should be addressed to the phenomenon itself : It has
shown that it was diverse, adaptable and unpredictable. It also showed that it
was fundamentally interested in our technological progress and our technical
prototypes.
Q2 : Who is the thinker, the intellectual or the researcher
you admire the most and why ?
Maybe you have noticed it while reading Science Interdite: I found
a great source of inspiration in Aimé Michel, a remarkable spirit by the
strength of his vision and the deep humanity of his intellect. The fact that
such a thinker has been ignored and even despised by the intellectual elite in
France is not a compliment to our country. However, the limited number of
people who have known him have had a great privilege. According to Aimé, Ufos
were only a mystery among others. He was a universal thinker.
Q3 : What is the current scientific discipline which would
be able to benefit ufology and its achievement ?
I can think of two disciplines whose application is urgent:
computer science of course, with « data-mining », and medicine which has
never been applied to a real study of long term effects on witnesses of close
encounters. Beyond this, of course, physics must take the subject as an
"existence theorem" to understand physical reality in a broader
sense.
Q4 : How are consciousness and Ufos related ? What
role does consciousness play in Ufo manifestations?
We have seen ufos as classical spaceships for a long time, in
accordance with science fiction in the forties and fifties. This interpretation
persists, especially in France where recent breakthrough of parapsychology are
not well known and where psychic effects reported by witnesses are considered
either as evidences of mental weakness or as electromagnetic side effects. Yet,
as documentation improves, we find out that the physical aspects of the
phenomenon are as negotiable as its psychic effects: it is as if it took
control of a given area, including witnesses’ perceptions. It is that aspect
that discouraged Aimé Michel.
Q5 : Do governments (and especially the USA) hide
information about Ufos on the public (according to you and your
experience) ?
There are two levels to that question: (1) governments (and not
only the USA) keep some information they think most sensitive, especially
reports which come from the military. It seems that since 1947 this policy has
been viewed as legitimate, in the interest of populations and in the hope of
discovering technological breakthroughs. (2) The most difficult question is to
know if breakthroughs have actually taken place. To my mind, the phenomenon has
probably resisted all analysis, classified or not. The issue of opening
all the files is going to arise again but it’s not as simple to understand the
Ufo phenomenon as to dismantle an MIG or to secretly copy the space shuttle.*
Q6 : What advice would you give to the ufology community ?
I don’t think I have personal advice to give. It is obvious that
we won’t make real progress in an environment of petty squabbling. It would be
best to avoid accusations that discourage researchers from working together.
The phenomenon is accessible at a local level, so the possibility of field
study and fast exchange of data is wide open. That would be more useful than
speculating on inaccessible, hypothetical secrets in the drawers of
governments.
Q7 : What are your biggest regrets in your ufological career?
I sometimes wonder whether things would have taken a different
course if I had accompanied Allen Hynek to Detroit during the « swamp
gas » case. It was the biggest opportunity to pose the question of
the reality of the phenomenon before the American general public and the
scientific community. Together with Bill Powers’ advice, we could have
presented a realistic and urgent vision of the issue which would have been
understood by the media.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge, as the Americans would say. If I
look back, it is obvious that professionally speaking, I wasted my time when I
came back in France in late 1967. Should I regret it? I wouldn’t have written
Passport to Magonia anywhere else than in Paris. Moreover, I wouldn’t have
experienced May 68 on the spot !
Questions about the book « Science Interdite, Vol 2 » by
Ovnis-Direct :
P389, answer of the author to Aimé Michel on the origin of Ufos
(“Belmont Friday, June 25th 1976”) :
« Public opinion only has two possible positions toward Ufos:
if you manage to take the idea away from people’s mind that there are
hallucinations, these same minds are going to draw the conclusion that it is
purely and simply about E.T ».
« Don’t you see that a technology which
can create local deformation of space might not be limited to produce Ufos
only, but any kinds of other phenomena which would seem miraculous? ».
Q1 : Apart from Ufos, could you tell us what phenomena
result from such super technology?
These phenomena are in the literature : reports of poltergeist are
documented in the book by captain of gendarmerie Tizané, as well as the famous
deformations of metal by psychic means reported by Soviets researchers or by
Stanford Research Institute (or, in France, by the material expert Crussard).
Nonlocality allows phenomena described by the French physicist Yves Rocard in
his experiments at Ecole Normale Supérieure, as the relativist Olivier Costa de
Beauregard had emphasized. It is a pity that this field has been ignored for
ideological reasons. Maybe it was marginal in the 70s but it comes back at
the center of multiple broad issues.
