In late January, Robert Schoch - formerly known for his geological investigations into the age of the Great Sphinx, the underwater Yonaguni 'monument', and the alleged Bosnian Pyramids - released a book on a completely different tack to his previous work: parapsychology. As editor of an anthology titled The Parapsychology Revolution (Amazon US, or preorder from Amazon UK), he assembled some of the most fascinating scientific essays on psi phenomena into one handy book. I spoke to Robert last week about the new book, and the reasons for his move into (yet another) controversial topic:

TDG: Thanks for talking with us Robert. Firstly, can I ask: what inspired the change from books about ancient pyramid cultures, to this new book about parapsychology?

RS: I view my interest in parapsychology as a logical extension of my work on ancient cultures, and furthermore I personally have a long history of interest in the paranormal. Let me elaborate. ... Read More »

Deborah Blum won a Pulitzer prize in 1992 for writing about ethical issues in primate research and has been exploring the intersection – or some would say, collision - of science and culture ever since.

A professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has written four books, all of which ask questions about the way science tries to define what it means to be human. They include The Monkey Wars (1994), based on her award-winning series; Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences between Men and Women (1997), Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection (2002) and Ghost Hunters: William James and Scientific Search for Life after Death(2006).

TDG: Thanks for your time Deborah - Ghost Hunters (Amazon US and UK) certainly is an eye-opening read on the early history of scientific research into the afterlife. To begin with, I'm interested to know why you concentrated on the 'William James era' of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Were you lead into the topic accidentally when originally researching James, or is there something about this period of psychical research which made it stand out to you as a writer?

DB: First by accident, then by plan. I was researching the history of psychology for an earlier book (on the science of affection) and I stumbled across some references to William James losing his mind and getting caught up in spiritualism. Other psychologists were just furious with him, angry enough, that I began to wonder why.

As it turned out, they were angry because he was such a leader in the field, they were afraid he would lead the field astray. And was what led me to concentrate on the Victorian period. Because it turned out to be the one time when some of the best scientists in the world - James, Charles Richet and John Strutt (both Nobel Prize winners), Oliver Lodge, a pioneer in wireless communication - were willing to risk their careers to explore supernatural science.

They were so smart, such good researchers, I wanted to know what they found.

TDG: In regards to your statement that they were "willing to risk their careers": In the 125 years since the SPR was inaugurated, not too much has changed. You mention yourself that you were warned not to write this book, and scientists such as Dr Dean Radin and Dr Gary Schwartz are regularly castigated by 'skeptics' such as James Randi as being deluded (or worse, deceiving). In Ghost Hunters, you make note of Henry Sidgwick's speech at the first SPR meeting, at which he described orthodox science's resistance and aggression towards psychical research as "a scandal to the enlightened age in which we live." Do you believe Sidgwick was right, and that the 'scandal' continues to this day? Or is it correct for conventional science to maintain and defend its borders against incursions from outside the current paradigm - after all, there are a lot of strange and completely bogus ideas out there?

DB: Here's the blessing and curse of mainstream science. It's the most powerful investigative tool ever invented. It has succeeded by following a very strict set of rules for "proof" of a phenomenon. That phenomenon, for instance, must be predictable, testable, replicable, confirmable. An example of this is the freezing temperature of water (phase change from liquid to solid at 32 degrees fahrenheit.) I can predict this and I (and you and the entire population of the world) can repeat and confirm it ad infinitum.

So far, paranormal phenomena don't follow those rules. They're not predictable in any consistent sense, and rarely perfectly replicable. So - and this William James complained about bitterly - mainstream science has responded by declaring them nonsense and the scientists who pursue them as pseudo-scientists. The problem with that is that our scientific rules may prevent us from trying new approaches, considering alternative ways to measure reality - in other words, box us into a very limited world.

Bottom line, science plays it safe and ruthlessly defends its limits. Totally human and - here's the scandalous part - punishes those who try to make the universe a little more open.

