When I was a very young child, my paternal grandmother Laura Davis White (who was a staunch Baptist and attended church regularly) took me aside one weekend and forced me to learn John 3:16. She said it was the single most important verse in the entire Bible, and that no granddaughter of hers would go through life not knowing it.
After she chased me around her home in Carrollton, Texas, for hours (literally) repeating it and forcing me to say it aloud back to her until I could do it without mistakes, she finally left me alone! "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall have everlasting life." Whew! Finally, I got it.
After that, I escaped to the backyard to play. As I walked around pondering, questions began to surface. Was there really a God AND a Devil? And if I did not believe wholeheartedly in Jesus as my personal savior, would the Devil come to get me?
I stepped back into the kitchen with those questions. "Yes!"she assured me. Satan most certainly would come to tempt me, claim me for his own, and prevent me from salvation, and I would burn forever down below the earth's (somewhere?) surface! I gulped literally. That was a lot of scary information for a young girl to assimilate. I asked her how could I prevent him from coming to tempt me. She told me that anytime I felt strange or odd or scared as if "something" was close to me that wasn't "good", it might be the Devil, and I should say, "Get away from me Satan!" lol! So for good measure, I walked back out in the back yard and said out loud stomping my little sneakered feet. "Get away from me you Devil! Go back down to hell where you belong!" I was always dramatic even then I suppose.
My mother's family was also Christian, but a LOT more laid back about things like this. They knew I was way too young to need to be concerned with things like this and so they all loved me, spoiled me, and protected me from things that they knew I was way too young to understand.
My great-grandmother Mary Jarosh Blasingame in fact was a Bohemian immigrant. They always said Bohemian instead of Czech because they insisted there was a distinction between the two. This woman was a midwife and also read tea leaves for people. She knew all about herbs and wild greens and so the outdoors was a literal feast with which to fill her salad bowl as well as things to take for healing.
She belonged to The Rosicrucian Order and took their courses by mail, and no she did not regularly attend church even back in the old days. She was very psychic, as was my grandmother Stella Blasingame Livesay, and my mother Mariann Livesay White as well.
My grandmother always knew when her children were ill even in the days when there was no telephone installed in the farmhouse. Once as a child, she dreamt where her little gold ring had been lost on exactly which row and stalk in the garden where she'd been hoeing the day before.
My mother was not only psychic about her loved ones, both living and deceased, she also had the ability to communicate with animals. She knew when they were sick and also if they were lost, which direction to begin to walk to find them!
I have inherited the farm where my mother and my grandmother both grew up. The house is haunted with my family members and who knows who else from before them who used to live in the area before 1903 when they moved there. Things just "go on" there occasionally for which there is no explanation. Even when I was small, my grandmother, aunt, and cousin would say that at times they could all hear voices talking in the living room area or just right outside the living room window. But whenever they would go to look, of course no one was there!
My 9 year old cousin Billy, accidentally (apparently) hung himself with a rope as he played "cowboys and Indians" one afternoon by himself when I was only 3 months old. The rope had been used to tie back some limbs that had been scraping against the roof on that side of the house. He untied it and then retied it around his waist to jump from the tree to "pretend" that he was a bad guy being lynched. Ever since that time, his dog would run by "nothing" jumping up and down and playing with somebody who was not there all the way from the road to the back of the house where my cousin used to put his bicycle up inside the old storm cellar. I once saw this with my own eyes when I was about 11 years old which stunned me even though I knew all about the stories concerning this phenomenon.
My mother was always doing or saying something that would come true. I would just stare at her and blink when I was very young, not really understanding what was happening -- not WANTING to understand what was occurring -- because when I was young, I, of course, just did not want to be "different" in any way -- nor did I want my mom to be!
Alas, even the neighborhood children began to notice and even say that our house in Garland was haunted as well. My dad didn't help matters much when he declared after the kids in the neighborhood claimed to hear noises coming out of the house while we were on vacation one year that his granddad haunted that house even though he had never lived there!
