Speaker 1: Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D
Speaker 1: audio for full exposure. Listen with headphones. On the night
Speaker 1: bridging August thirteenth and fourteenth, nineteen fifty six, a u
Speaker 1: f O encounter involving both radar and eyewitnesses took place.
Speaker 1: This incident occurred in a place you are already familiar with,
Speaker 1: a US controlled British air base on the North Sea
Speaker 1: coast of England called R. A. F. Bentwaters, twenty four
Speaker 1: years before the Rundelsham Forest incident. The Condon Committee, formed
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the nineteen sixty six Michigan UFO sightings,
Speaker 1: released a report that included summaries of several difficult to
Speaker 1: explain cases. This nineteen fifty six encounter, labeled case number
Speaker 1: two in the report and known informally as laken Heath
Speaker 1: bent Waters, featured a letter written in the late nineties
Speaker 1: sixties and sent to the committee by a watch supervisor
Speaker 1: at an air traffic control radar site on the night
Speaker 1: in question. The Condon report says that quote one of
Speaker 1: the interesting aspects of this case is the remarkable accuracy
Speaker 1: of the account of the witness as given in the
Speaker 1: letter reproduced above. Which was apparently written from memory twelve
Speaker 1: years after the incident with that recommendation. This is what
Speaker 1: happened that clear night, as excerpted from that letter, read
Speaker 1: by Martin Sweeney. It begins with a call from another
Speaker 1: radar site. Radar operator asked me if we had any
Speaker 1: targets on our scopes. Traveling four thousand miles per hour,
Speaker 1: they said they had watched a target on their scopes.
Speaker 1: Proceed from a point thirty or forty miles east to
Speaker 1: a point forty miles west. Target passed directly over the
Speaker 1: RF station, he said. Tower reported seeing it go by
Speaker 1: and it just appeared to be a blurry light. S
Speaker 1: flying over the base at five thousand feet altitude also
Speaker 1: reported seeing it. That's blurred light passed under his aircraft.
Speaker 1: There was very little or no traffic or targets on
Speaker 1: the scopes. As I recall over, one controller noticed a
Speaker 1: stationary target on the scopes about southwest. The target should
Speaker 1: not have been picked up on the scopes unless it
Speaker 1: was moving, but there it was. They called to another
Speaker 1: air traffic control unit, which confirmed that they too had
Speaker 1: the target on their scopes. As we watched, stationary target
Speaker 1: started moving at a speed of four six hundred miles
Speaker 1: per hour in the north northeast direction until it to
Speaker 1: reach a point twenty miles north northwest. Now there's no
Speaker 1: slow starter build up to the speed. It was constant
Speaker 1: from the second it started move until it stopped. The
Speaker 1: target made several changes in location, always in a straight line,
Speaker 1: always at about six hundred miles per hour, and always
Speaker 1: from a standing or stationary point to his next stop
Speaker 1: at constant speed, no build up and speed at all.
Speaker 1: These changes in location varied from eight miles to twenty
Speaker 1: miles in length, no set pattern at any time. This
Speaker 1: continued for a while. After thirty minutes or so, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Air Force called the r A F and they sent
Speaker 1: up an aircraft to investigate. Shortly after, we told the
Speaker 1: intercept aircraft he was one half mile from the UFO
Speaker 1: and it was twelve o'clock from his position, said Roger,
Speaker 1: I got my guns locked on him. Then he paused
Speaker 1: and said, where do you go? Do you still have him?
Speaker 1: We replied, Roger, it appears he's got right behind you,
Speaker 1: but he's still there. There are now two targets, one
Speaker 1: behind the other, same speed, very close. The two separate,
Speaker 1: distinct targets. The first movement by the UFO was so
Speaker 1: swift I missed it entirely, but it was seen by
Speaker 1: the other controllers. However, the fact that it had occurred
Speaker 1: was confirmed by the pilot of the interceptor follow The
Speaker 1: interceptor told us he would try to shake the UFO
Speaker 1: and would try again. Tried everything. He climbed, dived, circled.
Speaker 1: The UFO acted like it was glued right behind him,
Speaker 1: always the same distance, very close. The pilot, aware that
Speaker 1: the plane was running low on fuel, returned to base.
Speaker 1: A second plane was sent to intercept the object, but
Speaker 1: turned back with a mechanical failure. Target made a couple
Speaker 1: more short moves, then left our radar coverage in a
Speaker 1: northerly direction, speed still at about six hundred miles. We're out.
