By
Michael Grosso

article from "Strange Magazine" #7

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Are some UFOs a type of psychic phenomenon? The link between the
phenomena that go under the misleading name of "unidentified flying
objects" and the phenomena studied by parapsychologists has been noted
by a number of writers. John Keel, Jacques Vallee, J. Allen Hynek, Dr.
Berthold Schwarz, D. Scott Rogo, Hilary Evans, and Eric Dingwall are
names that come to mind and the list could easily be extended. A
recent attempt to look more closely at the interface between the two
fields is Manfred Cassirer's stimulating monograph, "Parapsychology
and the UFO" (1988: Manfred Cassirer, 38 Christ Church Ave., London
NW6 7BE).


THE UFO-PSI INTERFACE

Cassirer, a former chairman of the Physical Phenomena Committee of the
British Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and presently council
member of both the SPR and the British UFO Research Association
(BUFORA), calls for a more "vigorous cross-fertilization and exchange
of ideas" between ufologists and parapsychologists.

Some years ago I tried to publish a paper on a UFO experience of mine
in "The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research"; I was
politely told by the editor, Laura Dale, that it was against policy to
publish on UFOs.

Yet I soon found that several well-known experimental
parapsychologists were closet ufologists. The provincialism of some
ufologists is more aggressive, as when they use invective instead of
argument against researchers who stress the psychic side of ufology.

Fortunately, there are growing signs of discontent with this
situation. The time has come to attempt to integrate ufologists and parapsychology into a comprehensive discipline. Cassirer's study, a
step in this direction, looks at about two dozen points of contact
between the two areas of research.

Let us begin with the obvious. Both types of phenomena go beyond what established science considers physically possible. When, for example,
an unidentified flying object takes off from a stationary position,
travelling at an astronomical speed, then makes a right angle turn and vanishes, we're dealing with something as baffling to known physics as clairvoyance or psychokinesis.

SIMILARITIES IN CONTENT

Most striking is the apparitional demeanor of UFOs. UFOs sometimes act
like ghosts. When UFO lights or craft appear out of nowhere, rise
straight up from the ground, or split up and multiply, as they often
do, they appear ghostlike in their physical insubstantiality. Humanoid
UFO occupants, sometimes reminiscent of elves and fairies-as well as ghosts-simultaneously have ordinary and extraordinary traits. For
instance, they may look solid but then glide through walls. Or, as
Euan Macpherson suggests, UFOs may be glimpses into the future, citing
their ghostly behavior in support of his view. (See his "Beyond the ET Hypothesis: UFOs, Ghosts and Time-Slips," Strange Magazine #4, pp.
26-26.)

Despite their elusive tactics, ghosts and UFO entities sometimes
leave physical traces, suggesting their hybrid stat- us. We need to
underscore this point. A word to describe this tertium quid - this
type of object neither entirely subject or object, dream or reality -
is C. G. Jung's term, _psychoid_.

Ufology and parapsychology point to a metaphysical twilight zone we
can dub psychoid. We will come back to this, but first more on the
overlaps in UFO-psi data, detailed by Cassirer.

The annals of psychical research contain reports of materi-
alizations, which Cassirer compares to UFOs, noting that "UFOs and
their purported occupants are no less versatile in fading in and out
at the very shortest notice."

A common trait of UFO and psi-related entities is their uncommon
luminosity. Ghosts, apparitions, and visions often appear radiant,
enhaloed, or otherwise queerly incandescent; often so do the
apparitions of UFOs and their occupants. One interesting relationship
is between the beings of light reported in near-death and deathbed
encounters and the lambent space brothers and angelic luminaries of
UFO contactee fame. Here may be a positive clue to our problem. In the
psychic world, luminosity-as Jung said-is akin to numinosity, i.e. the
sense of sacred power. Both luminosity and numinosity are properties
linked to supernormal modes of consciousness. The clue? Our
phenomena may be alternate routes to some form of higher
consciousness.

Besides shared luminosities, the creatures of Ufoworld and Psiland
engage our olfactory and auditory perceptions. Poltergeists, demons,
Bigfoot, and UFO denizens are known to beset the nostrils with
acrid, sulphurous and other unpleasant odors; while, in the realm of
saintly psi, there is the well-attested odor of sanctity. Likewise,
there are direct voices of mediums, transcendental music of deathbed visionaries, raps and footsteps of hauntings, and electronic voices of
the dead, on the one hand and various hummings, buzzings, roarings,
uncanny silences, and other auditory oddities linked to UFOs on the
other. To add to this extrasensory overload, Cassirer notes that in
both psychic and ufological experiences, people report queer breez-
es, rushes, winds, and drafts, often unnaturally cold.

The phenomenon of bodily levitation has been observed in mediumship,
diabolic possession, and saintly ecstasy. Objects are allegedly
levitated in poltergeist cases. Levitation plays a prominent part in
UFO lore and case histories. To begin with, the strange objects seen
cavorting about the heavens seem at odds with the laws of gravity, and
so suggest levitation. People who claim to have been abducted by alien intruders sometimes say they were levitated, often on beams of light,
into space ships. Sometimes they claim to be instantaneously
catapulted miles away in space. Of course, the psychic world is full
of tales of teleportation. My favorite is the case of the medium, Mrs.
Samuel Guppy, teleported from her house at Highbury to 61 Lamb's
Conduit Street, three miles away. Mrs. Guppy, studied by A. R.
Wallace, baffled the arch-skeptic, Frank Podmore; according to
witnesses, the overweight Mrs. Guppy came crashing out of nowhere onto
the seance table, half-dressed. (See Fodor's Encyclopedia of Psychic
Science, under "Guppy.)

There are also strange distortions of time. Time is the best indicator
that the mechanistic universe is working right. When time acts funny,
our sense of reality starts to crumble. The notion of missing time has
been much- discussed in the abduction literature. Yet this is old hat
to psychologists like William James, for instance, who studied the
case of Ansel Bourne, a man who found himself in a different state,
leading a totally different life, after two months. James hypnotized
the Reverend Bourne and was able to revive the memories of his missing
time.

The loss of one's routine sense of time is typical during dreaming;
one flies around in one's dreams, shooting back to childhood scenes
and sometimes seeming to leap forward into the future. The word used
to describe this piece of weirdness is _precognition_.

Then there is the strangeness of time-sense we experience in the
presence of archetypes-those primordial images of the forces of
nature. And who could deny that the whole UFO fabric is permeated by
archetypal elements? (The "Andreasson affair" is an excellent example
of an abduction experience shot through with motifs of spiritual in-
itiation.)

Cassirer refers to the "dimension game" we find played in the UFO and
psi arenas. The German physicist, Johann Zollner, had his career
ruined on account of his interest in the hyperdimensional physics of
the medium Dr. Henry Slade. Psi phenomena tempt us to postulate other dimensions of space and/or time. The philosopher Bob Brier has argued
that precognition forces us to postulate a fourth dimension of space
(see his "Metaphysics of Precognition" in "Philosophy and Psychical
Research", ed. S. C. Thakur). Jacques Vallee finds himself driven by
UFO data to speculate on hyper-dimensionality in his book,
"Dimensions."

Once again, as with time, so with space-psi and UFOs challenge the
rules we use to make sense of experience. We saw this with the
distinction we made-seemingly so basic-between the mental and the
physical. Here, too, we found a strange domain that straddles the two
worlds: the inner and the outer.

No, these strangers to our time and space who zip in and out of
Ufoworld and Psiland remind us of the magical and the archetypal. When
they graze us with their magic wands, our lives are disturbed, if not transformed. Jung, to begin with, saw in the very shape of the flying
saucer a mandala or symbol of high integration.

But there is a dark as well as a bright side to all this. The entities
of the two domains of experience we are comparing have some nasty
habits; they like to attack us in various and sundry ways.

For instance, alien abduction is alien attack. Then there are those intimidating Men in Black. On the other side, psychical research
contains data describing assaults by alien, and distinctly unpleasant,
forces. David Hufford's "The Terror That Comes in the Night," a
remarkable study of the nightmare, is a case in point. I myself have
been attacked and temporarily paralyzed by a ghost. (See my
forthcoming account in "Soulmaker", Hampton Roads, in press.)

Not only do these metaphysical strangers invade our lives, often with
apparent ill will or ill effect, but they often seem to want to help
us, sometimes by direct intervention or by bringing news or messages
or sometimes just by shattering our metaphysical complacency.

Messages of what?--asks Cassirer. G. K. Chesterton once said that the
spirits always lie. Jacques Vallee, writing a book about alien
visitation, titled it "Messengers of Deception". It is well known that
spirits st seances are often caught red-handed at fibbing and
fabulation. Their messages are pretty dumb, says Cassirer, and so he
prefers to speak of "messengers of regression." I agree that there is
a load of twaddle that comes across as a message, both in ufology and
psychical research.