It was something that just "was" though, and very soon I learned that not only was my mother different, but so was I. Not only, was I beginning to experience paranormal phenomena as far as spirits were concerned, but then I also did see the UFO when I was 14 (across the road from the same property). Officially, now -- not only was I different, but I was "hooked".
I began to go to our local library every week, especially during the summer, reading every paranormal book on the shelves. We were lucky that back in the mid-1970's thing were very progressive, and even OUR library had about 5 shelves full of every kind of "occult" subject from cryptids, to ESP, to "ghosts" to UFO's. I devoured every one of them and then after that I began ordering books through the mail.
I also had a subscription to Fate Magazine that I used to pay for with my weekly allowance. Finally, when I graduated, I went to work, and temporarily suspended my self-education. In 1978; however, a friend suggested that I go down the local grocery store and pick up a copy of the latest Fate Magazine because some guy named Rick Moran had written an article about the Amityville Horror.
I wasn't that interested in the Amityville Horror personally because I firmly believed it was all a bunch of nonsense; however, here in Texas at the time, since there were a lot of fundamentalists, folks actually took it all very seriously! So, I went down to the store, and found that it was being taken off the shelf because the latest issue had come in. The magazine stocker found it for me in his cart and just handed me a free copy luckily!
After I read it, I was thinking, "Oh thank goodness!" Somebody had actually investigated it, and declared it for what it was -- mostly a publicity stunt which unfortunately effectively overshadowed a VERY tragic family massacre.
I remember showing it to my other friends, as well as a few family members who tended to believe in a very "black and white" world as far as good and evil go. Most of them were stunned, but a few said, "Well, yeah, but the Devil still exists even if he isn't haunting a house in Amityville, New York!" lol!
I have to say that Rick believed in an evil force on a very high up spiritual level due to his "Jesuit education" as he used to say. It was just that he believed that the truly demonic forces rarely if EVER bother with mere human beings on a personal level. If they ever become involved in human affairs it is with a very spiritually evolved person whether it be a Priest, Rabbi, or any other true religion in order to torment one of them even if it is through another innocent person.
The article did stick with me for a long time even as changed jobs, got married (twice), had a child, and all of those other life events. Now fast forward to 2005 when Rick Moran put an a free ad into various paranormal discussion boards asking for a "few good men and women" to become paranormal investigators for his group ASUP that he was starting back up from New York to Texas where he and his wife Joi had moved to several years before.
I pondered for days whether to answer. I knew that I had always wanted to become a real paranormal investigator, not just read about it (I had even dreamed at one time of becoming a parapsychologist by attending UCLA at Berkley at one time). I had always wanted to investigate to find out -- not if it was real -- but if it was really happening at a particular location, and if so -- why? I just knew I wanted to experience it more than just in a personal way through my family connections and our familial property, but I suppose you could say that I was a little bit afraid as to whether I could really "cut it".
Finally, I decided to take the plunge, and THEN and only then did Rick wrote to the few of us who had responded at first, telling us exactly who HE was. I was astounded. I can tell you that! I remember just sitting back in my office chair with my mouth open.
He taught me so much during the past four years, and I did relate to him some of the experiences I had had earlier in my life. I think that he more or less accepted it though he didn't say very much; however, in late 2007, he and Joi decided to rent the farm house from me after my dad had passed away.
I said nothing about the property per se. I wanted to see if they experienced anything at all after they had moved in as I knew that Rick was pretty much the authority of paranormal phenomena, and -- well -- a picture is worth a thousand words after all.
After about two months, Rick called me on the phone one days and said, "Hey! I guess you know your farm is HAUNTED!" lol! I just about fell out of my chair laughing! What vindication! I replied, "Yes, I knew it. I was just waiting to see what YOU experienced!"
He eventually likened it to a "Mini Skinwalker Ranch" and began to feel that there was some reason that actually attracted odd occurrences. This is something I cannot really confirm although I know the land has iron rocks, sulfur, sea water, and even uranium pockets really deep in the soil -- but no quartz. But for whatever reasons, I still cannot help but think that in the vast scheme of things, Rick Moran was supposed to live on my little 50 acre plot of land to declare once and for all that just as we always suspected, it is really haunted!