Speaker 1: We lost target out bound to the north at fifty
Speaker 1: sixty miles, which is normal off aircraft or target is
Speaker 1: at an outdo blue five ft. The Condon Report's final
Speaker 1: word on this encounter reads in conclusion, although conventional or
Speaker 1: natural explanations certainly cannot be ruled out, the probability of
Speaker 1: such seems low in this case, and the probability that
Speaker 1: at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be
Speaker 1: fairly high. I'm Toby Ball and this is Strange Arrivals
Speaker 1: Episode eight radically different and richer alternatives. The Condon Report
Speaker 1: released in seems to be the turning point for Alan Heinek.
Speaker 1: Heineke had worked as a consultant for the Air Force's
Speaker 1: investigations into UFO sightings for twenty years, and this report
Speaker 1: said that continuing this work would be of no scientific
Speaker 1: or defense value. The subsequent closing of Project Blue Book
Speaker 1: meant that he was no longer beholden to the Air
Speaker 1: Force in any way. He was critical of the Air
Speaker 1: Force's investigation by the time you left now, he was
Speaker 1: there for about twenty years. In the first part of
Speaker 1: his contract, he was convinced there was nothing to it,
Speaker 1: UFO historian jan Aldretch. But as things went along he
Speaker 1: changed his mind. So when your primary advisor changes their
Speaker 1: mind and you don't pay attention to that, that's rather unusual.
Speaker 1: Besides that, he was like the institutional memory for Project
Speaker 1: Blue because people came and it. This is Heinik from
Speaker 1: ninety seven while the Connon Committee was doing its work,
Speaker 1: but before it released its report. He gives us analysis
Speaker 1: of the leading theories about the explanation for UFO sightings,
Speaker 1: there are say, four large categories in which explanations For
Speaker 1: a one, of course, the one used for so long
Speaker 1: as it's all about it, it's still slight probability that
Speaker 1: that might turn out to be the case, but I
Speaker 1: don't think so. Second is it's all there's secret weapons
Speaker 1: being tested by that government, but that seems unlikely to me,
Speaker 1: simply because it's hard to keep a secret for twenty years,
Speaker 1: and one don't test secret devices in seventy countries. There
Speaker 1: is of course extra trust, feel intelligence e p i UM.
Speaker 1: This is a popular one because it's it's amazing how
Speaker 1: the human race wants devoutly to believe and here as
Speaker 1: we're doing to his proper sense, wants to believe even
Speaker 1: possible help from outside what they desperately want to There's
Speaker 1: everything for a scientific father image of this time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course the stronomers will go wrong with the
Speaker 1: high idea that there is life very likely right else where.
Speaker 1: It to be consumately preventially to think today that there
Speaker 1: isn't the problems getting here communicating that's a totally different situation.
Speaker 1: And then the fourth possibility is that if we're dealing
Speaker 1: with handed for unknown but perfectly natural, normal physical growth phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and you say, well, how can it be bec never
Speaker 1: hand Just put yourself back a hundred years. Suppose somebody
Speaker 1: when some when we were crossing the plane in the
Speaker 1: covered wagon, somebody has googly begun begun to talk about
Speaker 1: nuclear energy. But in those days we didn't even know
Speaker 1: if they didn't even know that Adam Hanndal's let alone
Speaker 1: that you could get energy out of it. People are
Speaker 1: gonna totally incomprehensible thing. People at that time, well, how
Speaker 1: do we know? It's because seven and by the year
Speaker 1: twenty five sixty seven we won't know things that will
Speaker 1: make nois today. L This fourth possibility that there are
Speaker 1: frontiers of knowledge which the current state of established science
Speaker 1: wasn't ready to deal with, had intrigued Heinick since his youth.
Speaker 1: Depending on your viewpoint, it either provides an explanation for
Speaker 1: why he was willing to theorize outside the strict boundaries
Speaker 1: of more narrow thinkers, or why he wasn't quite as
Speaker 1: rigorous in his scientific thought as he should have been.