But that is not all. In the first place, we have to distinguish
between the literal or overt message and the covert or symbolic. The
message may not be verbal or literal but active and transformative.
This seems clear in the old contactee cases. In unbiased accounts of
alien abductions, the archetypal, symbolic and transformative elements
are also present.

Of course, there is a thing called experimenter effect or experimenter
bias; if the investigator does not want to hear something, he or she
might just tune it out. I think the evidence shows that our visitors
from Domain X are bipolar in their intention; they like to play on our weaknesses but they also seem programmed to play up to our strengths.
The Swedenborgian psychiatrist from Mendocino, California, Wilson van
Dusen, studied the hallucinations of mental patients and found this
polarity: there were good guys who tried to help the patients and
rotters who nagged them to distraction.

As far as psychical research, the range of "message" is rich and
complex. True, there is much inanity, pious froth, and inflated "New
Age" platitude. But entities also intervene to help people. You have,
for example, amazing cases such as that of Joan of Arc whose pro-
phetic voices led her to high historic exploits.

There are also many everyday examples of psychic first-aid; I have
collected stories of people whose lives have been saved by what looked
like external intervention from metaphysical hybrids (see the chapter
"Helping Apparitions" in my book "The Final Choice"). Sophy Burnham's creatively confused "Book of Angels" is full of examples of psychic
first aid. Nor should we forget that great mediums like Mrs. Leonard,
Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Willet were all seeming conduits for copious
amounts of accurate information about the objective world. A close
examination of the facts shows the presence of benign intelligence as
well as malignant stupidity. (A curious reflection of ourselves!)

SIMILARITIES IN MODE OF RESPONSE

There is another set of similarities between UFO and psychic
experiences. This has to do with the way people interact with and
respond to anomalous entities. In both cases, altered states of
consciousness are involved. UFOs are seen on highways at night, while
people are in bed or sleeping or dozing or gazing; it is well known
that altered states of consciousness lead to psychic experiences.
(That is why meditators usually have increased psi experiences.) We
already mentioned missing time--a sure sign of an altered state.

Several researchers have found that the same individuals are often
likely to have a history of both UFO encounters and psychic
experiences, thus further strengthening the notion that the phenomena
are interrelated. For example, many people have told me that they have
had near-death, out-of body, and UFO experiences. Researchers on the
near-death experience have found that many subjects develop a general sensitivity to a wide range of psychic or contactee-like experiences.

According to reports, UFO intelligences communicate telepathically.
Telepathy, of course, is a basic psychic mode of communication. This
is a very strong effect in UFO reports and we could fill pages with
examples. It is very hard to listen to so many accounts in which
people claim to get impressions from ETs via thought transference
without sensing the strong link between psychic phenomena and ufology.

Another link is the behavior of animals. Animals react strangely to
the presence of ghosts, poltergeists, and other psychic strangers;
they also, as Cassirer notes, behave oddly when UFOs and their side-
kicks are on the scene.

Under the heading of modes of response we might add the following
related observation. There is a similarity in the way people tend to
respond to the entities of ufology and parapsychology; both types of
entity, UFO- and psi-related, often evoke extreme responses.
People are apt to lapse into a debunking syndrome or into marvelling
credulity. UFOs and psi phenomena strike deep psychological chords; it
is hard to respond to them with detached rationality.


SIMILARITY IN SOCIOLOGY

There are also similarities in the sociology of our two-or is it
really one?-field(s). Cassirer points out that they elicit tricky
moral issues. Do investigators, for instance, need special moral tact
in dealing with their subjects? There are many ways one might be
tempted to exploit the victims of strange experiences.

Another parallel is the way the media come into play. They exploit
shamelessly but at the same time make it possible to spread
information, instantaneously and globally. So, sitting in my apartment
in the Bronx, I learn at once of the latest three-eyed giants spooking
kids in the Soviet Union. The problem is that the media are a poor way
to transmit controversial information. Distortion is inevitable. Thus
the data of ufology and parapsychology lend themselves to mythmaking.
The "New Age" is in part a product of this mythmaking.


A FALLACIOUS OBJECTION

Can parapsychology shed light on ufology? The objection has been made
that we cannot explain one unknown by another unknown. But this is to
mistake the nature of the explanation. All explanations are relative,
and even pure deductive systems involve primitive, unexplained
elements. The general function of an explanation is to place the
explicandum (the thing to be explained) in a larger, more familiar
framework, which is always a matter of degree and always a tentative
process open to revision.

So, it is true that there is a great deal that is unknown and
unexplained about psi, but there is also much that is known, general correlations, and even repeatable experiments- though not repeatable
on demand. Altered states of consciousness (like dreams and hypnosis), personality variables (like extroversion), and psychological factors
(like belief, creativity, and spontaneity) all co-relate with the
production of psi phenomena.

UFO data thus seem less isolated, less anomalous, and more familiar
when viewed in relation to parapsychology; they exhibit connections
with other areas of knowledge. This, of course, may only be a small
step forward, but not a step without value.

So let us agree that there is a substantive link between ufology and parapsychology. How are we to interpret this link? Several
possibilities come to mind.

THREE ANGLES ON THE PSI-UFO CONNECTION


1.) The first is compatible with the ET hypothesis. Given That an ET civilization is (say) a billion years older than ours, it may possess
a vastly developed psi technology. What appears like the "magic" of
psi to us may be a routine feature of their technology. An advanced
psi technology would account for the apparent similarities between
UFOs and ghostly psi phenomena.

Jenny Randles, for instance, suggests that UFOs are part of a
broadcast system from an alien civilization-signalling "by 'super-telepathy'-some kind of general galactic warning." My reading
of the Fatima phenomenon-and possibly some incidents in the early
history of Christianity-fits with this interpretation.

2.) Another possibility is that UFOs are manifestations from another "dimension" of reality-not from another civilization somewhere in our
physical universe. Several writers have suggested this; however, the
notion of extra-or ultradimensionality is somewhat vague and trades
mainly on analogies. Writers like Keel and Vallee speculate in this
way because they find the ET hypothesis untenable but accept the
compelling if strange reality of UFO phenomenon.

Some ideas in recent physics embolden thinkers like Keel and Vallee to speculate on alternate dimensions of reality being the clue to the ET
mystery. But as far as I can see, nothing in recent physics suggests
the real possibility that we inhabit a multiverse of civilizations. On
the other hand, Keel's "window" that separates us from the
ultradimensional universe is one I am curious to peer through. Instead
of physics, parapsychology might allow us to play the "dimension
game."

3.) This brings us to another way we might solve the UFO-psi
equation. Let me sketch an idea of what I call the _ultradimensional
mind_. The first step is this: There is a clear sense in which each
human mind occupies its _own_ space _different_ from the public space
of the physical universe. (For example, my thoughts, dreams, memories, fantasies, desires, and most of my sensations occupy their own logical
and phenomenal space, topologically distinct from the space of my
brain and body). In this inner or psychic sense, then, each human mind
is "ultradimensional."

Now we can take the next step. Given the timeless, spaceless nature of
ESP and PK, perhaps some (or all) human minds form a system-a parallel
universe of mind, a distinct entity with its own properties. (Tom
Bearden calls it ZARG in his book "Excalibur Briefing".) It would be a
mind with properties distinct from its component minds, on the
assumption that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The
sum of human minds, united in a systematic whole, thus serves as a
model for the ultradimensional mind. Perhaps this is the entity that
holds the secret to the UFO mystery.

We can call this the _psycho-terrestrial hypothesis_. It is an idea
that is related to Jung's collective unconscious. Two intriquing books
by Gregory Little also develop a similar approach: "The Archetype
Experience" and "The People of the Web." In this view, the wild medley
of UFO phenomena are the off-shoot of collective human psi function.
One thing in its favor-it is parsimonious. We have good evidence for
psi function-very little, if any, for the objective reality of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

So UFOs may be products of an ultradimensional psi-mediated,
psi-constituted factor. As against the ET hypothesis, I am slightly
inclined to favor it; yet I am far from convinced. By means of the psycho-terrestrial hypothesis we can combine the dimension metaphor
with psi data and "save the phenomena." In other words, we can agree
that UFOs have objectivity, a measure of materiality, and external
agency, but not that they come from outer space. And since they are
part of our terrestrial history, we can start thinking about what they
mean.

Let me wind up with a few thoughts on the hypothesis of
ultradimensional mind.

CONCLUDING CROTCHETS


* Should it turn out that we have crashed saucers or bodies of ETs or
living ETs incarcerated on earth, it would show that at least some
types of UFO phenomena clash with our third hypothesis.