TDG: Addressing a couple of details in your answer - firstly, the 'predictable' and 'replicable' part is an often used reply by skeptics of paranormal phenomenon, but really doesn't make sense on two counts to me. There are many phenomena that don't obey this qualification for scientific credibility (eg. earthquakes, meteorite impacts), and once we add intelligence into the equation (ie. if there is a communicating 'intelligence' from the 'other side') then we not only run into problems with these criteria on a base level, but further, we have to allow for the possibility of deception on the part of this communicating intelligence. So I find this reply (on the part of scientific authorities, not yourself) as somewhat disingenous when it comes to addressing whether paranormal phenomena are worthy of investigation. Your thoughts?

DB: It's true that not all natural phenomena fit into that box. The Victorian psychical researchers often made that point regarding lightning and comets. But the fact is that even such erratic "events" fit into theories that have other replicable results to back them up. For instance, we can partially explain the orbits of comets by gravity and the plate tectonics theory that underlies earthquake activity is verifiable on all kinds of levels (even though the originally developer of that theory was treated brutally by his peers).

I often think of scientific theories as strings of beads. You verify (replicate, confirm) one bead or more and the power of that allows you to string the other options on that line of thought. In that sense, I don't see the argument as disingenous particularly, but I do see it as wilfully blind and occasionally arrogant. And we both know that mainstream science can be both of those things. And that refusal to accept ideas out of the mainstream has repeatedly held back the progress of science - again the example of plate tectonics. That's my real argument. I think the very rigidity of science has made it an incredibly powerful investigative tool into nature - we reap the benefits of that daily. But that same exclusivity has made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do major investigations of some very important questions.

TDG: Do you think we are talking about 'science' defending its limits here, or is it really a 'cult of materialism' that is doing the defending? When (Laurentian University researcher) Michael Persinger came out with his research on temporal lobe stimulation inducing mystical experiences, we suddenly had Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore enthusiastically reporting on their experience with the 'God Helmet' - this before any external replications of Persinger's work had taken place, or any orthodox acceptance of his theories - is there any difference here to William James and Oliver Lodge reporting back enthusiastically on their experiences with Mrs Piper? In Ghost Hunters, you describe how late 19th century science literally demanded that religion relinquish its territory to the 'new orthodoxy' - has physicalist science itself reached the stage of being a proto-Fundamentalist religion?

DB: That's a fascinating question and, yes, I think that belief systems always play into these issues. It was certainly true in the days of William James and his colleagues, and many of the ideas being discussed by Dawkins and Dennett - the whole concepts of atheism and agnosticism - gained power during that time period. Look at T.H. Huxley, for instance. I think that's fairly normal and human - we're all driven by the power of our beliefs. What I dislike is the judgmental quality that results - Dawkins suggesting, for instance, that true atheists are "brights" as opposed to the "dim" spiritual believers.

My own take is that it's incredible hubris for any of us - whatever belief system we follow - to think we've answered every question that circles in this rather incredibly complicated and beautiful universe. Which is one of the reasons I allowed my book to be about possibilities.

TDG: Giving some time to the skeptical arguments - many of the scientists involved had suffered personal tragedies (Gurney lost his 3 younger sisters in a drowning, Myers his true love to suicide, James his baby son to illness). Could these circumstances be an argument against their objectivity - that is, do you think these experiences may have made them too gullible, basically 'wanting to believe'?

DB: Again, Greg, that's an excellent question. And, yes, I think you have to consider that aspect. I know, for instance, that Richard Hodgson worried about that "will to believe" in Fred Myers, that James' critics raised the same question for him. It's a little more of an issue with Myers, less so with James who remained rigorously skeptical. But as a whole - when you look at the researchers as a group - they check and balance each other. Sidgwick's caution against Myers' passion, and so you end up with a very smart, very focused and very fair-minded group.

Which is why I think their work endures so well.