Speaker 1: You see, Heineck had a keen interest in modes of
Speaker 1: thinking well outside the scientific norm, and it began when
Speaker 1: he was young. He said that while other boys were
Speaker 1: saving up their money to buy motorcycles, he saved up
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars, which in those days was a huge
Speaker 1: amount of money, and spent it on a book, a
Speaker 1: book of occult knowledge called The Secret Teachings of All Ages,
Speaker 1: which was one of the biggest occult tons of the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. My name is Jason Colavito. I am an
Speaker 1: author and researcher who has studied UFOs, the unexplained and
Speaker 1: all manner of weird things for almost twenty years. He
Speaker 1: wanted to know all of the hidden secrets of the world,
Speaker 1: all of the mystical things that the occult groups, the
Speaker 1: secret society's the forbidden knowledge, and he used that to
Speaker 1: create an intellectual world in which there were more things
Speaker 1: than merely the material. This was the beginning of an
Speaker 1: interest in the esoteric and paranormal by the man who
Speaker 1: had become the most influential voice on UFO matters, author
Speaker 1: Mark O'Connell. When he got into college, he really started
Speaker 1: reading a lot of the works of Rudolf Steiner, who
Speaker 1: is an esoteric thinker who boy, I don't even know
Speaker 1: where to start with Steiner, but he became fascinated with mystics. Today,
Speaker 1: Rudolf Steiner is probably best known for founding steiner Waldorf Schools,
Speaker 1: which provide progressive education, stressing quote universal human values, educational pluralism,
Speaker 1: and meaningful teaching and learning opportunities. But Steiner was a
Speaker 1: wide ranging thinker and his works were not confined to
Speaker 1: the realm of education. Well, Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian
Speaker 1: sort of polymath. He was born in the sort of
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century and he died nineteen. For the first
Speaker 1: sort of half of his career he was more or
Speaker 1: less the typical German intellectual, German speaking, you know, a
Speaker 1: language intellectual, and he became well known as a scholar
Speaker 1: of the German poet Gerta. Well, my name is Gary
Speaker 1: lachman Um, a writer about we can say, the history
Speaker 1: of the Western esoteric tradition. And that's a bit of
Speaker 1: a mouthful, but esoteric means inner and sort of about
Speaker 1: the inner teaching of kind of the mainstream religious teachings,
Speaker 1: and also about the inner world or inner being, and
Speaker 1: that includes different histories of different movements and biographies people
Speaker 1: of Rudolf Steiner and Carl Jung and Alistair Crowley and
Speaker 1: ages ago In a previous life, I I used to
Speaker 1: be a rock musician back in the late seventies by
Speaker 1: rock musician Gary Means. He was the basis for Blondie.
Speaker 1: In his childhood, Steiner experienced visions and instances of seeing
Speaker 1: ghosts or spirits or things like that. And in his
Speaker 1: forties he sort of came out of the closet about that,
Speaker 1: and um, this is when he began this kind of
Speaker 1: second career as a spiritual teacher, leader of a kind
Speaker 1: of spiritual movement that he called anthroposophy. But anthrow means
Speaker 1: man in Greek and Sophia. Sophia is wisdom, so sort
Speaker 1: of the wisdom of man, and it is basically a
Speaker 1: kind of spiritual teaching about this spiritual existence that we
Speaker 1: have alongside the physical one that we had of. Steiner's
Speaker 1: conception of anthroposophy was connected to the work he did
Speaker 1: on the poet Geta's Scientific Writings, in which he described
Speaker 1: a method he devised to use his imagination to study nature,
Speaker 1: for instance, the way that plants grow. He was able
Speaker 1: to train his imagination to be able to in his
Speaker 1: way when he was observing a plant to be able
Speaker 1: to see it through all the processes of its growth,
Speaker 1: so from when it went from a seed to just
Speaker 1: you know, sprout and then actually growing and bearing fruit
Speaker 1: and all that. And Gerta was convinced that he had
Speaker 1: somehow was able to see this kind of eternal plant
Speaker 1: that was behind the actual physical one that was moving
Speaker 1: through time. And Steiner picked up on this when he
Speaker 1: was doing this work on Gerta's scientific writings, and he
Speaker 1: combined this kind of methodology that's Gerta had developed, this
Speaker 1: kind of way of disciplining his imagination to see to
Speaker 1: see this with this kind of inherent, innate kind of
Speaker 1: psychic ability. Had Steiner became a very popular teacher of
Speaker 1: this type of in quotes science feartual science was this
Speaker 1: way that he had a whole methodology of following these
Speaker 1: these practices that he got from going to and he
Speaker 1: barely ran with it. So it went from into seeing
Speaker 1: him to pass lives and into the history of the cosmos,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's quite grandiose um. And he had
Speaker 1: a grandiose vision of human evolution and the evolution of
Speaker 1: the cosmos and all that, but fundamentally it was a
Speaker 1: way of training your imagination to be able to see
Speaker 1: this kind of what do you want to say it
Speaker 1: some phenomena, and not only in the time and place
Speaker 1: that you see it now, but in its full kind
Speaker 1: of being, in connection to the rest of things around
Speaker 1: it and all that. While in college, Heinick became interested
Speaker 1: in Steiner and other spiritual and esoteric writers again Mark O'Connell.
