WEBVTT - Radically Different and Richer Alternatives 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:04.760 Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:16.000 audio for full exposure. Listen with headphones. On the night 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:20.200 bridging August thirteenth and fourteenth, nineteen fifty six, a u 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.240 f O encounter involving both radar and eyewitnesses took place. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.600 This incident occurred in a place you are already familiar with, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.360 a US controlled British air base on the North Sea 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.520 coast of England called R. A. F. Bentwaters, twenty four 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:42.200 years before the Rundelsham Forest incident. The Condon Committee, formed 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.080 in the aftermath of the nineteen sixty six Michigan UFO sightings, 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.199 released a report that included summaries of several difficult to 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:55.920 explain cases. This nineteen fifty six encounter, labeled case number 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.360 two in the report and known informally as laken Heath 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.080 bent Waters, featured a letter written in the late nineties 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.760 sixties and sent to the committee by a watch supervisor 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.039 at an air traffic control radar site on the night 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.640 in question. The Condon report says that quote one of 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.840 the interesting aspects of this case is the remarkable accuracy 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.600 of the account of the witness as given in the 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:26.200 letter reproduced above. Which was apparently written from memory twelve 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.720 years after the incident with that recommendation. This is what 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.880 happened that clear night, as excerpted from that letter, read 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.440 by Martin Sweeney. It begins with a call from another 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:43.080 radar site. Radar operator asked me if we had any 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.840 targets on our scopes. Traveling four thousand miles per hour, 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.200 they said they had watched a target on their scopes. 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.120 Proceed from a point thirty or forty miles east to 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.080 a point forty miles west. Target passed directly over the 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.160 RF station, he said. Tower reported seeing it go by 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.520 and it just appeared to be a blurry light. S 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.760 flying over the base at five thousand feet altitude also 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:15.480 reported seeing it. That's blurred light passed under his aircraft. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.840 There was very little or no traffic or targets on 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.720 the scopes. As I recall over, one controller noticed a 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:30.120 stationary target on the scopes about southwest. The target should 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.440 not have been picked up on the scopes unless it 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.440 was moving, but there it was. They called to another 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.959 air traffic control unit, which confirmed that they too had 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:45.080 the target on their scopes. As we watched, stationary target 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.560 started moving at a speed of four six hundred miles 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.280 per hour in the north northeast direction until it to 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.400 reach a point twenty miles north northwest. Now there's no 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.760 slow starter build up to the speed. It was constant 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.640 from the second it started move until it stopped. The 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:10.320 target made several changes in location, always in a straight line, 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.760 always at about six hundred miles per hour, and always 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.519 from a standing or stationary point to his next stop 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.120 at constant speed, no build up and speed at all. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.960 These changes in location varied from eight miles to twenty 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:33.080 miles in length, no set pattern at any time. This 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.680 continued for a while. After thirty minutes or so, the U. S. 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.280 Air Force called the r A F and they sent 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.120 up an aircraft to investigate. Shortly after, we told the 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.400 intercept aircraft he was one half mile from the UFO 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.800 and it was twelve o'clock from his position, said Roger, 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.320 I got my guns locked on him. Then he paused 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.160 and said, where do you go? Do you still have him? 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.240 We replied, Roger, it appears he's got right behind you, 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.720 but he's still there. There are now two targets, one 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.280 behind the other, same speed, very close. The two separate, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.760 distinct targets. The first movement by the UFO was so 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.960 swift I missed it entirely, but it was seen by 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.920 the other controllers. However, the fact that it had occurred 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.960 was confirmed by the pilot of the interceptor follow The 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.560 interceptor told us he would try to shake the UFO 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.719 and would try again. Tried everything. He climbed, dived, circled. 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.640 The UFO acted like it was glued right behind him, 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:43.039 always the same distance, very close. The pilot, aware that 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.800 the plane was running low on fuel, returned to base. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.359 A second plane was sent to intercept the object, but 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.840 turned back with a mechanical failure. Target made a couple 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.920 more short moves, then left our radar coverage in a 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.000 northerly direction, speed still at about six hundred miles. We're out. 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.480 We lost target out bound to the north at fifty 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.240 sixty miles, which is normal off aircraft or target is 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:13.279 at an outdo blue five ft. The Condon Report's final 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:18.120 word on this encounter reads in conclusion, although conventional or 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.960 natural explanations certainly cannot be ruled out, the probability of 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.479 such seems low in this case, and the probability that 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.039 at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:39.000 fairly high. I'm Toby Ball and this is Strange Arrivals 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:56.680 Episode eight radically different and richer alternatives. The Condon Report 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:01.599 released in seems to be the turning point for Alan Heinek. 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.440 Heineke had worked as a consultant for the Air Force's 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:10.400 investigations into UFO sightings for twenty years, and this report 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.800 said that continuing this work would be of no scientific 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.240 or defense value. The subsequent closing of Project Blue Book 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.960 meant that he was no longer beholden to the Air 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:25.599 Force in any way. He was critical of the Air 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.719 Force's investigation by the time you left now, he was 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.160 there for about twenty years. In the first part of 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.000 his contract, he was convinced there was nothing to it, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:42.159 UFO historian jan Aldretch. But as things went along he 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:48.080 changed his mind. So when your primary advisor changes their 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.680 mind and you don't pay attention to that, that's rather unusual. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:58.080 Besides that, he was like the institutional memory for Project 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:03.080 Blue because people came and it. This is Heinik from 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.240 ninety seven while the Connon Committee was doing its work, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:12.440 but before it released its report. He gives us analysis 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:18.160 of the leading theories about the explanation for UFO sightings, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:23.240 there are say, four large categories in which explanations For 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.600 a one, of course, the one used for so long 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.360 as it's all about it, it's still slight probability that 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.360 that might turn out to be the case, but I 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.560 don't think so. Second is it's all there's secret weapons 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.880 being tested by that government, but that seems unlikely to me, 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.680 simply because it's hard to keep a secret for twenty years, 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:47.120 and one don't test secret devices in seventy countries. There 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.640 is of course extra trust, feel intelligence e p i UM. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.080 This is a popular one because it's it's amazing how 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.800 the human race wants devoutly to believe and here as 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.960 we're doing to his proper sense, wants to believe even 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.880 possible help from outside what they desperately want to There's 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.240 everything for a scientific father image of this time. Uh. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.440 And of course the stronomers will go wrong with the 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.960 high idea that there is life very likely right else where. 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.400 It to be consumately preventially to think today that there 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:21.000 isn't the problems getting here communicating that's a totally different situation. 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.240 And then the fourth possibility is that if we're dealing 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:31.560 with handed for unknown but perfectly natural, normal physical growth phenomenal, 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:33.960 and you say, well, how can it be bec never 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.240 hand Just put yourself back a hundred years. Suppose somebody 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.719 when some when we were crossing the plane in the 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.680 covered wagon, somebody has googly begun begun to talk about 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.520 nuclear energy. But in those days we didn't even know 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.920 if they didn't even know that Adam Hanndal's let alone 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.000 that you could get energy out of it. People are 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.280 gonna totally incomprehensible thing. People at that time, well, how 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.439 do we know? It's because seven and by the year 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.839 twenty five sixty seven we won't know things that will 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:05.400 make nois today. L This fourth possibility that there are 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:09.080 frontiers of knowledge which the current state of established science 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.040 wasn't ready to deal with, had intrigued Heinick since his youth. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.680 Depending on your viewpoint, it either provides an explanation for 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.040 why he was willing to theorize outside the strict boundaries 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.439 of more narrow thinkers, or why he wasn't quite as 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.280 rigorous in his scientific thought as he should have been. 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.000 You see, Heineck had a keen interest in modes of 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.040 thinking well outside the scientific norm, and it began when 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.400 he was young. He said that while other boys were 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.679 saving up their money to buy motorcycles, he saved up 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.440 a hundred dollars, which in those days was a huge 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.600 amount of money, and spent it on a book, a 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.280 book of occult knowledge called The Secret Teachings of All Ages, 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.439 which was one of the biggest occult tons of the 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:02.200 nineteen twenties. My name is Jason Colavito. I am an 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:07.240 author and researcher who has studied UFOs, the unexplained and 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.600 all manner of weird things for almost twenty years. He 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.080 wanted to know all of the hidden secrets of the world, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.280 all of the mystical things that the occult groups, the 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:22.040 secret society's the forbidden knowledge, and he used that to 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.880 create an intellectual world in which there were more things 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.319 than merely the material. This was the beginning of an 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.160 interest in the esoteric and paranormal by the man who 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:39.559 had become the most influential voice on UFO matters, author 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:44.319 Mark O'Connell. When he got into college, he really started 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.720 reading a lot of the works of Rudolf Steiner, who 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.480 is an esoteric thinker who boy, I don't even know 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.720 where to start with Steiner, but he became fascinated with mystics. Today, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.600 Rudolf Steiner is probably best known for founding steiner Waldorf Schools, 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:08.000 which provide progressive education, stressing quote universal human values, educational pluralism, 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:12.640 and meaningful teaching and learning opportunities. But Steiner was a 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.080 wide ranging thinker and his works were not confined to 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:22.040 the realm of education. Well, Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.640 sort of polymath. He was born in the sort of 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.120 late nineteenth century and he died nineteen. For the first 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.000 sort of half of his career he was more or 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.520 less the typical German intellectual, German speaking, you know, a 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:40.440 language intellectual, and he became well known as a scholar 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.200 of the German poet Gerta. Well, my name is Gary 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.920 lachman Um, a writer about we can say, the history 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.120 of the Western esoteric tradition. And that's a bit of 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.600 a mouthful, but esoteric means inner and sort of about 0:11:56.040 --> 0:12:01.000 the inner teaching of kind of the mainstream religious teachings, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.640 and also about the inner world or inner being, and 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.320 that includes different histories of different movements and biographies people 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.040 of Rudolf Steiner and Carl Jung and Alistair Crowley and 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.480 ages ago In a previous life, I I used to 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.040 be a rock musician back in the late seventies by 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.600 rock musician Gary Means. He was the basis for Blondie. 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.840 In his childhood, Steiner experienced visions and instances of seeing 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.720 ghosts or spirits or things like that. And in his 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.080 forties he sort of came out of the closet about that, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.680 and um, this is when he began this kind of 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.280 second career as a spiritual teacher, leader of a kind 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.560 of spiritual movement that he called anthroposophy. But anthrow means 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.480 man in Greek and Sophia. Sophia is wisdom, so sort 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.920 of the wisdom of man, and it is basically a 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.960 kind of spiritual teaching about this spiritual existence that we 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:02.040 have alongside the physical one that we had of. Steiner's 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.080 conception of anthroposophy was connected to the work he did 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.199 on the poet Geta's Scientific Writings, in which he described 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.880 a method he devised to use his imagination to study nature, 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.840 for instance, the way that plants grow. He was able 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.200 to train his imagination to be able to in his 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.200 way when he was observing a plant to be able 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.000 to see it through all the processes of its growth, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.560 so from when it went from a seed to just 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.400 you know, sprout and then actually growing and bearing fruit 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:34.720 and all that. And Gerta was convinced that he had 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.040 somehow was able to see this kind of eternal plant 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.480 that was