TDG: During your in-depth research into Hodgson's investigation of Mrs Piper, I'm sure your skeptical side would have been looking for possible explanations for how she was achieving such spectacular results. Many skeptics (and also the NY Times review of Ghost Hunters) point to Martin Gardner's paper on 'cold reading' techniques used by Mrs Piper, fishing for information from participants during readings, as having debunked her mediumship ("How Mrs. Piper Bamboozled William James"). Personally, I can't see how many of the results achieved by Leonora Piper can be explained this way (or even by 'hot reading', considering Hodgson's efforts at keeping Mrs Piper isolated prior to the readings), and it also seems to avoid many of the stunning results achieved during Hodgson's long investigation, which was the most authoritative and skeptical. However, I would love to hear your opinion, considering the comprehensive research and reading you did on the long period under which Mrs Piper was investigated by the SPR

DB: Yes, I read Gardner's paper and, frankly, he wasn't as scathing as some of the psychologists working in Leonora Piper's time. There's more valid criticisms of her in the work of Stanley Hall and especially Joseph Jastrow. And frankly, if you read the reports from the ASPR and SPR, they discuss all of her flaws and weaknesses, the often fictional nature of her "spirit guides", the tendency on some days to go on fishing expeditions for information.

All of that is in the book, in addition to the psychical researchers' numerous exposes of other famous mediums of the day, from Anna Eva Fay to the Fox sisters to Henry Slade. There was, there is, enormous potential for fraud in this particular field and, of course, there are a lot of examples of that in my book.

You remember that James and his friends calculated that about five percent of what they investigated had some reality to it. Which again tells you that most of what they looked at was fraud, wishful thinking, etc. But they thought - and I think - that Leonora Piper, at her best, was firmly in that 5 percent. That she had bad days, days when she couldn't pick up anything, days when she tried to cover that up. That her spirit guides were probably creations of her own mind, struggling to cope with the bizarre information that did she pick up.

But that she did know things that she simply couldn't have known - and, yes, I found I agreed with them. A hundred years later, if you read the Piper reports with an open mind, she remains sometimes completely inexplicable.

TDG: I have found it interesting to see how the reviews of Ghost Hunters seem to depend more on the worldview of the reviewer, rather than the actual prose and story presented in the book. Has it been a shock to you - especially considering the high praise afforded to your previous books - to see the bias against open discussion of the 'survival' research of the SPR?

DB: Actually, I expected worse. When I decided to write the book, a lot of my mainstream science writing friends warned me against it, speculated that it would damage my career. That didn't change my mind but it did make me a little nervous when the book came out.

For instance, I did an interview about the book on NPR's Science Friday and the host warned me in advance that he expected the audience to be hostile. So I was sitting in an affiliate studio (in Durham, N.C. at the time) prepared for some kind of verbal lashing. What I found, though, was that some people - as you noted - were very close minded. But a surprising number, like me, found the questions really fascinating. In fact, even on the science-minded NPR show, people called in to tell their personal ghost stories.

After that, I just relaxed about it. I've spent years building up a reputation as a credible science writer - it's worth spending some of that capital on a fascinating idea.

TDG: A number of those 'skeptical' reviews of Ghost Hunters have suggested that your 'balanced position' shows that you did not read up on the techniques of fraudulent mediumship, and hence your account was overly credulous (James Randi himself made this point in his newsletter). Can you clarify as to whether you researched things like cold reading, and the other methods used by conjurors and charlatans?

DB: Yes, I knew I was going to get that reaction and, candidly, I thought I could live with it. I'm an obsessive over-researcher so I looked at cold readings, muscle readings, the wonderful fraudulent devices used by mediums, the works. But what made the story interesting, worthwhile, wasn't the fraud. Do we need another book debunking dead mediums?

The whole point of my book - the one I knew would get me in trouble with the Randis of the world - was that possibility exists, that some things remain genuinely fascinatingly explicable, and that there are still questions that deserve to be answered in the realms of the supernatural. Even if we only learn that "supernatural" is the wrong word, that the real answer is that we simply haven't found the limits of the natural world yet.

TDG: The book does a marvellous job of putting the reader 'in the head' of the SPR investigators, by outlining their emotions on certain issues, their motivations etc. Did you have to take some creative licence in writing in this manner, or were these personal facets obvious from the articles and correspondence uncovered during your research?

DB: Good question - and the short answer is all those descriptions are based on fact. I knew doing the book that I'd have to be scrupulous about the research because it's a controversial subject. Plus I tend to be pretty meticulous by nature - my sons tell me I'm a born nerd. That's not to say that my own perceptions or ideas don't color the way I work. For instance, I found the Sidgwicks quite charming - despite their very upper class ethic and despite the fact that Nora Sidgwick was so upright and humorless and often socially inept. I liked her awkwardness and her stubborness and her courage and so the picture I draw is a very positive one. It might have been less so in someone who found those qualities not so endearing.