Speaker 1: During his college days he was spending a lot of long,
Speaker 1: lonely nights at the Yerkes Observatory in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: looking at stars, looking basically into the depths of eternity
Speaker 1: through this telescope at Yurkey's Observatory, And in the meantime
Speaker 1: he's reading the writings of these esoteric thinkers who are
Speaker 1: talking about well, Sninder like to talk about something he
Speaker 1: called the super sensible realm. Some of us can perceive
Speaker 1: it now and then, and we can actually train ourselves
Speaker 1: to be able to experience these these other dimensions of reality.
Speaker 1: This was definitely something that was always part of Heineck's thinking,
Speaker 1: and I think it had a lot to do with
Speaker 1: why he was willing to consider the reality of the
Speaker 1: UFO phenomena. As the Condon Committees worked out under way,
Speaker 1: Heineck met another UFO researcher who had a similar interest
Speaker 1: in the occult and paranormal, a man named Jacques Valet.
Speaker 1: Valet is the model for the French scientist in the
Speaker 1: film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He is a
Speaker 1: longtime UFO researcher who, in addition to UFOs, also researched
Speaker 1: other paranormal subjects, including visions of the Virgin Mary and
Speaker 1: the practice of remote viewing. He eventually asserted that UFOs
Speaker 1: weren't extraterrestrial, but in fact represent a quote previously unrecognized phenomena,
Speaker 1: and that their ability quote to manipulate space and time
Speaker 1: suggests radically different and richer alternatives, but that came later.
Speaker 1: Jason Cola Vito in six Jallen Heineck and shock Bill
Speaker 1: At we're traveling to Colorado in order to participate in
Speaker 1: the Condon Committee investigation into UFOs sponsored by the University
Speaker 1: of Colorado in the Air Force. The two of them
Speaker 1: were there to provide their testimony and their evidence to
Speaker 1: the committee as they were looking for the scientific explanation
Speaker 1: for UFOs, and it was increasingly obvious that the committee
Speaker 1: was going to determine that there was nothing much to
Speaker 1: the UFO phenomenon in terms of anything extraterrestrial or ultraterrestrial.
Speaker 1: But that conclusion didn't sit very well with either Heineck
Speaker 1: or Valet, and on the way back from Colorado, Heineck
Speaker 1: confessed to Valet for the first time that he was
Speaker 1: not entirely the materialist scientist that he pretended to be
Speaker 1: in public. But he told Valet that he actually had
Speaker 1: these mystical occult ideas, that he was deeply interested in
Speaker 1: things like her meticism, and while as a scientist he
Speaker 1: followed the scientific method and proposed scientific ways exploring UFOs,
Speaker 1: he had always that sort of mystical idea in the
Speaker 1: background that they could be something more than material science
Speaker 1: could explain. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either an
Speaker 1: unorthodox tool that makes him a more insightful thinker about
Speaker 1: strange phenomena, or an indication that Heinech wasn't as strict
Speaker 1: with his scientific reasoning as he needed to be given
Speaker 1: the subject matter. Regardless, as the Defense Department officially shut
Speaker 1: down their investigation into the UFO question, Heinich was a
Speaker 1: public face of Flying Saucer investigation, and he had a
Speaker 1: new message. After the break, we've been looking at Heineck's
Speaker 1: career through the framework of the archetypal story of the
Speaker 1: hero's journey. The end of Project Blue Book marks his
Speaker 1: emergence back into the normal world with a new message
Speaker 1: about UFOs. His first book was The UFO Experience, and
Speaker 1: that came out I believe in two somewhere right around there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, over all these years of studying UFOs, Heinek
Speaker 1: had always been thinking in terms of how do we
