Collins, H M - Lead Into Gold: The Science of Finding Nothing, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 34 4 (2003) 661-691

Re Karl: basically the book we planned would have required a lot of traveling to various sites, to visit people, and archives etc. And with Karl’s health situation, things became harder, to where we weren’t able to really do that.

It had become clear to us that this wasn’t a book that we could write from doing just Net and Phone based research; and so we shelved it.

This was around late 2004/early 2005, and Karl died in summer 2006.

As far as whistleblowers are concerned, it is largely twofold:

(a) in terms of whistleblowers who came forward years ago, follow the approach that Greg took with his Project Beta book - namely try and determine where these people operated from (in those Greg was chasing it was within the DIA and at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico); and then try and track down their colleagues (who may be retired after 15 or 20 years and willing to talk etc).

(b) If someone approaches you today, yes do some sort of surveillance. If they ask for a meeting somewhere, go to the meeting, and after see if you can get their car license plate and track them down. It’s tougher to do if no names are supplied or if you have no way of knowing if the supplied names are real etc.

For example, the so-called Falcon who disclosed data back in the late 70s used a faked name when needed - Steven V. Ayres (spelling on last name may not be correct).

I’ve run into a few of these people over the years.

One, who i interviewed for my “On the Trail of the Saucer Spies” book told me how the British Police Force’s “Special Branch” were secretly investigating certain UFO researchers with political interests.

He declined to speak on the record and so I had to use a pseudonym. Some scoffed at the idea that Special Branch were doing such surveillance of elements of the UFO community - until files on some of these people began to surface this year (2 years after i interviewed the guy and a year after the book was published), confirming that Special Branch was engaged in exactly the sort of UFO surveillance that he claimed.

So, here was a whistleblower experience that was a positive one.

Others, it’s less easy to determine. I’ve had some who I’ve been suspicious about whether or not I ever got their real names, or what their motives were/are - particularly with some stories I heard back in the UK in the 90s.

So, yes, if someone comes forward and asks for a meet and claims secret knowledge of this and that, then it’s a valid (indeed required) area of research to look into them as much as their story.

But I will concede that without firm evidence of names, etc it can be something that sometimes leads nowhere.

No, I haven’t read that one; but I’ll definitely get a copy.

Nick

Nick–

Can you tell us why the book project you had planned with Karl did not get beyond the planning stages? What happened?