TDG: To finish, the tough question - but you can keep your answer extremely short, no need for an explanation. In light of your experience in writing Ghost Hunters, if you (personally) had to answer the question with only a yes or a no: is there something beyond death?

DB: I don't know. But I will tell you that before I researched the book, my answer would have been No. So I'm glad I took the time and trouble - it's made the world a more interesting place for me.

GHOST HUNTERS is available from Amazon US and UK

Dr Sean Kingsley is an archaeologist and historian with over 15 years’ experience exploring ancient ruins. An internationally renowned marine archaeologist, Sean holds a doctorate in the archaeology of the Holy Land from Oxford University and is a Visiting Fellow at the Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at Reading University. He is also the Managing Editor of Minerva, the International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology.

His sixth and most recent book is titled God's Gold (Amazon US and UK). The book "explores the fate of the greatest biblical treasure in history, the central icons of the Jewish faith looted from the Temple of Jerusalem...using untapped historical texts and new archaeological sources, Sean Kingsley unravels the incredible history of this treasure; its character; and religious, political, and financial meaning across the ages." You can find more information about God's Gold at the official website.

-----------------

TDG: Thanks for giving up some of your time to talk to us Sean. Firstly, I'd like to ask if you could briefly introduce yourself to readers, how you came to find yourself searching for the lost treasure of the Jerusalem Temple, and the conclusions you came to regarding the whereabouts of this treasure.

Dr Sean Kingsley: In 1991 I turned my back on a stable profession to pursue a dream: exploring ancient shipwrecks off central Israel. One day as a storm swept down from the Carmel Mountains, forcing a break from diving, I chanced upon a letter in The Jerusalem Post written by Israel’s Ministry of Culture, which accused the Pope of imprisoning the gold candelabrum plundered from the Temple of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70, deep beneath Vatican City. If true, the political implications were astonishing.

Though sidetracked by discovering twelve ancient ships that year – the largest concentration in the Mediterranean – and going on to write a doctorate at Oxford University on Holy Land maritime trade, I never forgot that letter. An obsession grew, and as I took on the roll of Managing Editor for Minerva magazine in London, the international review of ancient art and archaeology, I embarked on a journey of truth, wherever it would take me.

The Temple treasure of Jerusalem is to my mind at least as important historically as the Ark of the Covenant and Holy Grail, and I was astonished that nobody had explored this conundrum scientifically before. What was the forensic evidence? Could God’s gold really lie under lock and key in the Vatican – a plot straight out of a Dan Brown novel – or was the reality even more dramatic? I had to know. This loot is not dead, it lives on as a symbol of hope, with the candelabrum even serving as the insignia of the state of Israel. The changing meaning of these artistic masterpieces down the centuries and into the modern era are intriguing. God’s Gold was to be both a personal quest and a biography of the religious, artistic, political and social history of these icons.

The journey was long and arduous. Without giving away the plot, over ten years I twice circled the Mediterranean, pursuing a trail of evidence from Jerusalem to Rome, Tunis, Istanbul and back to the Holy Land. In Rome I was almost arrested by the carabinieri and had machine guns pointed at me outside the presidential palace in Tunisia. In the final analysis – and with no political or religious axe to grind – I proved that the Temple treasure was never in the Vatican City. The reality and its final resting place, far closer to Israel’s parliamentary assembly, the Knesset, is even more startling.

TDG: Do you really think that the treasure could have survived for all these years, without being either destroyed accidentally or for reasons of trade?

Dr Sean Kingsley: Today’s Reality TV generation is bred on a diet of fame and fortune, the dream of quick-fix wealth. $500 million worth of silver found in a ship’s hull is seen more as liquid cash than living history. It is normal for us to define ancient treasure in monetary terms. If any ancient civilization would have melted down the treasures of Jerusalem, it would have been Rome. Vespasian came to a throne and Empire bankrupted by his predecessor, Nero. The army was unpaid, the city mob gnashing its teeth, and Rome itself in desperate need of a facelift after the great fire of AD 64. The new ruler needed an estimated 4 billion sesterces to put the state back on his feet – around $4.5 billion. Through modern rose-tinted spectacles we would have expected Vespasian to have quickly turned the holy icons of Jerusalem into fast cash.