Speaker 1: classify these events? Because for all their similarities, there are
Speaker 1: also some major differences in these different events that keep
Speaker 1: on being reported. So how can we categorize those? How
Speaker 1: can we organize those to try to make some sense
Speaker 1: of them? And his first attempt at that was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: He broke UFO sightings down into three simple categories. One
Speaker 1: was daylight discs, and that was when people reported seeing
Speaker 1: what they believed to be a solid object in in
Speaker 1: broad daylight during the day in the sky. The second
Speaker 1: was nocturnal meandering lights. That's pretty obvious, and then the
Speaker 1: third category was visual slash radar sightings. This type of
Speaker 1: sighting was the most intriguing to Henick because the radar
Speaker 1: reading would corrob rate the eyewitness account. But this wasn't
Speaker 1: the final form for Heine's classification scheme. As time went on,
Speaker 1: he further refined them and came up with his close
Speaker 1: encounter system, not least because of the Steven Spielberg movie
Speaker 1: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Heine's close encounter system
Speaker 1: is the best known method for classifying UFO sightings. Close encounters,
Speaker 1: by definition, had to be something that occurred within about
Speaker 1: five yards of the witness. Okay, so that's what separates
Speaker 1: these new categories from the original three. In heineck system,
Speaker 1: there were three kinds of close encounters, so close encounter.
Speaker 1: The first kind involves a visual contact, just a sighting
Speaker 1: of an unusual object in the sky within about five yards.
Speaker 1: Heineck felt that at that distance a witness could make
Speaker 1: out the size, the shape, the contours, the outline of
Speaker 1: whatever it was they were looking at. A close encounter
Speaker 1: of the second kind added the element that the UFO
Speaker 1: had to have some type of physical effect on its
Speaker 1: surroundings or on the observer. The classic example is of
Speaker 1: the car stalling or the radio going out, or possibly
Speaker 1: vegetation is burned, as in the Lonnies of Moor case.
Speaker 1: But of course the most famous is the close encounter
Speaker 1: of the third kind. Close encounter of the third kind
Speaker 1: really up to the anti because now it includes occupants
Speaker 1: or beings or creatures that are associated with the UFO
Speaker 1: as part of the event. It doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: the witness interacts with those creatures, but the creatures are present,
Speaker 1: the creatures are reported in proximity to the UFO, if
Speaker 1: not inside the UFO. So those were the three categories.
Speaker 1: A couple other categories have been added by other people
Speaker 1: since then. I usually disregard those because those are just
Speaker 1: basically like escalating levels of human alien contact, and that
Speaker 1: just takes the whole thing in a completely different direction
Speaker 1: than Heineke ever intended. The term close encounters of the
Speaker 1: fourth kind has been used as a designation for alien abduction.
Speaker 1: After that, it gets even more bizarre. A former physician
Speaker 1: and transcendental meditation teacher and current u apologist named Stephen
Speaker 1: Greer promotes the concept of close encounters of the fifth kind.
Speaker 1: Author of They Are Already Here, UFO Culture and Why
Speaker 1: We See Saucers, Sarah Skulls He has made a name
Speaker 1: for himself with the specific kind of contact with aliens
Speaker 1: called close encounters of the fifth kind, which is essentially
Speaker 1: a kind of contact with aliens and UFOs that you,
Speaker 1: as a human being on earth, try to initiate, like
Speaker 1: you kind of send your intention and receptive nous to
Speaker 1: that experience out into the universe somehow, and then a
Speaker 1: phenomenon is supposed to sense that and and appear to you.