behind the actual physical one that was moving 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.160 through time. And Steiner picked up on this when he 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.040 was doing this work on Gerta's scientific writings, and he 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:51.160 combined this kind of methodology that's Gerta had developed, this 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.880 kind of way of disciplining his imagination to see to 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.160 see this with this kind of inherent, innate kind of 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:02.040 psychic ability. Had Steiner became a very popular teacher of 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:07.000 this type of in quotes science feartual science was this 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.120 way that he had a whole methodology of following these 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.840 these practices that he got from going to and he 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.720 barely ran with it. So it went from into seeing 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.360 him to pass lives and into the history of the cosmos, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.120 and I mean it's quite grandiose um. And he had 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.720 a grandiose vision of human evolution and the evolution of 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.520 the cosmos and all that, but fundamentally it was a 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.720 way of training your imagination to be able to see 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.840 this kind of what do you want to say it 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.440 some phenomena, and not only in the time and place 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.640 that you see it now, but in its full kind 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.800 of being, in connection to the rest of things around 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:45.080 it and all that. While in college, Heinick became interested 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:52.120 in Steiner and other spiritual and esoteric writers again Mark O'Connell. 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.840 During his college days he was spending a lot of long, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.840 lonely nights at the Yerkes Observatory in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:07.880 looking at stars, looking basically into the depths of eternity 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.160 through this telescope at Yurkey's Observatory, And in the meantime 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.240 he's reading the writings of these esoteric thinkers who are 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.240 talking about well, Sninder like to talk about something he 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.320 called the super sensible realm. Some of us can perceive 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.880 it now and then, and we can actually train ourselves 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.920 to be able to experience these these other dimensions of reality. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.120 This was definitely something that was always part of Heineck's thinking, 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:33.640 and I think it had a lot to do with 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.760 why he was willing to consider the reality of the 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.440 UFO phenomena. As the Condon Committees worked out under way, 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.560 Heineck met another UFO researcher who had a similar interest 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.560 in the occult and paranormal, a man named Jacques Valet. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.480 Valet is the model for the French scientist in the 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.080 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He is a 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:03.320 longtime UFO researcher who, in addition to UFOs, also researched 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.760 other paranormal subjects, including visions of the Virgin Mary and 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.640 the practice of remote viewing. He eventually asserted that UFOs 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:20.240 weren't extraterrestrial, but in fact represent a quote previously unrecognized phenomena, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.080 and that their ability quote to manipulate space and time 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:29.880 suggests radically different and richer alternatives, but that came later. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:37.800 Jason Cola Vito in six Jallen Heineck and shock Bill 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:42.200 At we're traveling to Colorado in order to participate in 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.360 the Condon Committee investigation into UFOs sponsored by the University 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.080 of Colorado in the Air Force. The two of them 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.360 were there to provide their testimony and their evidence to 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.920 the committee as they were looking for the scientific explanation 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.920 for UFOs, and it was increasingly obvious that the committee 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.480 was going to determine that there was nothing much to 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.720 the UFO phenomenon in terms of anything extraterrestrial or ultraterrestrial. 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.320 But that conclusion didn't sit very well with either Heineck 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.840 or Valet, and on the way back from Colorado, Heineck 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.480 confessed to Valet for the first time that he was 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:28.320 not entirely the materialist scientist that he pretended to be 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.520 in public. But he told Valet that he actually had 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.879 these mystical occult ideas, that he was deeply interested in 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.280 things like her meticism, and while as a scientist he 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.720 followed the scientific method and proposed scientific ways exploring UFOs, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.439 he had always that sort of mystical idea in the 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.399 background that they could be something more than material science 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:57.479 could explain. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either an 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.399 unorthodox tool that makes him a more insightful thinker about 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.840 strange phenomena, or an indication that Heinech wasn't as strict 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.080 with his scientific reasoning as he needed to be given 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:14.800 the subject matter. Regardless, as the Defense Department officially shut 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.800 down their investigation into the UFO question, Heinich was a 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.840 public face of Flying Saucer investigation, and he had a 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:45.440 new message. After the break, we've been looking at Heineck's 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.600 career through the framework of the archetypal story of the 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.560 hero's journey. The end of Project Blue Book marks his 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.280 emergence back into the normal world with a new message 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:01.600 about UFOs. His first book was The UFO Experience, and 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.040 that came out I believe in two somewhere right around there. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.439 And yeah, over all these years of studying UFOs, Heinek 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:13.600 had always been thinking in terms of how do we 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.959 classify these events? Because for all their similarities, there are 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.280 also some major differences in these different events that keep 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.719 on being reported. So how can we categorize those? How 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:25.600 can we organize those to try to make some sense 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.760 of them? And his first attempt at that was pretty simple. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.080 He broke UFO sightings down into three simple categories. One 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.320 was daylight discs, and that was when people reported seeing 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.760 what they believed to be a solid object in in 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.119 broad daylight during the day in the sky. The second 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.159 was nocturnal meandering lights. That's pretty obvious, and then the 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:51.439 third category was visual slash radar sightings. This type of 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.919 sighting was the most intriguing to Henick because the radar 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.840 reading would corrob rate the eyewitness account. But this wasn't 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.840 the final form for Heine's classification scheme. As time went on, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.800 he further refined them and came up with his close 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:11.639 encounter system, not least because of the Steven Spielberg movie 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:16.240 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Heine's close encounter system 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:22.320 is the best known method for classifying UFO sightings. Close encounters, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.560 by definition, had to be something that occurred within about 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:30.200 five yards of the witness. Okay, so that's what separates 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.600 these new categories from the original three. In heineck system, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.000 there were three kinds of close encounters, so close encounter. 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.800 The first kind involves a visual contact, just a sighting 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.560 of an unusual object in the sky within about five yards. 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.040 Heineck felt that at that distance a witness could make 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:56.040 out the size, the shape, the contours, the outline of 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.760 whatever it was they were looking at. A close encounter 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.080 of the second kind added the element that the UFO 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.879 had to have some type of physical effect on its 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:10.760 surroundings or on the observer. The classic example is of 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.880 the car stalling or the radio going out, or possibly 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.200 vegetation is burned, as in the Lonnies of Moor case. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.120 But of course the most famous is the close encounter 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.920 of the third kind. Close encounter of the third kind 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.680 really up to the anti because now it includes occupants 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.400 or beings or creatures that are associated with the UFO 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:39.119 as part of the event. It doesn't necessarily mean that 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.720 the witness interacts with those creatures, but the creatures are present, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:48.000 the creatures are reported in proximity to the UFO, if 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.600 not inside the UFO. So those were the three categories. 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.520 A couple other categories have been added by other people 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.879 since then. I usually disregard those because those are just 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:01.399 basically like escalating levels of human alien contact, and that 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.679 just takes the whole thing in a completely different direction 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.520 than Heineke ever intended. The term close encounters of the 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.199 fourth kind has been used as a designation for alien abduction. 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.760 After that, it gets even more bizarre. A former physician 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:22.040 and transcendental meditation teacher and current u apologist named Stephen 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.280 Greer promotes the concept of close encounters of the fifth kind. 