The fact that historical texts prove he didn’t speaks volumes about antiquity’s attitude towards this loot. The gold and silver art and tax revenue that Rome plundered from the Second Temple, estimated at some 50 tons, was a sufficiently massive cash injection to satisfy Vespasian’s immediate financial crisis. The foundations of the Colosseum in Rome cost at least $200 million and, as an inscription proves, were paid for from the spoils of Judea.

But spin and propaganda were infinitely more crucial. Vespasian had been a nobody, a country hillbilly whose rural accent people laughed at. His family reared mules. How could he justify his new imperial, Flavian dynasty? The Temple treasure of Jerusalem was a pagan godsend. Vespasian packaged the fall of the Holy City as the greatest battle in history and so coveted the menorah, Table of the Divine Presence, and Jewish trumpets as the physical expressions of the Flavians’ ultimate foundation myth. Put simply, the most important forms of communication between man and the God of the Old Testament were worth more alive than melted down into cash.

The same power behind the Jewish icons guaranteed their survival down the centuries. When the emperor Justinian conquered the Vandals of North Africa and recovered God’s gold from Algeria, it gave early Christianity the legitimate right to rule because now the followers of Christ controlled and possessed the religious tools of the past, biblical Israel.

So, yes, a web of texts and archaeological remains lead to one objective conclusion: God’s gold survived intact for 800 years into the early seventh century AD, when it disappears from the pages of history.

TDG: In terms of the 'mythology' of the treasure, much of the attention in recent decades has focused on the information in the Copper Scroll. Is this a topic that you looked into in any detail, or was your investigation entirely separate?

Dr Sean Kingsley: The enigma of the Copper Scroll, found in Cave 3 along the Qumran cliffs in the Dead Sea in 1952, is one of the most intriguing and, to many, convincing sources that explains the fate of the Temple treasure of Jerusalem. I dedicate two chapters of my book to making sense of this Hebrew document.

For the uninitiated, the Copper Scroll is a list of sixty-one buried deposits listed by volume, value, and hiding place – a veritable treasure map leading to $3 billion, by some estimates. To many scholars this is the master key to the treasures removed from the Temple to escape the greedy clutches of Rome. Incised on copper in AD 70, these precious relics were squirreled away across the Judean Hills by Jewish High Priests. Thus, for instance, Item 7 tells us that:

In the cavity of the
Old House of Tribute, in the
Platform of the Chain:
65 bars of gold.

But little in this bizarre document makes sense as historical reality. First of all, no expert agrees on its date: to some it was hidden by Essene Jews in AD 68; to others it was penned during the Bar Kokhba Revolt of AD 134. If we play with the idea of the scroll being written by worried High Priests determined not to let Rome get its hands on God’s gold, then consider this reality. Titus is encamped outside the gates of Jerusalem with over 22,000 troops. The House of God is about to fall. The atmosphere would have been desperate and the decision to smuggle the Temple art and money out of town would have been a last-ditch act decided upon at the last minute.

But the so-called secret to its hiding places was incised on copper, a process that would have taken weeks. Copper was a formal medium for writing inscriptions in the Roman world and utterly inappropriate for this time and place. At best, a High Priest would have grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled some notes. Writing on copper is at least ten times slower than writing on papyrus or leather, which is what is used for every single one of the other 850 Dead Sea Scrolls.

Further, the cryptic notations of places cited in the Copper Scroll would have been non-sensical to anyone other than the person who wrote them. Place names are not provided, only mnemonic hints. Dr John Allegro believed he’d cracked the code, and led expeditions to the Dead Sea between 1960 and 1963, even with the support of the King of Jordan. His search was utterly worthless. Most probably the treasure of the Copper Scroll was pure myth, written long after the fall of the Temple as nostalgic literature yearning for a brave old world – as Dr Jozef Milik, the document’s official publisher, concluded. Or it listed taxes gathered by Jews between AD 70 and 134 in anticipation of the rebuilding of the Temple after the fall of Rome. But what is certain is that nowhere does this Disneyesque scroll refer to the central and most precious artistic icons of Jewish worship – the candelabrum, Table and trumpets. Texts and wall reliefs on the Arch of Titus prove that all three treasures made it safely to Rome in AD 71. As absolutely fascinating as it undoubtedly is, the Copper Scroll is a castle in the sky in the real quest for God’s gold.