Speaker 1: So this is getting well beyond witnessing lights in the
Speaker 1: sky or physical craft or what have you. But back
Speaker 1: to Heinich scale, Heinech was. Heinick was always very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with close encounters of the third kind, because anytime you
Speaker 1: start talking about occupants of the UFO, you start talking
Speaker 1: about creatures. It just raises all sorts of questions that
Speaker 1: are much harder to deal with than anything in a
Speaker 1: close encounter the first or second kind. But they're the
Speaker 1: most dramatic and of course the most famous. Heinich famously
Speaker 1: appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Speaker 1: as well, basically himself, but in the real world it
Speaker 1: was the less dramatic cases that had his attention. He really,
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the close encounters of the second kind cases
Speaker 1: because he felt they had the most scientific value because
Speaker 1: they left behind physical evidence. There was some sort of
Speaker 1: physical effect left on our environment from this object. And
Speaker 1: like I said, those could be health issues with the witness,
Speaker 1: It could be all sorts of different things. But while
Speaker 1: accounts of sightings involving UFO occupants troubled Henich, this was
Speaker 1: not an indication that his mind was closing two ideas
Speaker 1: out of the scientific mainstream, to put it mildly. In fact,
Speaker 1: he continued to be intrigued by new paranormal claims, including
Speaker 1: those of Robert Monroe, who was an advocate for the
Speaker 1: reality of out of body experiences. Well. UH, an out
Speaker 1: of body experience is a state of being, a state
Speaker 1: of awareness, a state of action, UH, separate and apart
Speaker 1: from the physical body. UH. About twenty of the population
Speaker 1: throughout the world, I guess has this spontaneously take place,
Speaker 1: that they're aware of UM at least once in their lifetime.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Monroe. Heinek became interested in the
Speaker 1: work of a guy named Ted Sirios who claimed to
Speaker 1: be able to take psychic photos with his camera so
Speaker 1: he could like, concentrate on prehistoric times, and somehow, click click,
Speaker 1: his camera would take a picture of a dinosaur. Sirios
Speaker 1: used a small paper tube that he called a gizmo,
Speaker 1: which he said concentrated his thoughts to create the images.
Speaker 1: Later he was exposed as a fraud. He would slip something,
Speaker 1: probably a picture, into the tube before the photo was snapped.
Speaker 1: This was what created the image, not his psychic powers.
Speaker 1: Iik was interested in a lot of these things, which
Speaker 1: drove his friends nuts because they felt like it detracted
Speaker 1: from his credibility, and I'm sure it did, But to me,
Speaker 1: I took it as a sign that Heinich was simply
Speaker 1: interested in exploring different states of consciousness that he then
Speaker 1: might be able to use to make sense of the
Speaker 1: UFO experience. And now we're getting into the seventies and
Speaker 1: the eighties, he's you know, he's been dealing with and
Speaker 1: thinking about the UFO phenomenon for decades. At this point.
Speaker 1: He always thought that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was possible, but
Speaker 1: he was never fully committed to that. The extraterrestrial hypothesis
Speaker 1: is as it sounds, the theory that UFOs are vehicles
Speaker 1: from outer space. It is the most popular theory, but
Speaker 1: not the only one. He saw it as only one
Speaker 1: possible explanation for the UFO phenomenon. He was willing to
Speaker 1: look into psychic things. He was willing to consider that
Speaker 1: UFOs maybe in part a psychic phenomenon, not that they
Speaker 1: were creations of our minds, but that whatever was manifesting
Speaker 1: its self in the UFO was doing it directly into
Speaker 1: our minds, not necessarily through our eyes or our ears,
Speaker 1: but directly into our minds. In that sense, Heineck thought
Speaker 1: they might be psychic occurrences. This is heinik in. It
Speaker 1: could very well be that the whole UFO phenomenon is
Speaker 1: a signal, an index, another kind of property of the
Speaker 1: natural universe that we as yet had not recognized. Then
Speaker 1: I'd be on that if by go any farther, it
Speaker 1: will be a pure science fiction. Jason Cola, Vito and
Speaker 1: he and Jacques l A over the succeeding decade came
Speaker 1: to a sort of rough consensus that flying saucers may
Speaker 1: not be physical vehicles at all, that they might in
Speaker 1: fact the psychic phenomenon a phenomenon. He was particularly interested
Speaker 1: in the idea that UFOs were related to pull to Geist's,
Speaker 1: and he said several times in the nineties seventies that
Speaker 1: UFOs had a very close connection to the poulter Geist phenomenon,
Speaker 1: and if we could understand what made for poulter Geist's
Speaker 1: made these ghosts, we would also understand what made flying saucers.
