– people refuse to believe it’s a hoax. LA Times.

There’s been sea-change in Ufology evidence this summer. Well; not really, the principle has been there all along but the point has been driven home so hard that only the die hard skeptic-of-reality (you woo-who’s) could possibly ignore it.

I’’posted at places like YouTube.

Not a big surprise. Over the last summer a number of very good UFO videos were released over YouTube. Purporting to be real encounters with strange looking disk-shaped aircraft (this means REAL ALIEN SPACECRAFT POISED TO USHER IN A NEW AGE OF HUMANITY) to all you believers out there.

For the rest of us, the videos are nothing more than an interesting experiment on human gullibility. Not that they are meant to, UFO photos and vides have been around for decades. Almost none of them can be taken for evidence because of problems with pedigree and confusion over stuff like when where and who took them. These questions are only important if you are a debunker. The Term debunke in this context means any person who does not think aliens have traveled billions of miles to save the trees or some other lame-o thing. If you are a true believer than of course some damn debunker has to prove that a photo is fake or else it must be light being Phtha from the second planet of Beta Linguini who will smite all of those godamn debunkers with his magical space-beam and give us free energy so we can all live happily ever after.

The fascinating thing regarding the recent Haiti vidios was of course the reaction in the UFO community. Most people surmised that the films were a hoax, not that this was any big stretch. It was pointed out early on that palm trees and other artifacts in the films were clearly computer animated

http://www.rense.com/general77/haiti.htm

Others had a different take.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 266857
8/12/2007 5:17 AM
People this is not fake. This UFO Haitian footage is the real deal. Never in the history of UFO video footage has a clip of this magnitude shown up. Debunkers are hard pressed to prove this is a hoax. Trees looking the same bah-humbug got to do better than that to discredit this amazing UFO footage. This Haitian UFO footage will make main stream media soon enough. Its hard to disprove something that is obviously true with mere words. First contact is coming soon.

After a bit of investigation which was done by an LA times reporter, not someone in the UFO community.

The 35-year-old Barzolff is a professional animator who attended one of the most prestigious art schools in France and has a decade of experience with computer graphics and commercial animation.

It took Barzolff a total of 17 hours to make both the Haiti and Dominican Republic videos. He did it all by himself using a MacBook Pro and a suite of commercially available 3-D animation programs, including Vue 6. The videos are 100% computer-generated.

However this is suggestive of one thing. Although UFO videos might be old hat and the reaction(s) might be predictable. What’s new about this is the ease of which these videos can be created. Any Hollywood effect is only a few years from being duplicated on a modest PC. Indeed, most Hollywood effects are rendered on PCs already. It’s just a matter of time before this stuff filters into common usage. What started as a trickle may very well become a torrent of similar videos. Each one making the field more noisy, less precise. However; has his not always been the case? Photographic evidence is almost as bad as eye-witness (what I like to call eye-witless) testimony. Photos show an analog of a real event but the very nature of photography changes and distorts that analog. For example the advent of so called orb photos came about almost exactly the same time as wide-spread digital photography. Is there a connection? Almost certainly unless you are prone to coming up with an idea like translucent specks in a photo are aliens, then casting around for proof. One cannot prove or disprove anything that way, all you can do is make declarations and become frustrated when people are able to offer simpler, far more probable ideas.

It is certain that we will see more excellent UFO vids. It is certain that these will become more real looking, more convincing than even the recent Haiti v. videos.

So, what does all of this have to do with UFOs? Very little. As I have said before, it is unlikely that a real alien incursion will take place but if it did? I think it may have been Greg Bishop who pointed out that the current Ufologests won’t matter in that case anyway. Many of them are not trying to find the truth or they would be doing real research, not on what people are seeing because it can be demonstrated that UFOs are very subjective. They would b focusing on the mechanics of UFO sightings, the whys and the who’s. The what’s are far less important.

Share and enjoy!

