Jan 27 2009
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Comments from the Black Vault
An open letter to the UFO community from John Greenewald
of the Black Vault:
Open Letter to the UFO Community
To my dearest friends and colleagues in the UFO community,
I am now approaching my thirteenth anniversary since entering
the UFO Community. I know there is no membership card, no
monthly dues, and no set of bylaws, but I feel when I began my
trek for the truth, I was inducted. (Not to be confused with
Abducted)
Along the way, I have met some amazing people, seen phenomenal
research, but more importantly, have been struck by the passion
so many of you (myself included) have for what we do. UFO
research and investigation is not easy, not cheap, and yields no
financial profit. But, we do it for the love, the passion we
have, and the thirst for knowledge we can t quench.
This is why I created The Black Vault, and the many off shoot
websites. I want to bring a resource for all in this community,
to listen, watch, and read the most fascinating UFO material
available.
Although I can write for pages on The Black Vault and what I
want to accomplish, this mail will focus on only one particular
feature of The Black Vault, in which I hope you all will take
part. You may have heard about it before, but I implore you,
please read this as I feel it will be worthwhile.
Years ago, UFO Magazine printed an article about an endeavor I
launched called Project Preserve History. It was an effort to
bring together valuable UFO historical material, including
papers, reports, photographs, videos, transcripts, audio
recordings, magazines, etc., and make it freely available to
everyone online. As I have collected a few things over the
years, I am now going to revive this effort, and combine it with
The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project. This is the reason for my
open letter to you all.
Since the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) launched Project Pandora,
they have scanned thousands of pages of research material. As I
highly respect the organization, James Carrion and I joined
efforts to offer this material to the world, which is now all
archived in The MUFON Archive section of the Encyclopedia.
http://www.theblackvault.com/wiki/index.php/Category:The_MUFON_Archive
I think this is a true testament to the power of this resource.
For so long, I have seen UFO material come online, then after a
year, maybe two, disappear from the internet to be lost in the
abyss of time. I want to put a stop to this. This information,
this research, this passion that so many of you have put into
this research effort should not be lost.
So my offer is this. The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project is
100% advertisement free. I do not profit from the textual and
photographic material posted here. I would like to invite any
and all of you to submit your collections. Whether they be your
research reports, collected works, videos, one-of-a-kind pieces
of UFO memorabilia, whatever it might be, there is a place for
it in the Encyclopedia. This project can search as a text
database, an online museum, a research center so many
possibilities.
To further demonstrate the power of this resource, I invite you
to check out a few sections as evidence. First, the UFO Case
File Database is the most interesting:
http://www.theblackvault.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Cases_in_UFOlogy
Combing user submitted UFO reports, the MUFON CMS database (used
with permission), and newspaper articles from around the Globe,
this effort has already archived hundreds of UFO case files for
perusal. Many of these cases have corresponding pictures, videos
and sketch drawings to help visualize the case.
This is crucial to offering the public a resource to not only
submit their sighting (which will first be submitted to MUFON)
but once integrated into the database, offers an unparalleled
archive of case files for the public to look at.
The Encyclopedia Project also offers a very powerful feature,
that investigators, and researchers, can edit the pages, add
material, and keep them up to date (much like the Wikipedia
Encyclopedia online). And, it also offers a protect feature so
if you wrote an article that you don t want touched the click of
your mouse will lock it so it is secure.
The idea is this: Worldwide collaboration, investigation, and
idea sharing on a scale that has not been seen in UFO research.
Yes, there are message forums. Yes, there are chat rooms. But
this offers all of that, including the complete resources to
house your material, the pieces of evidence, and stores it all
on the internet forever (The Black Vault isn t going anywhere!)
Another section worth checking out is the UFO Newspaper
Clippings.
http://www.theblackvault.com/wiki/index.php/Category:UFO_Newspaper_Clippings
Hundreds of newspaper articles from around the globe (mostly
recent) have been archived here for safe keeping and easy
searching. It is amazing to see the valuable UFO reporting (and
sometimes not so valuable) that is being done by the media, but
most of it is not seen. It is published in online only
newspapers, or in sections rarely read, and then with the
passage of time forgotten. This database aims to make that fact
disappear.
In addition to these sections, the UFO Community (yes, that’s
you) has the power to add more categories, build on current
ones, add newspaper scans, UFO videos, photos, evidence sharing,
and so much more.
The possibilities are endless. I invite you all to check this
out, and learn the power of this resource. I can use your help
with cleaning up sections, and adding more material, so even if
you don t think you can contribute you can! I hope to enlist
the help of administrators and moderators to help with the
posts, and make sure everyone keeps in line. J
If you would like to donate materials to the Encyclopedia, but
not sure how to add it, please feel free to e-mail me at
john@greenewald.com and let me know what you need. I am not
asking for you to give me your material rather, I invite you to
submit scans, or photographs of it in digital form, and I will
house the material online. If you need to get rid of the
material, I can also help with that as well.
I appreciate your time with this, and hope to see you around the
site.
Sincerely,
John Greenewald, Jr.
The Black Vault
http://www.theblackvault.com
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 7:08 am and is filed under Alien Encounters, Breaking News, Close Encounters, Conspiracies, Evidence, Eyewitness Accounts, Government Projects, Guest Column, Media Appearances, The Redfern Files, UFO Sightings, UFOlogists, UFOlogy. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
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January 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
“The Encyclopedia Project also offers a very powerful feature,
that investigators, and researchers, can edit the pages, add
material, and keep them up to date (much like the Wikipedia
Encyclopedia online). And, it also offers a protect feature so
if you wrote an article that you don t want touched the click of
your mouse will lock it so it is secure.
Ironically that is both the strongest and weakest aspect of Wikipedia: that anyone can go and edit an entry.
So how will the Black Vault be moderated, since agreement between dissenting voices has never been a strong trait among Ufologists?
January 27th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“Ironically that is both the strongest and weakest aspect of Wikipedia: that anyone can go and edit an entry”
That is total BS. Wikipedia is the most accurate information source on the planet, being even more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica (which not just anyone can edit). That feat could not have happened if anyone was allowed to edit an entry WITHOUT RESERVATION, but that isn’t the case with Wikipedia. While anyone COULD edit an entry, not everyone can edit entries that will be accepted. The key is that all edits must meet certain minimum criteria, namely that they must be accompanied by legitimate sources
If Greenewald wants to ensure accuracy as good as Wikipedia has, he must have the same policy as Wikipedia has for allowing edits: all edits must be accompanied by legitimate sources.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction
January 28th, 2009 at 3:17 am
“That is total BS. Wikipedia is the most accurate information source on the planet, being even more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica (which not just anyone can edit).”
Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch, dear Sage
OK, you’re right that in general information entries, Wikipedia has nothing to envy from Britannica. Hell, I visit Wikipedia on a daily basis!
Still, there are certain entries where there have been clear omissions and editions that have been the cause of much debate and concern. I remember reading an article written by Jaron Lanier, where he ranted on how he had tried several times to correct a mistake in HIS Wikipedia biography, only to discover that it was useless because the mistake got re-written every time. That was an article from 2006, though. Maybe things are better now…
“If Greenewald wants to ensure accuracy as good as Wikipedia has, he must have the same policy as Wikipedia has for allowing edits: all edits must be accompanied by legitimate sources.”
That is my question: What methodology will he follow to qualify an entry as ‘legitimate’? Based on what criteria?
January 28th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
“Still, there are certain entries where there have been clear omissions and editions”
That is not a fact but an assertion. What if the entry for Jaron Lanier had one mistake in it, as you claim it does (without evidence I might add)? That would be one exception and not a general rule of thumb, and one exception could not be considered “a weakness”.
Wikipedia has been raked over by numerous experts, has had extensive peer reviews, yet it has withstood the test of time. If you can find anything better than the approach taken by Wikipedia, let’s hear it. If not, then the approach taken by Wikipedia is the one that should be taken.
“That is my question: What methodology will he follow to qualify an entry as ‘legitimate’? Based on what criteria?”
The standard that we have been discussing here all along gives us the criteria. I gave the link that discussed the criteria. Here is another…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
January 29th, 2009 at 3:49 am
“That is not a fact but an assertion. What if the entry for Jaron Lanier had one mistake in it, as you claim it does (without evidence I might add)? That would be one exception and not a general rule of thumb, and one exception could not be considered “a weaknessâ€.”
Sage do all your arguments have to devolve into a ‘war of attrition’? Do all the things we post in this blog have to be backed up by quotes and bibliography?
OK, from your Wikipedia entry:
This page in a nutshell: Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source.
Who gets to decide what constitutes a reliable source in UFO-related material, and based on what? Last time I checked, there wasn’t any peer-reviewed official UFOlogy publication; and that’s all I’m saying.
Still, I need to add this: the Black Vault idea is a good one. And there is a clear necessity to have a site where information and documents will be preserved for further reference of future investigators.