Speaker 1: And between the two of them, the idea sort of
Speaker 1: came together that flying saucers were coming from another dimension,
Speaker 1: that they were a semi supernatural phenomenon, and that we
Speaker 1: couldn't entirely understand them through science itself, but through a
Speaker 1: mystical means of knowledge, And the idea emerged from that
Speaker 1: that if you could fully understand the UFOs, that by
Speaker 1: exploring flying saucers, you would see a new, better, grander
Speaker 1: science behind the facade of the material world, towards something
Speaker 1: that's more psychic, more spiritual, even something that's approached almost
Speaker 1: the divine. In Heineken Valet co authored a book titled
Speaker 1: The Edge of Reality, a Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,
Speaker 1: which begins quote the UFO phenomenon calls upon us to
Speaker 1: extend our imaginations as we have never done before. It
Speaker 1: continues quote in short, to approach boldly the edge of
Speaker 1: our accepted reality and by mentally battering at these forbidding boundaries,
Speaker 1: perhaps open up entirely new vistas. He also entertained the
Speaker 1: possibility that these things were interdimensional in nature, that they
Speaker 1: were visiting us from another dimension, and he called these metaterrestrials,
Speaker 1: which I always liked that term metaterrestrial instead of extraterrestrial.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Heineck really became enamored with a lot of
Speaker 1: these kind of different approaches to reality. But as I said,
Speaker 1: I think my read on that was that he was
Speaker 1: simply trying to consider different states of consciousness and how
Speaker 1: they might play into the UFO phenomena, maybe even create
Speaker 1: the UFO phenomena in the edge of reality. Heineck and
Speaker 1: Valet right quote the solution may lie in the parapsychological realm,
Speaker 1: the means of getting information. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: startling statement from the man who was considered the leading
Speaker 1: scientists studying UFOs. If science is inadequate to address the
Speaker 1: question of flying saucers, what are we left with spiritualism metaphysics?
Speaker 1: Is it surprising that the Condon Committee didn't see further
Speaker 1: study as being scientifically useful And this is what makes
Speaker 1: Heinick such an interesting character in the UFO story. He
Speaker 1: seems to embody the tension between people who want to
Speaker 1: use science to get to the bottom of uf sightings
Speaker 1: and people who feel that science is too insular are
Speaker 1: too limited to properly address the issue. The fact that
Speaker 1: he really was a hardcore scientist. He only went where
Speaker 1: the facts led him. He would never go one step
Speaker 1: beyond what the facts and what the data would tell him.
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time, he's fascinated by people
Speaker 1: like Robert Monroe who have out of FADI experiences. He's
Speaker 1: fascinated people like Ted Sirios who claimed to be able
Speaker 1: to make psychic photos. So there's this dichotomy between Heinech
Speaker 1: the scientists and Heinech the sort of want to be
Speaker 1: mystic or at least a guy who is at least
Speaker 1: interested in at least dipping his toe into those waters.
Speaker 1: And all of this, I think is in the hopes
Speaker 1: that it can just lead him to greater understanding of
Speaker 1: reality of the universe, I suppose. So where does this
Speaker 1: leave us as we look at the folklore developing around UFOs. Well,
Speaker 1: the one sustained effort undertaken during the middle of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century to try to determine the truth behind UFO sightings.
Speaker 1: Project Blue Book ended with the Condon Committee's conclusion, which
Speaker 1: was seconded by the National Academies of Science, that there
Speaker 1: was no indication that these things that people saw in
Speaker 1: the sky were of extraterrestrial origin, and that further study
Speaker 1: would have no scientific value. At the same time, who
Speaker 1: have Project Blue Books consulting scientists undergoing a change in
Speaker 1: perspective during his two decades investigating encounters from dismissive skeptic
Speaker 1: to believer that something is going on. This perspective is
Speaker 1: complicated by Heineck's keen interests in the paranormal and belief
Speaker 1: that stepping outside the bounds of established science is likely
Speaker 1: necessary to find answers, and it is this lack of
Speaker 1: resolution that creates the space in which the folklore could
Speaker 1: flourish and expand. With the end of the official government
Speaker 1: inquiry into UFOs, the narrative switches to other actors in
Speaker 1: the story, to civilian researchers, popular culture, and government disinformation agents.
Speaker 1: Next time on Strange Arrivals. Strange Arrivals is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart, three D Audio and Grimm and Mild
Speaker 1: from Aaron Manky. This episode was written and hosted by
Speaker 1: Toby Ball and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Josh Thame,
Speaker 1: with executive producers Alex Williams, Matt Frederick, and Aaron Manky,
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Wendy Connors, creator of the Faded
Speaker 1: Discs archive of UFO related audio on archive dot org.
Speaker 1: Learn more about Strange Arrivals over at grimm and mild
Speaker 1: dot com, and find more podcasts from my heart Radio
Speaker 1: by visiting the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows