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On Seeking Answers

By red pill junkieon

My friend Greg Bishop has often mentioned on his weekly radio show, how he used to be approached by TV producers in search of ‘talking heads’ needed for some UFO show or another; they would get discouraged pretty quickly with him though, because he *always* refused to say what they were expecting to hear. Instead of saying things like “UFOs are proof that a highly-advanced extraterrestrial civilization is visiting Earth in structured metal spacecraft, and they come from planet X or Y” Greg’s response was “I think UFOs are evidence of a non-human intelligence, which from time to time decides to interact with us.”

Eventually the producers stopped bothering him.

The kind of answers provided by Greg, and the rest of my heroes in both the UFO field or other fringe subjects, are NOT of the kind which can be easily squeezed in a neat 2-minute segment between nice CGI renditions of some close encounter of Bigfoot sighting. Another friend of mine, Joshua Cutchin, has conceded there’s simply no ‘elevator pitch’ for his book A Trojan Feast or the sequel he’s currently working on –and that’s OK with him; because he, Greg, and my other friends in the Fortean blogosphere, have grown to learn you cannot give simple answers to phenomena so complex, they seem to be well beyond the scope of human comprehension.

…And perhaps that’s the point of it all.

So to all newcomers to this site, be warned: If you’re looking for easy answers to the mysteries of the universe, chances are The Daily Grail will not be your cup of tea. Here we suspect —uncle Bob and uncle John taught us the word ‘believe’ is a big No-No– there’s more to UFOs than space scientists conducting pro-bono prostatic exams, Bigfoot is more than a large ape roaming the North Pacific woods (and the undisputed hide-and-seek champion of the world) and ghosts are more than your dead grandma refusing to leave her old farm because, well… she was always a stubborn lady…

Caveat Lector, and enjoy the scenery from the less-trodden road! (Extra bonus is the travelers you’ll find, will probably be the most interesting humans you’ll ever meet in your life.)

[H/T Seriah Azkath]

red pill junkie
Agnostic gnostic, walking conundrum & metaphysical oxymoron (with emphasis in the 'moron' part), the mysterious RPJ leaves a double life: By day he serves as Grand Master of the International Sacred Order of Lucha Libre, but at night he pursues his life-long study of everything considered mysterious and/or 'paranormal' --a term he personally detests... When he's not exploring the web looking for his daily fix of Forteana, he can be found blogging, doodling, fooling around and offering his services as news administrator and writer at The Daily Grail. He also regularly participates in other websites and podcasts like Radio Misterioso and Where Did the Road Go? He impatiently awaits for the return of the mothership in Mexico City. absurdbydesign.com
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19 Comments

  1. Reminds me of a Nick Redfern
    Reminds me of a Nick Redfern article a while back covering MIBs. Some TV outfit wanted him to talk Will Smith / government conspiracy with the MIBs. He mentioned many accounts have demonic aspects than adhering to the common tropes. They thanked him for his time and went away.

    It’s enough to believe there’s a narrative they want to push, covering up the evidence with urbane urban legends rather than seeing how deep the warren goes. Heck, it’s working for Hillary stronarming the media into marginalizing Bernie.

    But that’s another story.

    1. Nick’s advice to UFOlogists
      From his blog:

      7. IT’S E.T. FOREVER!
      For reasons I have never been able to fathom, there seems to be an underlying rule in much of Ufology: “Thou shalt not changed, alter or modify thy views.” I have never got that one. In the same way that, today, I don’t watch the same TV shows, or read the same books, as I did when I was a little kid, why should I – or any of us in Ufology – be expected to hang on to old, out-moded and out-dated theories and beliefs in light of new ideas, themes and paradigms? I’ll tell you why: because it’s expected! It’s expected because the old-school wants the old ways and the old beliefs to be upheld. But, all that happens is they become…well…old. It’s almost like: she’s the abduction researcher who thinks it’s aliens. He’s the guy who believes Roswell was time-travelers. She’s the person who writes about UFOs being inter-dimensional. He tells us it’s Venusians. Etc, etc. Blah, blah. I kind of think that some researchers believe a change of opinion = weakness and unsureness. What a load of crap! Demonstrating that you’re specifically not caught up in a position of “it’s this or nothing” and are willing to take on board other scenarios is a stance born of strength. Not being able to face the idea of changing your views shows one thing and one thing only: you are emotionally driven by a need to believe and you have a fear of the unknown and of new challenges. Ufologist: Don’t do it!

      1. Stop Making Sense
        Something I’ve really been enjoying about Greg Bishop’s approach is that it seems that he’s come to the conclusion that we need to hit the ‘reset button’ when it come to UFO research. I’m not sure that he means that he wants to throw out EVERYTHING, just because he does seem have an affinity for the older cases. But the truth is this: he’s absolutely right. I came to the same conclusion myself a few years ago, and after many, many years of doing mental acrobatics trying to figure out my own and other people’s experiences, I think I basically gave my brain a hernia. So, I finally threw up my hands and declared, ‘ None of this makes any sense.’ It may just be the one conclusion that I ever came to that I knew was undeniably true.