TDG: Doesn’t the fact that copper was used as the medium indicate though that this is a document meant to stand the test of time, just as would be expected of something that records the location of important treasure? Or is this a misconception?

Dr Sean Kingsley: Rome used copper exclusively for monumental inscriptions set up formally in public forums. Everyday correspondence and documentation were recorded on papyrus or leather parchment. Records of treasures in temples across the Mediterranean were not documented on metal. Given the Copper Scroll’s concealment in a cave, and presumed creation solely as a guide to some kind of treasure, the use of this metal is a contradiction in terms in my opinion. What’s the benefit of using copper for a text spirited away in a cave in the Dead Sea? To stand the test of time? Well, the 850 Dead Sea Scrolls haven’t fared so badly over the centuries.

This debate will run and run, with every one and their dog having a different opinion. If the leading experts can’t agree on this scroll’s date and function, then there’s no short-term answer. But we have to be very weary of projecting our own image of what constitutes a treasure map on antiquity. There lies if not madness, then certainly Walt Disney!

TDG: In the past two decades, much of the speculation about Temple treasure, and related topics such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, has entered the public consciousness via books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail (and more recently of course, The Da Vinci Code), and Graham Hancock's Sign and the Seal. Most scholars and orthodox historians dismiss these books, but it has to be admitted that they act as a great 'gateway' for people to get interested in historical topics. What are your personal thoughts on this genre of books?

Dr Sean Kingsley: The ‘Brownitis’ genre is terrific fun, but also a double-edged sword. You’re completely right that it serves as a welcome peg to get the public interested in the past. Few scholars other than perhaps Erich Segal or David Gibbins can produce such literary excitement as Mr Brown. However, the expectation level amongst public and publisher alike is now completely unrealistic. People now think that recovering ancient treasure or exposing major archaeological remains inevitably hinges on codes, cryptology and - next-up from Dan Brown - ‘keys’. The bar of how to write popular history and archaeology books is now ‘fantastically’ high. This isn’t Brown’s fault but the publishers for packaging fantasy as fact.

I welcome and thoroughly enjoy adventure novels about lost treasure (and would particularly recommend Paul Sussman’s The Last Secret of the Temple (Amazon US and UK), published by Bantam). But there is a perception problem here, which is stopping excellent research, written in accessible, popular form, reaching the public. In a book review I have already been accused of being Graham Hancock, even though I qualify all my facts and sources and have worked as an academic for fifteen years. And a well-placed member of the publishing fraternity even had the audacity to suggest I make up some stories for my book – total sacrilege, which I would never entertain! Meanwhile, controversy sells, and the real-life Indiana Jones often finds his book ideas dubbed too respectable.

Like everyone else, I greatly look forward to Dan Brown’s forthcoming The Solomon Key. Not least because during my research in Jerusalem I was told that Brown had been treading similar ground to me. Is my own book the real-life story of Temple treasure that he’s going to be grappling with next, I find myself wondering? But the Brown bubble will inevitably burst, and I hope publishers and public will appreciate that books like God’s Gold have as much real-life drama as the dreamland of the fictional novel or pseudo-historical books that are so popular today.

TDG: In recent years the Middle East, largely due to underlying religious tensions, has become an extremely dangerous location to work - especially when it comes to locations of religious significance such as the Temple Mount. Did you encounter any difficulties in carrying out field research?

Dr Sean Kingsley: Generally, the West sees the East as a battleground. Fear not. More people should visit the Holy Land from Lebanon to Jordan. The security situation inside Israel is good right now. Very early on I made the decision not to tell anyone outside a tight group about my research – I went under cover and visited people and places under the radar. The Temple treasure is such an emotional subject that I suspected getting through security from Israel into the West Bank by declaring an intent to go and find the gold candelabrum just wouldn’t have been wise!