* Landing gear marks, photos of UFOs, chemical changes in soil, radar sightings, radioactive effects, and evidence for electro-mechanical
malfunction seem at the present stage of our knowledge ambiguous with
respect to the ET and PT (psycho-terrestrial) hypotheses. It could go
either way.

It is possible to state conditions that render the latter at least intelligible.

a). We do not know the limits of psi ability, individual or
collective. The evidence suggests that we get what we expect, what we
believe is possible, and what slips past the grid of repression. (An ultradimensional mind would be less inhibited.)

b). We already have evidence for psychoid entities, which may account
for traces, photographs, and-at least in principle-all physical
effects.

c). There is reason to believe that human psychic capacity manifests
in ways that are culture-specific. An "angel" is said to have pierced
the heart of Teresa of Avila, evidenced in her autopsy. Stigmata are
dramatic examples of culture-specific mediations of
auto-psychokinesis. Why then couldn't a "space alien" leave its
appropriate physical marks on a modern abductee? Or why couldn't an ultradimensional intelligence leave landing gear marks or other
physical impressions designed to _look like_ traces of spacecraft?
Something like this might be happening with Bigfoot where we get
footprints but no feet. Indeed, Janet and Colin Bord's "Alien Animals"
suggests the family resemblance between a host of anomalies that may
emanate from the same ultradimensional mind.

* This leads to my next point. To flesh out this hypothesis, that is,
to help us realize the range, plasticity, and potential immensity of
collective human psychic power, we need to place before our minds not
only the data of experimental parapsychology and the spontaneous case collections of forteana and psychical research but also the
well-documented phenomena of saints, adepts, and gurus. For instance,
material meticulously studied by Herbert Thurston, Bollandists, and
recently Michael Murphy (in his forthcoming "The Future of the Body")
indicate a startling range of powers latent in human function.
Erlendur Haraldsson's recent study of Sai Baba ("Modern Miracles" )
is another contemporary source of alleged astonishing human abilities
that may need to be figured into our hypothesis of an ultradimensional
mind.

* Recent work on earthlights, brain physiology, and genetics suggest
new perspectives on UFO and psi manifestations. All this also needs to
be worked into the equation. The ultradimensional entity we are
hypothesizing would not only enjoy a life of its own, but it may also
function in a symbiotic relationship with the physical and historical
dynamics of the planet. Paul Devereux and Rupert Sheldrake have been speculating along these lines, developing enriched models of the Gaia hypothesis.

* If there is an ultradimensional mind, related symbiotically to the
history of our species on earth, then we are entitled to ask what it
might mean for our spiritual history as well as for our evolutionary
future. Writers have already noted the relations between alien
humanoids and creatures of folklore, angels, fairies, and elementals.
Indeed, we may throw our net out further and catch a variety of phantom-psychoid creatures as well as a clutch of gods and goddesses.
The link between Mary-goddess epiphanies and UFOs has been noted, of
course. The history of magic and religion may thus be seen as a
product of interactions with our shapeshifting, polymorphous
ultradimensional mind.

* An interesting line of research in recent parapsy- chology shows
that psi is need-based and operates unconsciously. Our psi "organs"
sometimes unconsciously scan the environment, detecting aversive or
potentially useful stimuli, and direct our behavior accordingly. Rex
Stanford has developed what he calls the PMIR model-the notion of
psi-mediated instrumental response.

Clinical studies by Montague Ullman and Jule Eisenbud show how this
sort of unconscious psi-mediated intentionality works. Now, if we
extrapolate the notion of unconscious intentionality from the
individual to the ultradimensional mind, it is easy to see how we as individuals may be involved in curious interplay with this bewildering
entity.

The important thing to remember is that the ultra-dimensional mind
probably has its own agenda; it may also be confused, hesitant, or
contrarian; it may have helpful, destructive, playful, or just
wasteful impulses and intentions.

Since the ultradimensional mind at bottom is an expression of the
totality-plus of individual human minds, a thing of awful diversity,
glorious heights and hideous depths, we should not be surprised if it
displays both a dark and a bright side .

So, sometimes it appears like a control system, sometimes like a
warning system, sometimes like a fiendish hoax; it seems to be
prodding us to evolve one day and self destruct the next; then again
it may seem to just want To amuse and divert us, like a capricious
artist doodling on a piece of scrap paper.

The fact that we keep changing our minds about strange phenomena, that inconsistency, ambiguity and uncertainty seem built into them, and for
that matter into all things religious, spiritual and meta-physical may
signify the inconsistency, ambiguity and uncertainty of our existence.

** End of article **


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