        Now I know how this must sound to some people. I made a comment about it a few years back on Mike Clelland’s blog and nobody said anything about it. Except Red Pill Junkie. I believe you doth protested a bit, but in a kind, spirited fashion and it was a pleasant exchange. I soon after became disgusted with some of the people ‘out there’, pun intended, talking about frequencies, waking up, morse code beeping in their ears, etc, and the suggestibility of some people that I’ve just stayed away for awhile. I have set the reset button for myself. This does not mean that I deny all connections, corroborations or ideas that I’ve made myself. It just means I’ve splashed some cold water on my face and am attempting to look at these subjects with a fresh set of eyes. Everyone should give it a try.

        1. Hit the reset button
          Well, Greg’s iconoclastic approach does not IMO mean throwing EVERYTHING away, as you rightly pointed out. But it does mean approaching the subject with a whole lot more humility and ingenuity than what UFO groups used to adopt.

          Having said that, Greg recently interviewed another friend of mine, Cassidy Nichols, who’s involved with the UFO chapter in Minnesota. I think she and others like her are proof that times are indeed a-changing on ye olde UFO groups of yore 😉

          To be honest I don’t remember that little mano-a-mano we had at Hidden Experience; thus, I’m not sure if my stance re. the phenomenon has changed. What I feel is that, even if we acknowledge the UFO mystery is ‘nonsensical’ from our limited perspective, we shouldn’t then conclude is ‘meaningless’ –and I suspect you’d agree with that 😉

          The late Bruce Duensing talked of the UFO as ‘the mask that has no mask’. The kind of ‘nonsensical’ sentence that makes more sense the more times you ponder upon it. I kinda dig that 🙂

          1. Nonsense Has Its Uses
            I have always been partial to Vallee’s take on the non-sensical aspect – it can be a form of hypnotism and control. It operates in many ways on this planet.

          3. The nonsensical approach
            Nonsense has its uses… I like that. However, it has its uses to whomsoever it is that isn’t making sense. What’s the point? And I don’t mean that in the flippant sense, but are the nonsensical ones fucking with people just to have a good laugh? ‘Did you see that guys face when we buzzed his car? His eyes were as big as saucers! Get it? Saucers! Yeah, ha, ha, ha!!!’

            I have always been struck by the theatrical nature of the UFO phenomena. Absurd almost always seems to be the rule. I have also often thought or surmised that the people who see UFOs were meant or allowed to see them, as if rarely by accident. Rarely. Because if certain people are targeted, say, then who cares if they tell anyone? Nobody will believe them anyway. But the witness will never forget.

          4. Targeted
            I’ve also reached the conclusion that every single UFO encounter is deliberately staged.

            Every. Single. One.

            Well… except the ones accountable by human black projects –and even they might see the benefits of theatricality 😉

          5. But some UFO interactions
            But some UFO interactions appear to have been accidental or surprises. However, that doesn’t mean that such encounters aren’t quickly turned into a theatrical performance too.

          6. Scripted?
            Ah, RPJ! Your reputation precedes you. You are indeed the right person to engage on this concept. I suspected you would latch on to it. And I find it strange, Emlong that you would respond that some sightings appear to be accidental or surprises considering that you invented a whole new word for ‘synchronicity’ because for some people the word has become overused and boring(it has). I believe you called it a ‘consonicity’ or ‘comsonicity’ or something. And of course some, if not all, UFO sightings are surprises! Who says, ‘I was driving down an abandoned road late at night and can honestly say that I wasn’t surprised at all when I came upon a UFO hovering over the road up ahead.’ Or conversely, ‘I walked out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette, and goddamnit, I accidentally saw a UFO. Again!’

            More to the point, I’ll use an example to illustrate these concepts that I’m absolutely sure that RPJ will resonate with considering he’s from and lives in the city in question. And that would be Mexico City, July 11th 1991 and the subsequent UFO wave. This is a macro example, but was so clearly staged, ridiculously blatant and theatrical that there can obviously be no doubt whatsoever that it was intended, and in this case, that not just one or a handful of people were meant to see it, but thousands, perhaps millions were intended to see it and did. Either in person or on television. I remember being elated at the time, thinking, ‘This will change everything! Blow it all out into the open. Who can deny that UFOs exist now?’ But here we are…

            I have other, less enormous examples I can use to illustrate my point that are incredible but at the same time creepily intimate. It’s when these things invade our personal lives that you truly see and feel the intention, presense and intelligence lurking behind it.

          7. There is room in a universe
            There is room in a universe for both determinism and non-determinism. Accidents are the spice of life.