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.480 Author of They Are Already Here, UFO Culture and Why 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:38.080 We See Saucers, Sarah Skulls He has made a name 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.520 for himself with the specific kind of contact with aliens 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.879 called close encounters of the fifth kind, which is essentially 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.840 a kind of contact with aliens and UFOs that you, 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.719 as a human being on earth, try to initiate, like 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.960 you kind of send your intention and receptive nous to 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.040 that experience out into the universe somehow, and then a 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.800 phenomenon is supposed to sense that and and appear to you. 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.199 So this is getting well beyond witnessing lights in the 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.600 sky or physical craft or what have you. But back 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:16.600 to Heinich scale, Heinech was. Heinick was always very uncomfortable 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.600 with close encounters of the third kind, because anytime you 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:22.680 start talking about occupants of the UFO, you start talking 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:25.600 about creatures. It just raises all sorts of questions that 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.720 are much harder to deal with than anything in a 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.159 close encounter the first or second kind. But they're the 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:42.760 most dramatic and of course the most famous. Heinich famously 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:46.320 appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:51.119 as well, basically himself, but in the real world it 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:56.280 was the less dramatic cases that had his attention. He really, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.919 really enjoyed the close encounters of the second kind cases 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.280 because he felt they had the most scientific value because 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.560 they left behind physical evidence. There was some sort of 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:10.560 physical effect left on our environment from this object. And 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:13.720 like I said, those could be health issues with the witness, 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.200 It could be all sorts of different things. But while 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:21.960 accounts of sightings involving UFO occupants troubled Henich, this was 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:25.240 not an indication that his mind was closing two ideas 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:29.879 out of the scientific mainstream, to put it mildly. In fact, 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:34.680 he continued to be intrigued by new paranormal claims, including 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:37.639 those of Robert Monroe, who was an advocate for the 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:43.640 reality of out of body experiences. Well. UH, an out 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:47.119 of body experience is a state of being, a state 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:51.119 of awareness, a state of action, UH, separate and apart 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:56.480 from the physical body. UH. About twenty of the population 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:01.840 throughout the world, I guess has this spontaneously take place, 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:06.840 that they're aware of UM at least once in their lifetime. 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:13.840 And it wasn't just Monroe. Heinek became interested in the 0:25:13.840 --> 0:25:17.280 work of a guy named Ted Sirios who claimed to 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:20.000 be able to take psychic photos with his camera so 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:24.200 he could like, concentrate on prehistoric times, and somehow, click click, 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:28.520 his camera would take a picture of a dinosaur. Sirios 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:31.679 used a small paper tube that he called a gizmo, 0:25:32.040 --> 0:25:35.320 which he said concentrated his thoughts to create the images. 0:25:36.600 --> 0:25:40.679 Later he was exposed as a fraud. He would slip something, 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:44.879 probably a picture, into the tube before the photo was snapped. 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.000 This was what created the image, not his psychic powers. 0:25:50.320 --> 0:25:53.200 Iik was interested in a lot of these things, which 0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:56.240 drove his friends nuts because they felt like it detracted 0:25:56.280 --> 0:25:59.080 from his credibility, and I'm sure it did, But to me, 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.960 I took it as a sign that Heinich was simply 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:09.680 interested in exploring different states of consciousness that he then 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:13.240 might be able to use to make sense of the 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.560 UFO experience. And now we're getting into the seventies and 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:19.439 the eighties, he's you know, he's been dealing with and 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:22.480 thinking about the UFO phenomenon for decades. At this point. 0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:26.560 He always thought that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was possible, but 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:31.639 he was never fully committed to that. The extraterrestrial hypothesis 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:35.920 is as it sounds, the theory that UFOs are vehicles 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:40.080 from outer space. It is the most popular theory, but 0:26:40.200 --> 0:26:43.320 not the only one. He saw it as only one 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:47.800 possible explanation for the UFO phenomenon. He was willing to 0:26:47.800 --> 0:26:51.520 look into psychic things. He was willing to consider that 0:26:51.960 --> 0:26:55.600 UFOs maybe in part a psychic phenomenon, not that they 0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:59.840 were creations of our minds, but that whatever was manifesting 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:02.160 its self in the UFO was doing it directly into 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:05.000 our minds, not necessarily through our eyes or our ears, 0:27:05.720 --> 0:27:09.000 but directly into our minds. In that sense, Heineck thought 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:15.040 they might be psychic occurrences. This is heinik in. It 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:19.320 could very well be that the whole UFO phenomenon is 0:27:19.400 --> 0:27:25.040 a signal, an index, another kind of property of the 0:27:25.160 --> 0:27:29.520