I have found that my paternal grandmother's advice about Satan does still apply sometimes regardless of what you may call negative entities. During some of our investigations, we have found that if the home owner is very afraid of whatever is happening in their home, it tends to get worse and worse. If they take "the bull by the horns" so-to-speak and talk aloud to their ghost and say word to the effect of "Leave me alone!" it is a lot more effective as far as the haunting goes to at least fight back and make some of the activity subside -- at least temporarily.
So perhaps, in her own way, she really did help to educate me early on in my life regardless as we deal with all sorts of spirits who haunt certain locations and like to throw their weight around!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Television Shows vs. Paranormal "Experts"
This week I have a pet peeve to air out:
In what universe was it decided that if you have a paranormal television show, you are an instant "expert" in all things paranormal? Granted, there have been a few excellent television shows that sprang from very experienced paranormal investigators, such as Jason and Grant, not to mention Barry Fitzgerald -- but unfortunately they are now fewer and far between as the trend has continued.
Unfortunately, there have been many more very well-educated, experienced paranormal investigators, such as our late founder Rick Moran, -- and a few others who probably SHOULD have had a television show, but realized that the production would never be done correctly to document the "real world" of how it is done and what kinds of phenomena one can and does experience in the field.
Now days, it seems that any wet-behind-the-ears beefcake out there can have an interest in the paranormal, pitch the show, and instantly become a new "star" and "expert". It doesn't matter if they get their facts wrong, such as when Ryan Buell from Paranormal State claimed that there was an actual stained-glass window built into the structure which was a "demonic symbol" in the warden's quarters of a well-known haunted penitentiary. (The window was actually structured into a Masonic symbol by the designers of the building!) I think that this is completely irresponsible to mislead the public this way, as well as not having conducted more research into the history of the building and what these symbols actually mean.
Not only that, but where are the women out there who have been investigating cases for years on their own dime because they had a calling to do it? Why don't they have their own show if in fact that is the criteria for being an "expert"?
Statistically, it seems to me that there are actually more women in the paranormal field than men. However, since "sex sells", producers want a young, hot male with followers, and one really good looking female who doesn't say much at all, but wears very tight jeans at the very least and is put into precarious positions in the field by herself so that next we can hear her scream and be "rescued" by the men in the group.
Please, people! The women I know in the paranormal field are experienced, serious women of all shapes, ages and sizes, are likely to be in the front of the group walking into goodness knows what, sizing it all up in a few minutes, and directing their teams if their well-trained members don't already know exactly what to do (some of which of course include men), on what to do next! In the groups with a male leader (which I realize there are many) are very likely to have several women in the group in higher positions whether that be evidence, technical, or computer geek.
Not only that, but when a woman does "run the show" such as Yvette Fielding, on the popular British television show "Most Haunted", she routinely contradicts the only true paranormal investigator on the show, Dr. Ciaran O'Keefe! Poor Ciaran. It must be quite frustrating for him to know that he knows how to conduct a real paranormal investigation, only to be relegated to the back end of everything most of the time on that show.
Case in point: Recently on the show, the cast hears a loud noise. Of course, they all start and jump, and scream. Dr. O'Keefe says, "That noise came from the next room," because he wants them to move slowly to the next room to investigate it, and because he actually was standing closest to the door and could hear it the best. Yvette cut him a look out of the corner of her eyes that told him to basically shut up, and then says, "No, the noise came from beneath us. It's from the basement! Let's all go to the basement!" (or words to that effect) BECAUSE she obviously needed a segway to move the action to the basement! Sigh.
Why can't we see instead someone like Amy Bruni for instance who is truly an excellent paranormal investigator in her own right who had her own group in California before joining the Ghost Hunters show. She is both young, beautiful, and experienced. It would be delightful to see her have her own show, along with Donna Lacroix. Both of them have had years of experience and should also fulfill the "sex appeal" requirement that producers demand. Kris Williams has now come a long way since we first saw her, and she has a very keen interest in research and genealogy in her background which truly helps when conducting a professional paranormal investigation.