“Next time a shadowy insider approaches you with startling tales of amazing, alien activity under New Mexico, or stories of dead aliens and crashed UFOs, I recommend that you spend less time investigating the stories and much more time secretly investigating your source(s).”
~~~
“Since the UFO presence is by its nature elusive, and the government deems us only worthy of half-truths, lies and disinformation, perhaps we should stop looking for UFOs and instead launch a concerted effort to expose the people pulling the whistleblowers’ strings and directing their actions. Only by doing that, I believe, do we stand a real chance of finding the answers that we seek.”

Interesting suggestions. Cutting to the heart of your point, _how_ would you suggest a ufologist or serious researcher could or should investigate such “insiders” or “whistleblowers” and their “string-pullers?” The implication is some kind of physical or other form of surveillance. If the person is not known, or uses a false name, or is otherwise difficult to identify as to his location, just how would one do as you propose?

Collins has a fascinating recent article called “Turning Lead into Gold,” The point he states is that only with technology can logical induction rely on a negative result of an upper limit as a proof for science. In otherwords there is no “pure science” — the mathematics is intertwined with the altering of our perceptions through technology.

My schtick is the book “Anomalies and Scientific Explanations,” wherein it details that Einstein got his photon concept from a variation of pressure and volume — not Planck’s constant. Pressure, of course, can be ionized, thereby unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But then we need to through out the “negative result of an upper limit as proof” and instead rely on logical inference with infinity as formless awareness, the Platonic mind pointed to by Kurt Godel.

Yep, I agree that almost certainly some UFO tales are exercises in loyalty: namely, feed a harmless and bogus “crashed UFO” story to someone who may in the future be exposed to classified data and then see if they keep their mouth shut, or if they run and tell their friends, family, the media etc.

If they do tell, then they don’t get the job and there hasn’t been any real compromise of genuine, classified data.

Of course, it’s not impossible that this could (and I stress *could*) account for the majority of such cases.

But I disagree with you about the “string tugging” issue though, because if there are *no* crashed UFOs and it’s all psy-ops as outlined above, then we have still solved that aspect of the UFO puzzle if we can find the people who are the *original* creators of these psy-op stories.

Do I support Norwich? Er…no. I’m from the West Midlands mate. Lived in Staffordshire first, then WM until 17 or 18. Then had a rented caravan home with 3 mates in Brixham for 3 or 4 years until early twenties, then Harlow, Essex, then back to the Midlands, then Devon bed-sits on and off, back to the Midlands, and then here! I have family from Norwich though and did spend a lot of time over there.

Anyway, the gist of it, as you’ll probably know, is the gradual screening out of a series of candidates via a series of aptitude tests until only one remains, said individual then becoming Sir Alan Sugar’s business apprentice for a year.

Following me so far?

Anyway, what these aptitude tests amount to are simulations of a variety of situations one might find oneself in as a business person, whether a sole trader, a team manager, a director, a flunky/gopher, speculator, etc..

Now the thing is, if you encounter one or more of these candidates/testees during one of these simulations, (whether in the capacity of a ‘fellow’ trader or/and customer, or some other actually completely business unrelated capacity), while wholely unwitting you’re actually participating in a TV show or, at least, a TV show that is merely synthetically creating business-like circumstances to test candidates for capacity and aptitude, you may actually take the candidates/testees and your interactions with them on their face value, and go away without ever realising the whole picture.

Ultimately, though, that limited perspective could also apply to the candidates/testees, because if they also never actually realised they’re only particpating in a TV show or, at least, a TV show that’s merely testing them, then they too might go away forever after uncognizant of what really happened.

Now what’s important to realise here is that while these simulations are indeed tests, if one dispenses with the egotistical perception of winning or losing these tests, or one survives the testing process long enough, one might come to realise all that testing is also really learning/training exercises and, ultimately, exercises in sheer experience.

And my suspicion is a lot of these oddball encounters you and Greg (Bishop), and others in your field refer to, recount and even undergo, can be subsumed under this same ‘grey area’ aegis of exercises in testing/training/experience.

It may be the MJ-12 Documents, for example, are authentic; it may be they’re forgeries designed for purposes of dark misdirection; it may even be they’re merely a grand in-joke created by haughty ‘intellectual’ types - so-called ‘brights’ - to prove to themselves how everyone but them are idiots.

Yet it may also be the case they were merely long forgotten high-level training exercises in producing manipulative propaganda, never for one moment intended for public consumption, until whoever came to lay their hands on them covertly released them, all the time sincerely believing otherwise.

Ditto Roswell and a whole host of other things.

The thing is, though, this sort of activity goes on right across the spectrum.

A standard manoeuvre of, for instance the Sufis, is to test would-be students for whether they’re really interested in the Spiritual by alternately exposing them to a host of worldly opportunities, and a host of otherworldly influences, by way of revealing whether they’re more attracted to the likes of material success or sensual indulgence, clandestine power accumulation or/and political style manipulation and influence, or freakish mystical light shows and other types of otherwise meaningless magical special effects.

It may even be the often apparently idiotic, and certainly sometimes really rather inane antics of some UFOs and their ‘inhabitants’ are actually highly sophisticated examples of precisely these same sorts of tests operating on something like a still more cosmic scale.

You say, “perhaps we should stop looking for UFOs and instead launch a concerted effort to expose the people pulling the whistleblowers’ strings and directing their actions. Only by doing that, I believe, do we stand a real chance of finding the answers that we seek.”

And you may be right - that’s certainly an area you’re very strong in.

The only thing is, that won’t work so well if the guys who imagine they’re pulling the strings [whether they envisage themselves as Black Op. style 00′ class operatives, Secret Government prime movers, Illuminati, Sufis, Left-hand Path Practitioners, Lords of the Forces of Darkness, Servants of Light, Extraterrestial benefactors/invaders/predators, Infinitely Powerful Force-fields of (sometimes visible) Conscious Energy, or even plain bl**dy Dolphins!), aren’t really pulling the strings at all but rather’re just having their strings tugged just as much as eveybody else!

P.S.

Speaking of pulling strings, how did Norwich FC do this season, or are you not a Canaries fan? (I’ve tried searching online but even the official website isn’t very forthcoming).

Do you think Delia can return the club to its former glories, or are the days of John Bond gone forever?

P.P.S.

No, I’m not taking the p*ss! I always had a sneaking fondness for Norwich. They were the Bolton of their day, and with a bit of luck might’ve attained to something like the greatness Forest or at least Ipswich did! They even managed to give us a hard time when we were in our previous heyday!

Thanks to everyone and keep them coming. We appreciate the lively debates!

Nick & Greg

I am working on another UFO book right now - as some listers know - on how certain figures in the official world (Intel and military) believe that UFOs have “occult” origins.

Doubtless it will make me as popular as Body Snatchers did! LOL