…via the UFO Geek’s blog

The venerable publication UFO Magazine continues to make a legal comedy show by sending out sternly worded letters admonishing people from using the term UFO in their own publications. It’s happened second time, to the operator of a forum on AOL of all things!

Basically, UFO magazine has trademarked the term UFO.” Not UFO Magazine (for whatever reason, the term UFO Magazine was not or cannot be trademarked.) So, anyone with a web publication or blog using the term UFO should be getting a letter from their lawyers asking them to cease using the term,

Even worse! They might suffer having UFO magazines writers send nasty letters to your guest book and call you names. Take it from me, you DON’T want that to happen!

So, here is a warning from the Odd Emperor, EVERYONE! For the love of god! Stop using the term UFO immediately! If you have a blog with the term UFO, delete it! RIGHT NOW!!!!  If you have an essay with the term UFO in the title, change it!  If you have EVER used the term UFO! STOP IT! Call UFO Magazine’s publishers and apologize for treading on their sacred property.

The term UFO is NO LONGER YOURS TO USE!!!!!! The term UFO(tm) is the soul property of UFO(tm) Magazine and they will use their considerable powers to either make you stop using their stuff (the term UFO in this case)  OR they will sic their writers on you, call you an assclown in public and other very mature things.

You might die of embarrassment

 by Mack White

Sixty-four years ago this month, six million Americans became unwitting subjects in an experiment in psychological warfare.

Later, psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear. Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University’s Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing.

[[[MORE]]] 

It has come to the attention of the Empire of the Odd staff that some people in the UFO Biz have come to the egregiously mistaken conclusion that this publication should not be taken seriously. I stand here, a pillar of the UFOlogical and Foreatian society to proclaim this day; this is utterly false!

The Empire of the Odd stands for the highest standards of journalism. We take pride in the many FACTS that are reflected by this hallowed space. It is with pride that we, the staff and dictator of the Empire of the Odd bring you the finest in journalistic excellence, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

The UFO biz needs a savior; a publication that DARES to tell the TRUTH about, not only the vile alien incursion of dope-smoking plug-uglies from the fourth planet in orbit of Zeta Reticular but also the horrendous Bigfoot invasion, the gigantic problem of orange orbs and the difficulties we all face each and every day as victims of vile experiments by creatures from another dimension.

Fear not oh denizens of the Internet! We at the Odd Empire will keep you informed amused and enlightened;

Fuck! Who the hell am I kidding! The Empire of the Odd, being what it is will continue to poke fun at people who take themselves way too seriously, just like it has always done!

Share and Enjoy!

In a stunning move of ultimate legal prowess, UFO Magazine ™ has sent a cease and desist letter to the UFO Magazine.net

Filed under: News  UFO Geek @ 5:00 pm

Today I signed for a certified letter I received from UFO Magazine. When I opened it and read its contents, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. At first I thought it was a joke. This letter, a Cease and Desist letter, was from Julie S. Maresca, attorney at law representing UFO Magazine. The letter demanded that I stop using the term UFO on my UFO hobby website. It stated that UFO Magazine was the owner of the term,UFO, as they had a federal trademark for it.

Wellso do 172 others if you search the trademark website at USPTO.gov. There are a bunch of people who have the term UFO within their trademark name, or just the term UFO by itself. And just think of the millions around the world who use the term UFO in daily conversation, in newspaper articles, in magazine articles, on websites, in letters, on message boards, etc. Do you think UFO Magazine has sent Cease and Desist letters to everyone using the term UFO? Oh my gosh!

[[[MORE]]]

15-17 StichinIsWrong.com Submitted by the Odd Emperor

In case you don’t remember (or don’t

Sitchin. is wrong. What can I say about Sitchin. Is Wrong? Well he IS freaking wrong and this page is freaking cool!

In case you don’t remember (or don’t give a fig..) Zachariah Sitchin wrote excruciating tomes which tell the spine- tingling story of mankind, just not a spine tingling story as we know it. He got all this information by coming up with his very own special translation of ancient writings. This has gotten the dander of people who actually spend years learning how to read the material and not just make shit up.