Instead of screaming, most of the women I know usually try to get even closer to the phenomenon in order to understand it better. In fact, recently, I received my first bruise from a paranormal source on a case in which I felt as if somebody was running their thumb across my hip. I did not jump and run from it, I just looked around to see if anyone was there. Later on I actually felt rewarded that I had received a bruise on the scene because it added to the evidence in the case! I say this not to toot my own horn, but to give an example of our mindset.
However, just fyi: Whenever there is a paranormal occurrence at a site, you should not -- I repeat not -- run toward it like a heard of buffalo like some we have all seen! You should walk toward it calmly, quietly, to try to observe it before it runs it course, lest you actually frighten off the spirit causing it. (Yes, as strange as it seems, sometimes it does run both ways. They can actually be frightened of the people investigating them, stop, and leave the area.)
All right, I digress . . . . Now in conclusion, it would be refreshing for once to see REAL investigators in the field of all shapes, sizes, and ages and see what a real paranormal investigator does, how they do it, and the demeanor most of them have in common with each other in order to actually further the field, get more young people interested in it for a career, open up more college courses in parapsychology, much less as a "major", and more grant money to fund it because this is something that is occurring daily in the "natural world" in which we live under natural laws of the universe. It is not just something "out there" to be frightened of or to tell girl and boy scouts around a campfire at night to scare them to death.
In what universe was it decided that if you have a paranormal television show, you are an instant "expert" in all things paranormal? Granted, there have been a few excellent television shows that sprang from very experienced paranormal investigators, such as Jason and Grant, not to mention Barry Fitzgerald -- but unfortunately they are now fewer and far between as the trend has continued.
Unfortunately, there have been many more very well-educated, experienced paranormal investigators, such as our late founder Rick Moran, -- and a few others who probably SHOULD have had a television show, but realized that the production would never be done correctly to document the "real world" of how it is done and what kinds of phenomena one can and does experience in the field.
Now days, it seems that any wet-behind-the-ears beefcake out there can have an interest in the paranormal, pitch the show, and instantly become a new "star" and "expert". It doesn't matter if they get their facts wrong, such as when Ryan Buell from Paranormal State claimed that there was an actual stained-glass window built into the structure which was a "demonic symbol" in the warden's quarters of a well-known haunted penitentiary. (The window was actually structured into a Masonic symbol by the designers of the building!) I think that this is completely irresponsible to mislead the public this way, as well as not having conducted more research into the history of the building and what these symbols actually mean.
Not only that, but where are the women out there who have been investigating cases for years on their own dime because they had a calling to do it? Why don't they have their own show if in fact that is the criteria for being an "expert"?
Statistically, it seems to me that there are actually more women in the paranormal field than men. However, since "sex sells", producers want a young, hot male with followers, and one really good looking female who doesn't say much at all, but wears very tight jeans at the very least and is put into precarious positions in the field by herself so that next we can hear her scream and be "rescued" by the men in the group.
Please, people! The women I know in the paranormal field are experienced, serious women of all shapes, ages and sizes, are likely to be in the front of the group walking into goodness knows what, sizing it all up in a few minutes, and directing their teams if their well-trained members don't already know exactly what to do (some of which of course include men), on what to do next! In the groups with a male leader (which I realize there are many) are very likely to have several women in the group in higher positions whether that be evidence, technical, or computer geek.
Not only that, but when a woman does "run the show" such as Yvette Fielding, on the popular British television show "Most Haunted", she routinely contradicts the only true paranormal investigator on the show, Dr. Ciaran O'Keefe! Poor Ciaran. It must be quite frustrating for him to know that he knows how to conduct a real paranormal investigation, only to be relegated to the back end of everything most of the time on that show.
Case in point: Recently on the show, the cast hears a loud noise. Of course, they all start and jump, and scream. Dr. O'Keefe says, "That noise came from the next room," because he wants them to move slowly to the next room to investigate it, and because he actually was standing closest to the door and could hear it the best. Yvette cut him a look out of the corner of her eyes that told him to basically shut up, and then says, "No, the noise came from beneath us. It's from the basement! Let's all go to the basement!" (or words to that effect) BECAUSE she obviously needed a segway to move the action to the basement! Sigh.
Why can't we see instead someone like Amy Bruni for instance who is truly an excellent paranormal investigator in her own right who had her own group in California before joining the Ghost Hunters show. She is both young, beautiful, and experienced. It would be delightful to see her have her own show, along with Donna Lacroix. Both of them have had years of experience and should also fulfill the "sex appeal" requirement that producers demand. Kris Williams has now come a long way since we first saw her, and she has a very keen interest in research and genealogy in her background which truly helps when conducting a professional paranormal investigation.
Instead of screaming, most of the women I know usually try to get even closer to the phenomenon in order to understand it better. In fact, recently, I received my first bruise from a paranormal source on a case in which I felt as if somebody was running their thumb across my hip. I did not jump and run from it, I just looked around to see if anyone was there. Later on I actually felt rewarded that I had received a bruise on the scene because it added to the evidence in the case! I say this not to toot my own horn, but to give an example of our mindset.
However, just fyi: Whenever there is a paranormal occurrence at a site, you should not -- I repeat not -- run toward it like a heard of buffalo like some we have all seen! You should walk toward it calmly, quietly, to try to observe it before it runs it course, lest you actually frighten off the spirit causing it. (Yes, as strange as it seems, sometimes it does run both ways. They can actually be frightened of the people investigating them, stop, and leave the area.)
All right, I digress . . . . Now in conclusion, it would be refreshing for once to see REAL investigators in the field of all shapes, sizes, and ages and see what a real paranormal investigator does, how they do it, and the demeanor most of them have in common with each other in order to actually further the field, get more young people interested in it for a career, open up more college courses in parapsychology, much less as a "major", and more grant money to fund it because this is something that is occurring daily in the "natural world" in which we live under natural laws of the universe. It is not just something "out there" to be frightened of or to tell girl and boy scouts around a campfire at night to scare them to death.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Are There UFO's Among Us?
Ever since the new Discovery series "Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking" began last week, there has been a lot of "buzz" about his statements concerning alien life. For those who do not know, Stephen Hawking is a brilliant British theoretical physicist and author from Oxford, England, who is stricken with a rare form of ALS which has enabled him to live for decades instead of years with the completely debilitating disorder that has made him almost completely immobilized in a wheelchair. He must use a special speech synthesizer with which to "speak" aloud.
During last week's installment, he said that he believed there was alien life out there somewhere, although it is far far away from earth as the planets scientists know about closer to us surely could not sustain life as we know it. In other words there are no mammals much less human-like beings with opposable thumbs who could actually build ships capable of traveling thousands of light-years to reach our solar system. He summed it all up by saying we should stop trying to contact them saying that it is very possible that they do exist somewhere, "They are likely to be more advanced than us . . . " and "So if aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
Next the Larry King Show televised a show dedicated just to these statements about alien life and invited Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, another famous physicist and author, David Brin, an astronomer, Seth Shostak, Director of the Seti Institute, and actor and commediene Dan Ackroid who is a believer in UFO's and is a member of Mufon to give their views on the subject.
Dr. Michio Kaku is a brilliant man whom Rick Moran had spoken to on the telephone and written a training page on several months ago, and he commented that he disagrees with his colleague Stephen Hawking and believes that if they ever do show up here, they will be "benevolent" because they are thousands of years ahead of us if they could make it here and thus have learned lessons with which we as a species are still struggling.
David Brin and Seth Shostak believe that intelligent species do exist, but they again are much to far away from earth. Shostak, of course, wanting the Seti Insitute to continue to receive NASA grants and public donations, states unequivacably that if they are out there, their special radios would have picked up their signal (except that after 25 years of training the antennas to the skies, there has only been one odd signal that could not be identified decades ago that never repeated itself)! (Of course, he said they need more money and more time to reach farther and farther into deep space, and someday, they still hope to make radio contact with an intelligent species!)
Dan Ackroid says that they are already here, and that they have been here for a long, long time, but that the truth of the matter is that they don't really want to socialize with human beings on a grand scale because "We are not so nice." I have to chuckle at this because from all appearances on a global scale, that could be true.
The bottom line is, however, what about the credible people such as military, pilots, police officers, etc., since the 1940's who have seen "something" but to this day have no idea what they have seen because they have never seen it before that sighting or since?
In fact, more importantly, what about me, who along with my cousin, saw "something" when we were teenagers that neither one of us will ever forget for as long as we continue to live on this planet? In fact, the following sighting I'm going to write about is one of the reasons I became interested in paranormal phenomena and UFO's from that time to this day.
When I was 14 years old, I was staying at my grandmother's home in East Texas for a few weeks in the summer. (This is the same land that Rick Moran lived on when he died and where his wife Joi still resides and that he affectionately dubbed "The Dog Ranch"). My cousin Mick was also staying over that night. My grandmother had just gone to sleep approximately 30 minutes before, and we were still up watching television. Soon, whatever it was that was on became boring to my cousin so he stood up and walked out to the screened front porch to get some fresh air.
Within just a few moments, he excitedly and fearfully called my name. "Joy! Joy! Come out here quick!", he yelled. I immediately shushed him because I didn't want him to awaken our grandmother who I knew would come out to fuss at us if we disturbed her sleep since she had so many aches and pains, her slumber was hard won and thus was very important to her.
Again, he called my name, telling me that he was not joking and that I should come out there NOW! So I got up, rolling my eyes, walked out to the porch, and he pointed to the night sky across the road above a pasture. Immediately I lost my frustration with him and became both fascinated and terrified at the same time, and yet I could not move or look away from my spot.
Suspended in the air about 100 yards above the field, was a oval shaped object that I estimate was about 25 feet long which then literally began darting up and down, back and forth above the ground, wildly, and quickly -- one second it would be located in one spot and the next it simply was about 10 or 20 feet over in another spot. It did not travel through the air in a smooth path to the new spot; it was simply THERE!
The craft moved much faster than a helicopter ever could in that decade (the 1970's) or for that matter than any are now. In fact although my father was not a pilot, he did work for Braniff Airways, and I had already traveled to several states on airplanes, seen aircraft and helicopters take off, fly and land at Love Field Airport, etc. for years as he often took me there to watch them.
What we were also observing was a strobe-like light effect shine across the body of the object from right to left as the color of the object changed from white to blue to green to red and then back to white.
We were almost frozen to the spot in shock while we watched it in relative safety from behind the latched screen door. One more thing that we both noted was that the locusts had stopped making noise. In fact everything became extremely quiet outside -- no dogs barked, no wolves howled which seemed odd since it was almost 10:00 p.m. and in the middle of the hot summer time in Texas when it seemed that the animals and insects were their most loud. There was no noise at all outside except for a tiny beep that emitted from the object which almost sounded like the noise that a submarine makes under water which sounded off once every eight seconds because I actually began to count off between the sounds.
Finally, the object stopped moving, and I have to admit that I was afraid that somebody or something had noticed us and it would come even closer into the yard. But in a moment, the object starting traveling straight UP! I simply could not resist: I unlocked the door latch, and walked down the front steps and onto the stone path. I stood in the middle of the yard and watched the object as it ascended. I thought surely it would change directions and finally fly away across the sky horizontally, but it never did. It rose up until it became a pin-point of light and then simply winked out of sight. After the UFO was out of sight, the locusts began croaking again, and I heard a dog barking way off in the distance from another farm close by.
I walked back inside with my cousin quiet and stunned. I thought before I re-entered the house that it had only been about 5 minutes, but the local news show was well underway, and that is when I realized it had been at least 20 minutes between the time Mick called me outside and when we walked back into the house.
Now all these years later, every time a new series or special comes to television about UFO's, I ask myself again, "What did we see all those years ago before all of this powerful equipment was in place and before satellites were launched into space?" Was it some secret military device they were testing way out in the country so that others in more heavily populated areas would not notice? If so, how "on earth" in the mid-1970's could it travel straight up the way it did and look like a tiny star before it got so far away that the human eye could not see the lights on it any longer? Something that profound should eventually have made its way into regular use, and Americans should have eventually been made aware of it after it was declassified because I can tell you this: It looked like it was a very effective surveillance aircraft to us if it could hover, dart around, and then retreat into outer space!
Rick Moran hypothesized that if our scientists claim that aliens could not possibly be visiting the earth, then the only thing that still fits is alternate dimensions that sometimes "touch" right here on earth or even time travel. However, most of our current physicists say that that too is something that just cannot happen -- at least not in a way that lets us occasionally get a peak at a creature that does not "fit" here or a craft that simply cannot exist! So my questions remain, and although I hope we gain some insight eventually, they may never be answered in my lifetime. Some of us keep trying to find answers or something that just "makes sense" to us -- even in the face of ridicule or scoffing -- all because of a life changing event in our pasts that simply will never completely let us go.
Copyright © 2010, The ASUP, Inc.
During last week's installment, he said that he believed there was alien life out there somewhere, although it is far far away from earth as the planets scientists know about closer to us surely could not sustain life as we know it. In other words there are no mammals much less human-like beings with opposable thumbs who could actually build ships capable of traveling thousands of light-years to reach our solar system. He summed it all up by saying we should stop trying to contact them saying that it is very possible that they do exist somewhere, "They are likely to be more advanced than us . . . " and "So if aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
Next the Larry King Show televised a show dedicated just to these statements about alien life and invited Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, another famous physicist and author, David Brin, an astronomer, Seth Shostak, Director of the Seti Institute, and actor and commediene Dan Ackroid who is a believer in UFO's and is a member of Mufon to give their views on the subject.
Dr. Michio Kaku is a brilliant man whom Rick Moran had spoken to on the telephone and written a training page on several months ago, and he commented that he disagrees with his colleague Stephen Hawking and believes that if they ever do show up here, they will be "benevolent" because they are thousands of years ahead of us if they could make it here and thus have learned lessons with which we as a species are still struggling.
David Brin and Seth Shostak believe that intelligent species do exist, but they again are much to far away from earth. Shostak, of course, wanting the Seti Insitute to continue to receive NASA grants and public donations, states unequivacably that if they are out there, their special radios would have picked up their signal (except that after 25 years of training the antennas to the skies, there has only been one odd signal that could not be identified decades ago that never repeated itself)! (Of course, he said they need more money and more time to reach farther and farther into deep space, and someday, they still hope to make radio contact with an intelligent species!)
Dan Ackroid says that they are already here, and that they have been here for a long, long time, but that the truth of the matter is that they don't really want to socialize with human beings on a grand scale because "We are not so nice." I have to chuckle at this because from all appearances on a global scale, that could be true.
The bottom line is, however, what about the credible people such as military, pilots, police officers, etc., since the 1940's who have seen "something" but to this day have no idea what they have seen because they have never seen it before that sighting or since?
In fact, more importantly, what about me, who along with my cousin, saw "something" when we were teenagers that neither one of us will ever forget for as long as we continue to live on this planet? In fact, the following sighting I'm going to write about is one of the reasons I became interested in paranormal phenomena and UFO's from that time to this day.
When I was 14 years old, I was staying at my grandmother's home in East Texas for a few weeks in the summer. (This is the same land that Rick Moran lived on when he died and where his wife Joi still resides and that he affectionately dubbed "The Dog Ranch"). My cousin Mick was also staying over that night. My grandmother had just gone to sleep approximately 30 minutes before, and we were still up watching television. Soon, whatever it was that was on became boring to my cousin so he stood up and walked out to the screened front porch to get some fresh air.