P406, Aleister Crowley on the Society for psychical
research :
« All their work brings evidence that there are powers
influencing humans. We have always known them: The universe is full of dark and
subtle manifestations of energy. But nobody before me has ever managed to prove
the outer intelligence to humankind whereas my compilation has. But it is
impossible to doubt that there is someone there, someone who is able to
organize events the same way Napoléon conceived his battle plans, with an
extent of unthinkable powers through which he can control the actions of the people
he has chosen to play a role in the implementation of his purposes. »
Q2 : The publications made by people who belong to the
Esoteric Hermetic Movement like Aleister Crowley, Facius Cardan, John Dee
and others you name. Do they influence in any way your research leading to the
hypothesis of the control system?
Definitely: before the development of science as we know it, many
lonely researchers or members of small groups asked the same questions as we
did. Facius Cardan’s father was a great mathematician, John Dee was a scholar
who was instrumental to the science of navigation; others were chemists,
alchemists or astronomers. They wondered whether there was a general balance of
the world that will give meaning to human life and the phenomena which surround
us.
Q3 : According to you, what were the triggers of the
spiritual revolution in the 70s in the USA ?
A new generation became aware of the limitations of western
culture and they revolted against religious, social, political and artistic
prohibitions in the world of their parents, who often emerged mentally
exhausted and culturally impoverished from the Second World War. In that
environment, it was normal that spiritual exploration went off in all
directions and was used by certain sects. I observed this phenomenon in the USA
but it existed in France and England as well, although it was less visible but
quite powerful: look at the Solar Temple…
Q4 : We can see through your last book your reluctance
before certain techniques such as meditation through substances. A serious
ufologist who went to Amazonia spoke of the efficiency of methods used by
shamans (using ayahuasca) to reach other plans of reality. They are even
described as « technicians of consciousness ». What do you think
about it ?
In terms of field of research, all these explorations are useful
and valuable: current science asks the question of the nature of reality both
on a physical basis (quanta, nonlocality etc) and physiological (information
processing by the mind, discovery of hidden mechanisms using
« functional » MRI etc.)
When I met Terence McKenna I realized during our conversations that our
hypotheses on a possible « control system » converged. But my own
research involves a structured calibration of data with calibration of investigation
tools, which is not possible when one is transported by the visions of drugs
like ayahuasca or simply LSD.
Living in California since 1969, I have seen many experiments derived from
these methods, whether they came from South American jungles or simply from
drug companies. I understand their usefulness to force some parts of the brain
to reveal their function in the construction of reality, but I haven’t learnt
anything new or reliable for my own work.
P427 – The author’s quotation :
« The Ufo phenomenon looks like a kaleidoscope which has
three separate levels: a physical and technologic level; a sociologic level;
and finally a personal level, subliminal, which plays with subtle shades of
human psyche.
The first aspects seem to show evidence of
extraterrestrial origins; the second one would be within the competence of
human mythology and anthropology, if we refer to the societal dimension only:
this is the explanation which meets with the advanced skeptics’ approval,
contrary to Menzel and Klass who are content with denying everything
outright. The third aspect is the most disconcerting : it suggests clues
of a darker manipulation from terrestrial and very material origins ».
Q5 : Have you achieved new discoveries on the third aspect
of the Ufo phenomenon over the last years?
We are faced with this third aspect when we carry on case studies
in the field. Everything is happening as if the phenomenon was able to
manipulate its environment (including its human environment) in order to hide
its real nature. To my mind, the camouflage uses terrestrial elements and it is
not simply a bureaucratic « cover-up » as it has naively been
believed for a long time.
Philippe Solal's questions :
(Doctor and associate professor in Philosophy at INSA in Toulouse,
teacher of expression-communication, social psychology, philosophy of sciences
and author of several books in this field).
Q1 : Physics and cosmology of this early 21st century are
in crisis and are looking for new patterns to represent the universe :
multiverse, multidimensional, folded, etc. Are you paying attention to
this crisis and does it give food for thought about the origin of Ufos?
I have followed these works, first in astrophysics at the
University of Texas which was a major cosmological research centers, then at
Stanford and SRI. The result was my book « Autres Dimensions » where
I wrote that Ufos give us the opportunity (among others) to ask questions about
the structure of the universe. I have recently given a TED lecture on the
physics of information in the framework of a meeting in Brussels about
the next 60 years, a period which I think will put these questions at the
center of research. The conference is on Youtube, reference :
Q2 : I understand that you have investigated an
increase of reports on cryptids in the USA over the last months. Would you tell
us about it ?