          8. Intention
            Absolutely! But what I meant was that a lot of UFO sightings seem to be specifically intended for the eventual observer, sometimes down to the split second or as the crescendo of a series of interlocking events. Has the other ever been caught with their pants down, and is that is how it seemed to the observer, or is that just how it was intended to come across? However, I do agree with you and believe in happy accidents. Like LSD. But was it an accident or was it just meant to be? That all depends on how you look at it.

          9. Happy accidents
            Determinism and random chance are concepts I’ve grown more and more skeptic of, as years go by. My suspicion is that there are NO such thing as coincidences and ‘happy accidents.’ That all is part of a bigger plan, in ways we can barely conceive of, from our oh-so limited 3-d perspective…

          10. So the assumption is that as
            So the assumption is that as your awareness expands and your soul evolves you will gain complete control of events in your life?

          11. Mexican UFO wave

            I remember being elated at the time, thinking, ‘This will change everything! Blow it all out into the open. Who can deny that UFOs exist now?’

            Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaa! I thought the same thing. The years have made me less gullible XD

      2. I was thinking of this piece
        I was thinking of this piece at Mysterious Universe from September 2014.

        It all kicked-off fine – at least, from my perspective. Things began chronologically, and I began to tell the story of Albert Bender, the brains behind the International Flying Saucer Bureau, who, in the early 1950s, was terrorized into silence by the Men in Black.

        I explained that Bender’s MIB were far less like those of the Men in Black movies (with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones), and far more like something befitting the likes of an H.P. Lovecraft novel.

        The producer stopped me in mid-sentence (which was the first thing that pissed me off big-time) and asked me what I meant. Well, had he not stuck his nose in, he would have known what I meant!

        I explained that although popular-culture generally portrays the MIB as the “secret agents” of government groups, or (as in the aforementioned Smith-Jones films) of super-secret bodies that operate outside of the official government, the real Men in Black were very different.

        With the cameras rolling, I said that Albert Bender’s MIB did not knock on his door, flash ID cards, and proceed to petrify him into silence, as many might assume. No: they materialized (as in literally materialized) in his attic-based bedroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut, amid nothing less than a foul odor similar to demonic brimstone! On top of that, their eyes shone – in fact, they almost glowed.

        The MIB were thin, pale, and near-vampire-like in appearance. They “spoke” with Bender in telepathic fashion. It was an exchange that provoked intense dizziness, pounding headaches, and both psychological and physical disturbances, including overwhelming exhaustion. It was, I said, as if Bender had been the subject of nothing less than a full-blown demonic attack.

        I then proceeded to state how, as someone who writes regularly on the MIB, I get dozens of reports of encounters with the dark-suited ones, per year. I also noted that the overwhelming majority of the cases I receive are of the Bender variety, rather than of the Smith-Jones type.

        The producer looked aghast. This was not what he expected or – clearly – wanted to hear. What he wanted from me was a great deal of talk on “government agents,” hidden groups in the military and the intelligence community, and so on. Blah, blah, blah.

        Again, I explained that what he was referring to was the pop-culture version of the MIB. If he wanted that, he really should have asked someone else to be on the show.

  2. Mr. Junkie, I have no idea
    Mr. Junkie, I have no idea why anyone would look to the mass media for anything of interest. Most of the “fortean” TV shows that I’ve seen are, quite frankly, utter crap. So here’s something un mass media that you might find interesting.

    I’m currently reading Ken Hollings book Bright Labyrinth. In the introduction, Simon Sellars talks about sections of Twitter where abandoned spambots hang out & tweet each other. Mr. Hollings calls them “non-people.” These “conversations” are disjointed, combining subjects that often have nothing to with each other, and they never exceed 23 tweets(One conversation the author mentioned involved the juxtaposition of Syd Barret & the Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I’m sure that Bill Burroughs & Bob Wilson are chortling madly somewhere right now.

    Mr. Sellars goes on to say that Mr. Hollings has compared these “tweets” with early examples of EVP captured by Konstantin Raudive.
    He also says that these spambot non-people will follow him around the Internet. On one occasion a spambot who adopted the name “Myrtie Weldy” bagan to follow Mr. Hollings. On investigation Mr. Hollings discovered a “Myrtie Weldy” who died in 1868. I suppose that would make her the proverbial spambot ghost in the machine.

    He also talks about, what he calls, “hipster spambots” who pass themselves off as “social media gurus.”

    All in all I’m probably doing a bad job explaining this but, in my opinion, it’s a quite interesting example of high strangeness that the mass media wouldn’t touch in a million years.

    1. “Non-people”
      Wow. That is fascinating. And of course, if you grok Robert Anton Wilson’s stuff, you’ll probably notice the 23 reference there 😉

      I think I need to check on this book and Mr. Sellars’ work. Thanks for the recommendation, and welcome to the Grail 🙂

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