Within just a few moments, he excitedly and fearfully called my name. "Joy! Joy! Come out here quick!", he yelled. I immediately shushed him because I didn't want him to awaken our grandmother who I knew would come out to fuss at us if we disturbed her sleep since she had so many aches and pains, her slumber was hard won and thus was very important to her.
Again, he called my name, telling me that he was not joking and that I should come out there NOW! So I got up, rolling my eyes, walked out to the porch, and he pointed to the night sky across the road above a pasture. Immediately I lost my frustration with him and became both fascinated and terrified at the same time, and yet I could not move or look away from my spot.
Suspended in the air about 100 yards above the field, was a oval shaped object that I estimate was about 25 feet long which then literally began darting up and down, back and forth above the ground, wildly, and quickly -- one second it would be located in one spot and the next it simply was about 10 or 20 feet over in another spot. It did not travel through the air in a smooth path to the new spot; it was simply THERE!
The craft moved much faster than a helicopter ever could in that decade (the 1970's) or for that matter than any are now. In fact although my father was not a pilot, he did work for Braniff Airways, and I had already traveled to several states on airplanes, seen aircraft and helicopters take off, fly and land at Love Field Airport, etc. for years as he often took me there to watch them.
What we were also observing was a strobe-like light effect shine across the body of the object from right to left as the color of the object changed from white to blue to green to red and then back to white.
We were almost frozen to the spot in shock while we watched it in relative safety from behind the latched screen door. One more thing that we both noted was that the locusts had stopped making noise. In fact everything became extremely quiet outside -- no dogs barked, no wolves howled which seemed odd since it was almost 10:00 p.m. and in the middle of the hot summer time in Texas when it seemed that the animals and insects were their most loud. There was no noise at all outside except for a tiny beep that emitted from the object which almost sounded like the noise that a submarine makes under water which sounded off once every eight seconds because I actually began to count off between the sounds.
Finally, the object stopped moving, and I have to admit that I was afraid that somebody or something had noticed us and it would come even closer into the yard. But in a moment, the object starting traveling straight UP! I simply could not resist: I unlocked the door latch, and walked down the front steps and onto the stone path. I stood in the middle of the yard and watched the object as it ascended. I thought surely it would change directions and finally fly away across the sky horizontally, but it never did. It rose up until it became a pin-point of light and then simply winked out of sight. After the UFO was out of sight, the locusts began croaking again, and I heard a dog barking way off in the distance from another farm close by.
I walked back inside with my cousin quiet and stunned. I thought before I re-entered the house that it had only been about 5 minutes, but the local news show was well underway, and that is when I realized it had been at least 20 minutes between the time Mick called me outside and when we walked back into the house.
Now all these years later, every time a new series or special comes to television about UFO's, I ask myself again, "What did we see all those years ago before all of this powerful equipment was in place and before satellites were launched into space?" Was it some secret military device they were testing way out in the country so that others in more heavily populated areas would not notice? If so, how "on earth" in the mid-1970's could it travel straight up the way it did and look like a tiny star before it got so far away that the human eye could not see the lights on it any longer? Something that profound should eventually have made its way into regular use, and Americans should have eventually been made aware of it after it was declassified because I can tell you this: It looked like it was a very effective surveillance aircraft to us if it could hover, dart around, and then retreat into outer space!
Rick Moran hypothesized that if our scientists claim that aliens could not possibly be visiting the earth, then the only thing that still fits is alternate dimensions that sometimes "touch" right here on earth or even time travel. However, most of our current physicists say that that too is something that just cannot happen -- at least not in a way that lets us occasionally get a peak at a creature that does not "fit" here or a craft that simply cannot exist! So my questions remain, and although I hope we gain some insight eventually, they may never be answered in my lifetime. Some of us keep trying to find answers or something that just "makes sense" to us -- even in the face of ridicule or scoffing -- all because of a life changing event in our pasts that simply will never completely let us go.
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