It is a subject I had put aside for a long time, first because I
don’t have skills in biology or zoology and especially because it seemed to me
independent of the main observations I was studying. I have been forced to come
back to this position following series of reports of crypto-zoological
phenomena that were co-located with well-documented observations of Ufos.
In 2012 and 2013, I travelled several times in Utah with Professor Frank
Salisbury, a distinguished biologist who had also worked with NASA on botany in
microgravity. We went all over the Uintah mountain range and later across the
semi-desert basin which expands from Vernal to Fort Duchesne to meet the
witnesses of these events. They were ranchers, industrial workers and policemen
(including the tribal police). In general, those reports are not published,
which makes the fieldwork essential to find people and listen to them. Those
trips taught me that the observation of these creatures were to be taken
seriously. As you may know it, similar observations have been reported in France.
Daniel Robin’s questions
(President of the Lyon based association “OVNI Investigation”,
field investigator and organizer of "Rencontres des
Sciences et de l’Inexpliqué".On the basis of
concrete examples, he has drawn up an interference categorization of the
phenomenon on human consciousness).
Q1 : In your books, you propose the hypothesis that
manifestations of the Ufo phenomenon could correlate with a learning program for
humanity. This system could be the same type as psychologist Burrhus Frederic
Skinner’s training process. Would you explain this hypothesis and show that the
manifestations of the Ufo phenomenon follow a program ?
This hypothesis comes from data processing compilations made
during the 60s and 70s, which lead to a frequency curve of the phenomenon which
looks like a learning program (a « schedule of reinforcement »
according to Skinner), that is to say, a sequence of stimuli which is pseudo-periodical.
According to Skinner, such a program leads to irreversible learning. It is also
difficult to detect unless we study a long series of observations.
Let’s notice at the same time that military studies like the US Air Force Blue
Book Project, or academic analyses like that of Professor Condon at the
University of Colorado have always treated Ufo cases one by one, without any
global perspective, which obviously hides such a program if it exists. The
often-recycled statement in the declarations of governmental agencies that Ufos
are not a threat, has never taken into account the structure of the global
evolution of the phenomenon.
To prove or disprove that hypothesis, we should review recent data and update
former cases in order to expand the study in a longer period. I have had the
opportunity to talk it over with computer scientists from CNES. It is possible
that many hypotheses would converge within such an analysis.
Q2 : During a conference you hosted in Montreal in Canada,
you talked about past work of arts in which possible Ufos representations can
be found. You also talked about Michelangelo’s painting which represents a
black triangle that the painter would have observed surely. Would you give us
the references of Michelangelo’s work ?
The reference is the book of Benedictine chronicler Benedetto
Lushino entitled, Vulnera Diligentis (second book, chapter XXII). He wrote that
Michelangelo saw a « triangular sign » on a calm night. It was bright
(and not dark, by the way) with three tails, one silvery, the second red and
the third « flaming and bifurcated ». The observation took place in
Rome in 1513. Michelangelo was so impressed that he made a painting, which
unfortunately hasn’t survived, to my knowledge.
Jean-Pierre TROADEC’ questions :
(Author of the book Les Ovnis. Collection
Que Sais-Je ?, PUF Publishers, Paris, Auditor at the Institution of Higher
National Defense Studies.)
Q1: The Cergy-Pontoise case broke in 1979. According to you,
what truth does this story hide: abduction, hoax, secret services’ fake
information, other hypothesis? What confidence do you have, and what
piece of evidence will you rely on?
I often think again about this case. It affects me personally
because, contrary to most investigations that a researcher happens to make,
this one brought me back to a very familiar area : like the primary witness
Frank Fontaine, I was a student at Parc-aux-Charrettes communal school in
Pontoise; like him and his follow students, I know the area of Cergy very well;
and Gérard Deforge, who had Fontaine as a student, is a close friend. I met
Fontaine with the two other witnesses in Pontoise at the home of Marceau
Sicaud, who had followed the whole case.
Today, I still hesitate between the thesis of a hoax and the possibility of a
psychological manipulation. The other two witnesses, Prévost and N’Diaye, have
explained the events in their own way but Frank’s personality and his doubt
about his experience puzzle me: I don’t think that he has lied. On the other
hand, we know that sociological experiences are common in the framework of
psychological warfare. In Cergy-Pontoise, several obvious ways which could show
manipulations have not been followed up by investigators: why ? The Gepan
was probably wise not to get more involved in the question, once the hypothesis
of a real "abduction" was ruled out.
Q2: Do abductees like Adamski or Siragusa reveal a real
part of ufological reports or do these stories have a link with something
else? Some believe it to be pure hoax. What do you think of it?