What is Stichin wrong about? Take a look at the site to find out!

Author Mike Heiser purports to be a credentialed scholar of Ancient Hebrew and Semitic Languages. He; in great detail pawns the work of Stichin.. Not only that, he appeared on the Coast to Coast radio program and tossed the gauntlet at Stichin and his little followers. Mike challenged any or all of them to a debate regarding the accuracy of the translations.. As of now there have been exactly two responders, not by Sitchin mind you, by a couple of Sitchin’s little minions.

One was Stichin’s webmaster who knows nothing of Hebrew and could not say much more than “Nu-uh!”

The other is world famous Mythologist, William Henry. Henry proceeded to insult Mike Heiser and then got HIS butt handed to him BY Heiser. Henry was sure that his special mythological doubletlk and argumentum ad hominem would be more than enough to defeat some seedy, nerdy old professor, who doesn’t even have his own radio show!

Sadly, Henry found out that being a wold famous Mythologist and using mystical mythological powers is no match for someone who actually knows his stuff.

15-16 Think Aboutit.com Submitted by the Odd Emperor with express thanks to ECETI

I almost don’t give a flying flip about this stupid site, really! I almost ditched it and went on to the next one, then I saw the copyright date.

Copyright 1996 – 2006

Holy buggerbutts Batman! 1996??? This lame page has been around since 1996! That’s longer than my page! (not by much though.)

Completely OT, why is it that every time I see this page I hear, “think about *tit*” Is it just me? Anyone else have that problem?

Other than that this page is not too significant. They have lots of new-age articles gathered from god where. A big download area and some crappy PHP content. There is a forum to troll (or become enlightened if’ you’re a woo.) Not much happening, in the forums, some porn-spam and Viagra ads. The old-skool and PHP mix of this site is a bit disconcerting, the colors don’t even match.

All and all, not very impressive, boring, dull, same old – same old!

Inducted May 6, 2007

15-17 StichinIsWrong.com Submitted by the Odd Emperor

Michael Shermer
on Larry King Live on UFOs

I thought eSkeptic readers might appreciate some of the more amusing (and nasty) letters I have received (appended below), plus one very revealing letter about Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s UFO sighting on the way to the moon, recounted by him on the show (revealing UFOlogist Stanton Friedman to be an incompetent researcher). Unfortunately it took Buzz a long time to get to the point of the stor which was that the UFO turned out to be one of the panels from the Apollo rocket booster  so I fear that it might have been missed by viewers that he was, in fact, a UFO skeptic.

Please note as well that former Arizona governor Fife Symington described what he saw during the Phoenix Lights event as otherworldly.I spoke at length with Fife before and after the show and found him to be a most thoughtful, intelligent, and warm individual with no special propensity toward gullibility (any more than the rest of us normally express), so after the show I asked him,How do you know what you saw was otherworldly, when none of us has any experience whatsoever with other worlds? Yet we have vast experience with strange and unusual secret military aircraft from this world that we find out about years later.” His response to me in private was similar to what he said on the show: it is possible that it was some secret military experimental aircraft, but he was so awed by what he saw that the military aircraft explanation just seemed too unlikely. I noted both on the show and in private that in science it’s okay to just say I don’ know and leave it at that.

Overall I find such shows to be a frustrating experience, which is why I brought along the little toy aliens to break up the gravitas of the conversation, plus to make the point that whatever actual aliens from another planet will look like, it most definitely will not be that they are bilaterally symmetrical bipedal primates, which only happened once on this planet in two billion years of biological evolution and hundreds of billions of different species.

-Michael Shermer

The Letters (spelling left as is)

[[[[MORE]]]]

Goucestershire Citizen

09:00 – 18 July 2007

If There’s something spooky in your museum – who are you going to call?Tewkesbury Museum turned to a group of ghostbusters who reckon there is a spirit lurking in the Barton Street building.

The team from the Three Counties Paranormal Organisation were called in to investigate spooky noises, strange smells and an eerie presence in the building.

Staff noticed the smell of old-fashioned washing powder and felt a ghostly presence, but couldn’t explain it.

The museum used to be a merchant’s shop before being split into houses. Evacuees were sent to families living there during the Second World War.

It has been suggested the ghost is a mother who was worked to the bone caring for her family and the refugees.

The paranormal hunters were called in and used heat, motion and electricity sensors to detect ghostly activity and camcorders to record their findings.

The group contains a number of people who claim to be ‘sensitive’ to the paranormal.

During the investigation, a team member said she experienced a peculiar headache every time she went over a certain area in the museum.

The group’s members plan to hold a seance in that spot when they return in September.

Museum curator Maggie Thornton said: “They confirmed there is something apparent on the top floor.

“It would be nice to solve the puzzle about the smells and noises we have been experiencing.”

Graham Atkinson, who led the investigation, said: “We are going back in September overnight to do a full investigation to see if we can get noises or visual phenomena, preferably lights, to occur.

“It would be great if a ghost walked through the wall but they don’t seem to do that.”

The organisation formed three years ago and has 40 members.

While bumming around the far reaches of the “Internets” I notice things, trends and patterns as they were, shapes of information defying description which help tailor my own posts (posts which shape and influence others thereby completing the cycle.) Some time ago I noticed and commented on a very odd thing. A whole bunch of pro-Scientology web logs had suddenly appeared, almost overnight!. I noticed that most of them were on one free service or another, most were worded in a similar fashion. I also noted that they were kind of bland. Like someone filtered all the passion, the heart out of an author’s writing, leaving a pale shadow of an otherwise interesting human being. Most web logs are very personal. Most, by their nature give some clue about the author, their passions, their dreams, their hopes. Their likes and dislikes. Most weblogs give authors a chance to rant, vent about things. These blogs were nothing like that. The authors didn’t seem to have any dislikes (with psychology being one telling exception.)

They had a strange stilted prose that suggested the blogs were anything but personal. They had a very narrow focus, basically the message was; “I am a Scientologist, I am successful and here are my opinions about two things; A) I think Scientology is the best! B) I think Psychology sucks ass.” There is very little about stuff outside of these two opinions. Little information about how these people lived, what they did for a living , movies they liked (that don’t happen to have Travolta or Cruse in them.) What books they read other than anything written by Hubbard. The writing on the blogs was generally pretty good. Not memorable, but well edited and proofed. For example, a typical entry on the Swirl blog;

“Befriended the Cat Next Door” I noticed last week that the neighbor next door has several cats. One of them is very friendly. I’ve been leaving milk outside by our door and one particular cat comes by and meows at the door. Yesterday, she approached me and let me pet her. Today she ventured into my office and is now laying on the floor next to my chair. She’s such a sweety. I haven’t figured out her name just yet. She hasn’t stood still long enough to let me read her tag.”

This was an exceptionally exciting thing to happen to this person, She apparently owned her own business, traveled extensively but we are not sure why, no photos ever show up on this blog (with the exception of the aforementioned cat.) Not too much was going on with this person, -ever! All of them are like that. They are boring– bland to the point of hopeless.

The strange bit is, they portend to depict extremely happy vibrant people. People who can see wonder in the world that us mere non-Scientologists simply can’t. People who are truly alive, truly free to think for themselves, unlike the rest of us poor slobs who just muddle along in frustration,. You-know, people like you and I. Most of them with the exception of “Bamball” had their comments turned off too. I suppose this was to prevent any unwashed “wogs” from horning into the party.

It is OK to utilize Internet resources for one’s own needs. I do it, you probably do it and Scientology is famous for doing it. One problem that Scientology keeps running into however is trying to blend into a culture they have little experience with. It’s less like blending and more like blundering. You cannot just walk into a culture and pretend to belong to it, when you don’t belong to it. If you think I’m joking, try wandering around downtown Clearwater Florida for a couple of hours. I have never seen such an out of place bunch of people in my life!

Scientology has done similar stunts in the past. Back around the late 1990s they issued a special church front-end package to their members and urged them to load the things on their computers. The package contained a net-nanny program that blocked many anti-Scientology web pages and an automated web page builder so that anyone could create their own cookie-cutter page on Scientology’s web site. Presumably they thought that by making thousands of identical pages they could steer traffic to places of their own choosing. None of these things had any long term effect on the Internet or critics other than as an annoyance.It was a kind of Internet attractive nuisance. Scientology brought a bunch of negative attention to itself by doing these and other things that were even less subtle (like trying to take down Usenet SIGs.)

Now don’t get me wrong, Scientologists are people too. Most Scientologists that I’ve met seem happy and content with their religion and their lives. I don’t agree with their complete focus on one group or their evident worship of L Ron Hubbard but that’s their trip, not mine. Hubbard’s opinion on psychology and his take on how the mind works are mind numbingly absurd (IMO) but it’s OK for people to believe in it. It is also OK for me to state categorically that Scientology does not resemble a religion, not in my world it doesn’t.

I have probably read more Scientology material than the average parishioner and calling this blend of pseudo- psychology and philosophical balderdash a religion is like calling Ufology a religion. In short, the Scientology web logs are exactly what they appear to be. A source of “good data” for us, the raw-meat general – wog public. More importantly, they served as a way to Googlebomb Scientology links all over the place. All the logs quite coincidentally had links to all the important Scientology web pages and very little else (I’m sure the people who wrote them have nothing else on their minds.)

Since then, Google and other search companies have relegated a  place for where their weighted algorithms are presumably hand written. Many Scientology web logs have become abandoned property. I’m sure the organization will make other attempts to further their stated goals of “clearing the planet.” I’m sure we will see many other tries by Scientology to bring the unruly Internet under their control. I cannot imagine why they would want to do that! People who are truly free need not worry about such things!

Enjoy these blogs, I sincerely doubt they will be around much longer. A short list of Scientology web logs (in no particular order.)
Help Yourself Last post, Monday, June 12, 2006
Racing Ponies Last post, Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Cat Servant Last post, Sunday, April 16, 2006
Equivoque Last post Apr 12, 2006
My Realm Last post,8/14/2006
The Lab Last post,Sep 1, 2006
Homeschoolmum Reviews Last post,Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Give Life a Little Swirl Last post,Sunday, November 19, 2006
Garden Girl Last post,Nov 7, 2006
My Life as Momkat Last post,Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Bamball Last post,Wednesday, July 13, 2005 And a really puzzling one;
My Life as a Mom “This blog is under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations and is open to authors only” (no date) Some active weblogs
My Eclectic Blog Good News Waterbug (this one was inactive from December of 06 until June of 07. I’s never shown much activity other than posting news items, all pro Scientology.
, Garters and Lace My Issues on Children

The massive Scientology cookie-cutter webpage site. Click any of the 16000 links and find out absolutely nothing about people from all over the world! Not my idea of a fun five days (assuming I looked at all 16,000 people pages for two minutes each.) A big list of Scientology blogs from http://orgsaroundtheworld.wordpress.com/scientology-blogs/ Scientology Blogs http://www.blognow.com.au/scientology/ http://scientology.blogspot.com/ http://whyihelp.blogspot.com/ http://blackfoot-whatsgoingon.blogspot.com/ http://takeawin.blogspot.com/ http://waterbug.typepad.com/ http://homeschoolmum.blogspot.com/ http://scientologylives.blogspot.com/ http://davidmiscavige.blogdrive.com/ http://davidmiscavige.blogspot.com/ http://equivoque.blogdrive.com/ http://momkat.blogdrive.com/ http://dianeticsofboulder.blogspot.com/ http://scientologymissionofboulder.blogspot.com/ http://gdnews.blogspot.com/ http://myscientology.blogspot.com/ http://church-of-scientology-of-seattle.blogspot.com/ http://scientologysurfer.blogspot.com/ http://scientologist.blogspot.com/ http://publicheroes.blogspot.com/ http://home.earthlink.net/~rekon2/ http://scientology.wetpaint.com/ http://silver-skater.blogspot.com/ http://jetteroheller.wordpress.com/ http://flashanswer.blogspot.com/ http://thechewy.blog.com/ http://orgsaroundtheworld.wordpress.com/ http://www.freedommagazineblog.org/blog/ http://scientology.tblog.com/ http://sk8erg.wordpress.com/ http://scientologyvm.wordpress.com/ http://fastpagemode.blogspot.com/ http://gettothechoppa.wordpress.com/ http://scientology-volunteers.motime.com http://wellequipped.blogspot.com/ http://educationquotes.blogspot.com/ http://spiritualquotes.blogspot.com/ http://bighappyfamily.blogspot.com/ http://thelab.blogdrive.com/ http://eclecticstuff.blogspot.com/ http://www.jbasoon.blogspot.com/ http://blogging-against-drugs.blogspot.com/ http://freedom-mag.blogspot.com/ http://churchofscientology.blogspot.com/ http://numnutzclan.blogspot.com/ http://www.angelfire.com/hero/garlic/butter/ http://swirl.blogdrive.com/ http://greatstuff.blogdrive.com/ http://bamball.blogdrive.com/ http://gardengirl.blogdrive.com/ http://chess_wizard0.tripod.com/scifi/ http://kiwiaussie.blogspot.com/ http://kidsoffdrugs.blogspot.com/ http://youth-rights.blogspot.com/ http://missionofthefoothills.wordpress.com/ http://creativexpression.blogsome.com/ Personal Sites: http://livingastherapy.blogspot.com/ http://livingness.com/blog/index.php http://ourearthlyrights.blogspot.com/ http://www.afreshopinion.com/ http://marcozna.wordpress.com http://views-on-the-news.blogspot.com/ http://johnalexwood.blogspot.com/ http://www.mysteriousperson.com/MYSTERIOUSPERSON/thezblog/ http://renaldfortin.spaces.live.com http://news-from-meat-street.blogspot.com/ http://lesweet.wordpress.com/ http://sheilamacd.wordpress.com/ http://artist4life.blog.com/ http://dorkdesign.blogspot.com/ Themed blogs http://thiscouldwork.com/ http://mybuzzpoint.blogspot.com/ http://aerospacebob.blogspot.com/ http://mycodeblog.blogspot.com/ Italian sites: http://scientology-italia-dirittiumani.blogspot.com/ http://scientology-italia-prevenzionedroga.blogspot.com/ http://scientology-italia-ministrivolontari.blogspot.com/ http://scientology-italia.blogspot.com/ http://pensaconlatuatesta.blog.tiscali.it/ http://agoralibero.blog.tiscali.it/ http://goodnewscity.blogspot.com/ http://www.casperize.com/ Scientologists on Social Networking Sites http://bluedot.us/users/turbotad http://www.garkoville.com http://www.myspace.com/photoserge http://www.myspace.com/psychiatrypsucks http://www.myspace.com/thetruthaboutpsychiatry http://www.myspace.com/shanluna http://www.myspace.com/dianeticsracing http://www.myspace.com/forevernewlyweds http://www.myspace.com/laurensweetland www.myspace.com/michaelduff Scientologists in Other Languages: http://religo.ch/ (German) http://youthforhumanrights.blogspirit.com/ (french) http://scientologue-geneve.blogspot.com/ (french) http://psy-confidentiel.blogspot.com/ (french) http://myscientologyswissblog.wordpress.com/ (German) Share and Enjoy!