But, from what I’ve seen in the UFO world, investigators are not known for willingly share their coveted files. Many of them act like greedy old men keeping their gold in safe keeping.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:35 am
“Do all the things we post in this blog have to be backed up by quotes and bibliography?”
Only for the things we post that are an attempt to pursue the truth.
“Who gets to decide what constitutes a reliable source in UFO-related material, and based on what?”
It isn’t a case of “who” but of “what”. What constitutes a reliable source is easy to determine and is discussed in the link provided. You can’t really believe that facts and logic are determined by vote or opinion. Science wouldn’t exist if that were the case.
“Last time I checked, there wasn’t any peer-reviewed official UFOlogy publication; and that’s all I’m saying”
So let the Black Vault be the first peer reviewed publication to ever exist.
“But, from what I’ve seen in the UFO world, investigators are not known for willingly share their coveted files. Many of them act like greedy old men keeping their gold in safe keeping”
Who cares? There is lots of lots of other data out there so it won’t make a difference. Maybe these old men have something to hide, after all, shine a light in a dark room and the cockroaches will scurry away from it, so why should your alleged old men be any different?
January 29th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
“Only for the things we post that are an attempt to pursue the truth.”
That statement posits that books are the only respectable approach to pursue the truth. Of that I’m not convinced—and I *heart* books.
“You can’t really believe that facts and logic are determined by vote or opinion. Science wouldn’t exist if that were the case.”
Yes, but I seem to recall that you don’t consider UFOlogy a part of Science. Even Greg & Nick would agree on that with you—as do I.
“So let the Black Vault be the first peer reviewed publication to ever exist.”
Fine. Nobody voted to make Wikipedia the ‘official’ online dictionary either; so it could work for the Vault too
“Who cares? There is lots of lots of other data out there so it won’t make a difference. Maybe these old men have something to hide, after all, shine a light in a dark room and the cockroaches will scurry away from it, so why should your alleged old men be any different?”
I’m sure the old timers have plenty of cockroaches and even a few skeletons stashed on their basements. But I d think they might also have quite a few gold nuggets hidden there too. Heeding them and benefiting from their experience would at least help us NOT to repeat the same mistakes they did—Remember, we are all destined to become the old timers eventually
January 30th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
SAGE. “Only for the things we post that are an attempt to pursue the truth.â€
RP. “That statement posits that books are the only respectable approach to pursue the truth”
It does no such thing. Not even close. You are reading between the lines, things that aren’t there.
“I seem to recall that you don’t consider UFOlogy a part of Science”
But we aren’t talking about UFOlogy here, but how Greenwald’s site should be conducted.
“But I d think they [old timers hiding UFO information] might also have quite a few gold nuggets hidden there too”
Statistically speaking, the odds are way, way against that ever being the case. There are over 10,000 claimed UFO sightings/encounters every year. In the last 50 years there have been hundreds of thousands of sightings/encounters, yet how many of those are backed up with verifiable facts? Exactly zero. Of those thousands of people that have come forward, many have been old timers. So for the people who allegedly exist and are supposedly in hiding, what is it that would make them very special and different from all the other people who have come forward so far?
February 1st, 2009 at 4:42 am
“Statistically speaking, the odds are way, way against that ever being the case. There are over 10,000 claimed UFO sightings/encounters every year. In the last 50 years there have been hundreds of thousands of sightings/encounters, yet how many of those are backed up with verifiable facts? Exactly zero. Of those thousands of people that have come forward, many have been old timers. So for the people who allegedly exist and are supposedly in hiding, what is it that would make them very special and different from all the other people who have come forward so far?”
I hereby propose you Sage, to be the official Admin of the Black Vault.
It will help to keep the site’s space in a manageable size—say 50K or something for a large text image with the title:
THERE ARE ZERO UFO/ALIEN ENCOUNTERS VERIFIABLE BY FACTS
And that would be pretty much it
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 am
RP, I want you to very carefully read the Wikipedia website policy. It does not say anything about determining truth, but about determining verifiability. You cannot tell me that the vast majority of UFO material is not verifiable because the facts say otherwise. The verifiability of the material archived only determines the truth of the source, not that the source is true. It appears you have mistakenly understood it to be the other way around. The first step of science — of all honest pursuit of truth and knowledge — starts with accumulating accurate knowledge of a phenomenon. Verifying claims allows us to take the first step in eliminating falsehoods and eliminating falsehoods is obviously one way to start whittling our way down to the truth.