If we refer to « scientific » reality, it seems clear
that what we have here consists of hoaxes (in Adamski’s case) and psychological
issues (delusion, fugue, paraphrenia) in many other cases. But the impact of
these reports is deeper than a mere hoax, which would be quickly rejected once
the truth is known, as was the case with Gulf Breeze’s famous
observations by « Mr Ed » or that of Meier in Switzerland, two
cases that ufology has fortunately forgotten.
Dr. Carl Jung didn’t miss the cultural and psychological impact of the 50s
«contactee» reports, when he noticed their appeal to powerful archetypes.
For instance, contactees were among the first to mention the risk of dangerous
pollution of the planet, twenty years before ecologists. This is a point on
which their alleged cosmic visitors would often insist….
More recently professor Jeffrey Kripal, who is chairman of the Religious
Studies Department at Rice University, has taken up this analysis again in
terms of the evolution of religious concepts in the modern world. From
this perspective, the fact that new beliefs are based on unverifiable facts or
even false ones has no importance: Did Jesus Christ really change water
into wine ?
Q3: It was said that during the second world war, German
scientists could have developed circular wing machines, flying saucers (Vrils,
Haunebus). Are those information be considered as rumors ?
These researches are well established, and some of those
prototypes were recovered (I have seen one in a laboratory in Texas). From the
aeronautical point of view, it was logical to try to develop such machines. At
the end of the war, the firms AVRO in Canada and Couzinet in France tried to
build a functional flying saucer. Americans took up those researches again,
trying to find the Horten brothers. In France the Société Nationale de
Construction Aéronautique du Sud-Ouest (SNCASO) hired Thomas Townsend Browne
(co-founder of NICAP group) in 1955 for works on electro-gravity. Closer to us,
Dr. Moller in California, whom I met in Sacramento when I saw his prototypes,
still tries to build a vertical takeoff aircraft for the general public, for
which he is looking for financing.
With hindsight, we now understand why these aircraft are unsteady (as soon as
they go up above « ground effect » like a hovercraft) and especially
have difficulty with heavy loads or many passengers: the weight increases with
the cube of diameter, and the center of gravity is too close to the center
of lift. To my knowledge, the only circular aircraft able to carry one or two
people are used by soldiers at low altitude for commando operations, especially
in marshy areas. And they don’t spin around as some German prototypes did. I
think that there is no longer any mystery on this topic.
Q4: What link do you make between ufology and secret initiation
societies ?
If they are keepers of a real tradition, initiation societies are
open to the idea of non-human consciousness. In Paracelsus, to whom medicine
owes some important ideas and practical remedies, we can find a series of
descriptions of beings that are supposed to have realities similar to ours. The
collections of such esoteric treaties contain precious historical information,
apart from speculations that modern science has now validated or exceeded.
Unfortunately, when we look at the recent history of these sects, we also find a more sinister link between their leaders and “services” that use them for political reasons or
simply to facilitate political influence. Some well-informed authors have
reported on these relations regarding the P2 lodge or Amorc and also Masonic
organizations in Africa. In particular, the sect of the Solar Temple had
initiation rituals that included a contact with so-called extraterrestrials,
produced by conjurors’ methods.
Questions of Nagib
KARY who is in charge of the French ufologic media
« Ovnis-Direct » :
Q1 : Do you know if there is a program or a plan to be in contact
with the Ufo phenomenon at the moment ?
You can find many such
attempts on the Internet, starting with Dr. Steven Greer’s group. His followers
state that they are in frequent contact with Ufos through bright signals or
psychic exchange. Unfortunately their cameras or videos stop working at the right
moment…Other groups have claimed telepathic contacts. The most reliable
projects start with the identification of high-frequency observation areas,
where researchers hope to be able to establish regular communication. I haven’t
seen convincing results so far.
Q2 : What is your opinion about current evolutions of quantum
physics ?
According to you, would we be
close to discoveries which can help partly to explain some phenomena related to
Ufos?
The question is
legitimate, especially as reliable researches about psychic functioning are
facing the same problem. From the non-locality principle, we must wonder
whether thought is not transmitted immediately (rather than
electromagnetic waves, as in Soviet researches from 1930 to 1940 or French and
English scientists’ works in the beginning of the last century with the
«mental radio» concept). If so, it might be theoretically possible to get into
contact with other forms of consciousness, while beings capable of moving in
space might influence us at a distance, or even make us perceive imaginary
scenes.
