Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The 2014 International UFO Congress, part 3


The third day, Friday Feb. 14, began with Robert Schroeder, a retired engineering manager, spoke on "How Modern Physics is Revealing the Technology of UFOs," a subject that might be more convincing if he were a physicist.
Robert Schroeder

He briefly reviewed modern quantum physics, especially the concept derived from String Theory about membranes, or separate universes. We live, he suggested, in a 4-D Membrane in a 5D Bulk (or aggregation of membranes); in our Bulk there is one other 4D membrane, the Gravity Membrane. That's the reason that gravity is so much weaker than the other three fundamental forces - most of it is over there, not here.

Schroeder's theory is that the UFOs have devised a way to get over to the Gravity Membrane, where gravity is 1016 times stronger. They generate KK Gravitons, which induces the creation of micro black holes, which somehow gets them over there. Why the UFOs don't get smushed by all that gravity, he did not explain. Because of the time and distance dilations associated with a powerful gravitational field (the same effects as acceleration), this reduces the distance to Alpha Centauri to just 25 miles. A nice trick, if you can make it work.
Patty Greer

Next up was Patty Greer (no relation to you-know-who), "a.k.a. the Croppie Girl." Her title was "Crop Circles & the Real Circlemakers." She is a film maker and crop circle researcher, who had her first UFO abduction back in 2001. "Patty Greer was a professional musician for decades, playing the harp and piano and singing with bands. In 2004 she trusted the wrong dentist and was poisoned severely by mercury fillings. For years she was seeking a healing miracle, and when everything failed she headed to the UK Crop Circles. Laying in Crop Circles day after day she developed (what appeared to be) a telepathic communication with the Circlemakers." With no previous training or experience in film making, she says that she became a filmmaker when she had an out-of-body experience in a crop circle in 2007, and she has visited over 100 crop circles. She later found out that the first Crop Circle she visited was fake, but she had extraordinary experiences in it, anyway.

She was "taken" from a Crop Circle in 2007, and her eyes were "re-calibrated" so that she could see "plasmas," which, it turns out, are everywhere. Crop Circles are made by orange orbs that fly around. They like that region of England because of the many Ley Lines there.

She says that the photos she takes in her home always show "orbs." Some people would call these orbs "reflections." 

Jeffrey Bennett
Next was astrophysicist and science educator Jeffrey Bennett, speaking on "Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for our Future."

He related how he once saw an extremely brilliant light suddenly appear in the sky, lasting only about ten seconds, then fading out. He believed it to be stationary, although his son who was with him thought it was moving to the right. It might have been an alien space ship, he said. Or possibly something else, like the rare case of a meteor heading straight toward him. Dr. Bennett, have you ever heard of an iridium flare, a brilliant reflection of the sun off the near-perfectly reflecting solar panel of an Iridium satellite? You've described one perfectly, and your son appears to be correct in that the satellite moves slowly while the flaring occurs. Don't go mystery-mongering about "alien spacecraft" when there exist much simpler and more likely explanations (although Stanton Friedman insisted that when you see an unexplained light in the sky, an alien spacecraft is the most likely explanation).

Bennett ran through the usual 'numbers game' concerning the number of stars in our galaxy, the number of galaxies in the universe, the percentage of stars having potentially habitable planets (apparently a large fraction, based on the findings of the late Kepler orbiting telescope), etc. Any intelligent beings capable of traveling here across interstellar distances must be far in advance of us, based solely on the fact that they can make the journey. Running some more numbers, he estimates they would be likely to be at least 50,000 years more advanced than us in term of technology.
Aaron Sagers

Next was Aaron Sagers speaking on "Celebrity UFO Encounters."  Sagers is "a TV personality, journalist and entertainment pundit who has covered everything from zombies, ghosts and aliens to geek culture for CNN, MTV and on his Travel Channel show “Paranormal Paparazzi,” where he serves as host and co-Executive Producer." He is a glib, fast-talking entertainer type of guy.

Sagers expressed concern that many claims about alleged Celebrity Encounters can not be verified, and that he was only interested in the authentic ones. However, he began with a few that he knew to be not confirmed, such as that alleged of Elvis and Jackie Gleason. Soon these celebrities were joined by Reinhold Messner, Christopher Columbus, Shirley Maclaine, Dennis Kucinich, Buzz Aldrin, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Muhammad Ali, and Sammy Hagar. While JFK was president, he was taking a group of friends out on a boat ride in Massachusetts to show off his new boat. Suddenly, a formation of daylight disks appeared, and everyone saw them. When they returned to land, Secret Service agents swarmed all over the boat, and the passengers were ordered not to reveal what they had seen. That's a great story, I hadn't heard that one before.

The afternoon ended with a panel on "Science and SETI," consisting of Richard Hoover, Jeffrey Bennett, and Ted Peters. Hoover speculated that life could exist on Mars in the water underneath a melting icecap. Life on earth, he said, may have arrived here on meteorites. The panelists generally agreed on the likelihood of plentiful extraterrestrial life, of panspermia (life spread from one planet to another), and of life existing, or even thriving, in what we would consider very difficult places.

Ben Hansen looking for UFOs with an image intensifier

In the evening was a demonstration, just like last year, of some very expensive low-light cameras and telescopes that use electronics to amplify very low light images. This allows you to see much fainter objects (but not as faint as the objects you can see using good binoculars!). Leading the demonstration, once again, was very tall guy Ben Hansen, host of the SyFy channel program Fact or Faked?

As was the case last year, no actual "UFOs" were seen. They did detect a stationary flashing object that appeared to flash about once every 80 seconds. Hansen suggested that it might be a defunct and tumbling geosynchronous satellite reflecting the sun, and this is probably correct. I set up a small and highly portable 76mm Celestron First Scope, and showed people the full moon that was rising. My  skeptical buddy James McGaha was there with a low-light camera and a monitor displaying the Orion nebula. It produced a clearer image than those image intensifiers. Both of these views were well-appreciated by visitors.



10 comments:

  1. Well, at least the Science and SETI panel appeared be rational, certainly more so than the other speakers. As for Robert Schroeder, he should know that much of modern theoretical physics is purely speculative; alleged entities like gravitons, black holes, "membranes," more space dimensions than 3, etc., have very little observational or experiment support. The physicists used to tell us that "nothing can escape a black hole." But now we observe ultra-high speed jets and vast amounts of high-energy radiation coming from locations which have been previously alleged to contain black holes, like the centers of galaxies or quasars.

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  2. Robert, I'm tempted to travel from here in Escondido to the next UFO carnival, but my wife frowns if I stray further than Temecula...

    That's not saying much since she frowns on UFOs in general...

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    1. Tim, I hear that there are the fixins of a small Conspiracy Convention here in San Diego this summer. You game?

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    2. I'm game! Let me know the details when you can...

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  3. That's quite a breakthrough in both medicine and education. We should plant crops and make circles in them in hospital rooms and classrooms. Why we've been doing things the hard way all these years when the answers were there all along amazes me.

    Honestly, it's our fault. We should have asked Edward Snowden about these things as he's transcended mere mortal to become some sort of modern day Oracle at Delphi. His omniscience has brought him even to the realm of UFOs. A skeptical person might think this comes from a desire to stay relevant. Patriots like Snowden don't work that way. As Michael Shermer said, try to use words like patriot to obscure rational thinking about a person.

    Here's a quick question. If we aren't to believe anything a government tells us (mind you, government isn't a person, it's made up of many people who think for themselves and live actual lives outside their jobs), why should we believe what some guy hawking a book about UFOs tells us? Do certain people, due to their chosen occupation, possess a monopoly on the truth?

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  4. Greetings... Apparently, bad or good is a perception. At some point in the process there comes a "time" where bad or good is no more, but rather becomes "just is" balanced, the paradox solved.
    http://www.focusonrecovery.net/originanddestination/What-are-UFOs.html

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  5. Lying inside a crop-circle may well be a miracle cure for those diseases and afflictions that were once cured by a visit to Lourdes. Or maybe the two go hand-in-hand. Trouble is that crop-circles are very transient. If it appears one day, there is no certainty that it will still be present the next day, whereas Lourdes is a permanent site.

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  6. THE UFO REAL EVENT CHALLENGE ---- Perception v's Observation

    Re::> Unidentified FLOATING Object in San Francisco Bay

    The internet is ablaze as to what the REAL purpose of the strange "Google" barge function/use is going to be.
    To Robert, I thank you for letting me post my opinions(admittably some are passionate & incredible) on this site. A lot of debate relates to actual facts, perceived observations, conflicting reports & who is telling the truth.
    I thought this could be a small experiment into the psyche of the whole skeptics v's theorists personal thoughts about a "secret" craft, that is in plain sight, yet no one knows what exactly its intended purpose will be.
    The emphasis on will it be GOOD, or is it BAD. Its all very secret at the moment, no access, & no confirmation from Google.
    Uses range from a party barge, new Glass promotion moveable retail display,data base center & function center & many others.

    It is nearing completion, so I am challenging anyone as to its real function, & hopefully in a few weeks(quick disclosure time) we will know the TRUTH as to its real purpose. Will Google lie? Is it a govt project? Is it retail?
    I am very curious on the various takes that people here will have on it.

    S.Frisco UFO : Unidentified Floating Object (Google Barge)

    From C.T. Deano (Aussie costruction carpenter)
    ** The use of shipping containers makes me lean towards a more industrial/spartan type use, as with external staircase ,small windows & exposed pipes. Looks like antennae will be fitted on roof, & temporary plywood panels suggests later electrical conduits & plumbing/airconditioning.
    Apparently By & Large is the sub company, but I think this is a play on words to just make BARGE. Being on a barge, & built by component shipping containers means it has the capability of being reassembled on land,possibly an Island. Permanent on barge would mean river or sheltered cove/bay.
    Now as for its intended use, I am going out on a limb & speculating that this will get towed to Alaska & be used as a computer data/communication center for an oil-rig company ( under the guise of Googles "New Arctic Reasearch Centre) as a front. Because I dont trust either Google or the US govt, I suppose it will be hard to verify, but Alaska bound is my guess.

    Is any one up for the challenge? It would be great if someone was spot-on with its intended use & destination!

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  7. > I am challenging anyone as to its real function

    Google Says Its Mystery Barges May Be Used As Interactive Space Where People Can Learn About Its Technology

    http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/06/google-says-its-using-mystery-barges-as-interactive-space-where-people-can-learn-about-its-technology/

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  8. Thanks Terry for responding!
    So I take it you are aligned with Googles statement " it "MAY" be used as an intreactive space to learn technology". This implies it will be open to the public at various water locations. A mobile showroom if you like.
    Thanks again, we now have 2 scenarios. Anyone else?

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