However, to tell the truth, it seems to me that in their enthusiasm some
researchers use quantum physics a little bit too much : since these
mechanisms remain mysterious, they can be stretched to explain a lot of
phenomena in an exaggerated way. I am more interested in new ideas on the
physics of information, as I said earlier. If space and time are a side effect
of our consciousness and a physical illusion, we should face the problem of
phenomena related to Ufos in a more fundamental way.
Q3: Why does the hypothesis of control deal essentially with Ufos
and people who are related? Might this manipulation of space and time not
materialize current life, in the street, inside houses?
We can imagine a control
system that would distort our reality gradually (both physically and socially)
to replace it with « something else ». This is what Jorge-Luis Borges
described in his masterpiece short story, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
Q4 : Could you tell us the main author, researchers who are
currently in the same school of thought as you ?
First, Jeff Kripal and
his students and the participants to his symposia at Esalen over the last
few years (see his book Authors of the Impossible, University of Chicago
Press, where he analyzes my work and that of Bertrand Méheust). These ideas
converge with Jean Sider’s work in France and several physicists in the US, and
researchers like Philippe Guillemant at CNRS. Moreover, there are groups in
Silicon Valley that work on retro-causality and who question physical theories.
I think that this work must be done before asking the question of Ufo reality
and nature on a very scientific basis.
In fact, I could sum up the issue in the following way: « (1) The
Ufo phenomenon does exist, and (2) Knowing that, we just have to
renegotiate what we mean by reality!….».
Q5 : So, can you understand the fact that someone like John Keel
has been called into question many times ? Did you manage to talk to him
about the manifestation of Point Pleasant (1966-67)?
Is that case credible for
you? And do you know if there are other types involving a wide range of varied
paranormal manifestations?
John was not a scientist
and didn’t pretend to be one. He was rightly called into question because his
sources were unverified. I think that he was going too fast and got carried
away by the impressions of the moment. To his great credit he spent a lot of
time in the field, he was the first to state that genuine witnesses make up an
invisible majority, and that the military had a systematic interference program
with the observations. He also called into question the extraterrestrial
hypothesis -- in Disneyland of the Gods in particular.
As for Point Pleasant, I can’t comment about it, I didn’t interview witnesses.
But I trust John when he describes the destruction of a bridge that was
predicted by previous messages, and he concludes that the phenomenon sometimes
makes a fool of us at our expense.
Q6 : A lot of Internet users on social networks are keen on the lights
which were filmed in Phoenix in Arizona in 1997 and Ufos crashes on the ground
which would exhibit material debris. Is it possible to link the hypothesis of
the system control with the (Phoenix) facts and assumptions (crashes, reverse
engineering) said previously?
This raises two very
different questions: The Phoenix case shows the limits of our observation
system since we have a lot of reports and a video recording, but we still can’t
manage to prove the nature of the phenomenon. I don’t have additional elements
that could solve the problem, but let’s notice that the Phoenix case is not
unique: it coincides with many unexplained observations of large sets of
objects (or lights associated with a big object) in the USA and elsewhere as in
the unsolved case of 5 November 1990 in France.
Material debris do exist and they don’t necessarily come from a
« crash ». I have published an analysis of several samples I was
entrusted with after an observation of a low altitude object ejecting a liquid
metal : The results are instructive. Of course, the Holy Grail might be a
piece of a crashed machine but it is not obvious that our laboratories are
equipped to understand it: As someone said, Give a garage door opener to
Léonardo da Vinci …
Q7 : According to your knowledge and statistical data, is it
possible that the system control solves these manifestations again by changing
radically ? Which would mean that Ufos could become more discreet and make
way for a new kind of folklore having the same constants.
If we have a look at the
history of the phenomenon over centuries, which we can do now thanks to Chris
Aubeck’s researches and his group « Magoniax » on Internet, we can
find both some constants (in the appearance of the phenomenon, its evolution
and its physical effects) and changes of presentation which seem slightly in
advance of technological ideas of the time. Americans of the 19th century saw
impossible airships some decades before the building of the first airships, for
instance. After the Second World War, we heard about flying saucers with silly
small aerials as in the imagination of Comics. Is it a characteristic of the
control system? Or simply an effect of a society that puts imagination in the
framework of a mysterious phenomenon which still remains unexplained? I agree
with your last hypothesis: a new kind of folklore with the same constants.
Q8 : You prefaced Bob Pratt’s book entitled « Ovnis - danger -
appel à la vigilance ». Have you known new disturbing cases over the last
few years?
I haven’t returned to
Brazil since the 80s. But we keep receiving information which confirms what Bob
Pratt described in his book and what witnesses told me at the spot,
including Brazilian Air Force Intelligence officers like Colonel Hollanda
Lima.
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