By going under cover I got to almost all of the sites I needed to investigate. The Temple Mount was calm, although my photography of clear traces of large-scale archaeological destruction by the Islamic authorities did raise unwanted attention. In the West Bank, both Palestinian police and Hamas checked me out, but playing the tourist card worked well. I suppose my cover is now well and truly blown for the future.

Oddly, my biggest security scare was in Rome, where Berlusconi and friends were helping celebrate the centenary of the Great Synagogue. For taking notes and trying to photograph the media scrum and candelabrum on top of this House of God, Israeli and Italian security tried to take my camera away. In the end, I charmed the heavies (in Hebrew) but was forcefully expelled from within the first of the two security cordons I’d slipped through.

In terms of the big picture, it is precisely because of the Temple Mount and Haram al-Sharifs’s centrality to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the inevitable future breakdown of final status talks of Jerusalem, that I pledged not to personally dig up God’s gold. The Mount has rightly been called a time-bomb of apocalyptic dimensions by Meron Benvinisti, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem. All hell can break out here at the drop of a hat. Imagine if the gold candelabrum – the light of Israel – re-surfaced? Here would be divine proof of the arrival of the end-times and justification for replacing the Dome of the Rock with a Third Temple. I would not like to be part of such a doomsday scenario. Anyway, to me treasure has always been about knowledge, not possession.

TDG: All the same, doesn’t your book raise the likelihood that others might attempt to recover the treasure (from both Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists, through to Mossad or even simple treasure hunters)? Is it wise to discuss the possible existence of this treasure openly?

Dr Sean Kingsley: I’d be mightily surprised if Israeli intelligence hasn’t collated a file on this subject by now. I don’t equate my search for historical truth with the politicization of the past. As an archaeologist I have an obligation to follow research through to what I consider to be an objective conclusion, wherever it may take me. The world has an intrinsic interest in this subject and I believe I’ve dealt with the treasure’s diaspora across 550 years in a responsible way. Was it wise for Schliemann to dig up Troy and expose pots covered with swastikas, Greco-Roman symbols of good luck adapted by Adolf Hitler into the most despicable image in history? Can we blame the Schliemann’s of this world for future fanaticism? I think not.

TDG: In terms of adventure, it’s hard to top the quest for God’s Gold. What’s your next project, and are there any other plans on the horizon for an adventure of this scale?

Dr Sean Kingsley: God’s Gold was a logistical nightmare. I had to ‘consume’ a vast amount of sources and get to grips with centuries of civilizations. Great treasures of global proportions are far and few between these days. So, I think I’ll take a break from the quest for now.

In any case, more immediate matters are pressing, like global warming and religious fanaticism. Although I am technically an atheist, I’m especially infuriated with the immaturity of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion diatribe, now reinforced by Christopher Hitchens’ god is Not Great. The extremist anti-god views of both writers are not helpful and flag up problems we all know about intimately already, rather than searching out and suggesting healing solutions. I may not have faith in a god in the traditional sense, but everybody has the right to prayer and worship. Both scholars utterly fail to understand how religion works historically, let alone the cultural poverty we’d have without it: just think of the great art, music and architecture spawned by the synagogue, church and mosque down the centuries. How many great books would have been lost to mankind if monasteries hadn’t safeguarded them for posterity? So next up, I feel the need to write a balanced book explaining the social and psychological role of gods in antiquity. Many of the great mysteries of life may have been answered by science, but does this becalm the soul at times of family or personal crisis or tragedy? Science is totally incapable of nourishing the spirit, rather than the intellect. Of course God has a central role to play in modern society.

Researchers Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop are researchers who blog their thoughts on ufology and cryptozoology at their website, UFO Mystic. Both have been involved in anomalies research for more than 15 years. Greg recently published the well-received book 'Project Beta' (Amazon US and UK), which investigated how intelligence agencies may have been active players in the mental disintegration of researcher Greg Bennewitz. Nick has published many books on ufological and cryptozoological topics, the most recent being '3 Men Seeking Monsters' (Amazon US and UK), 'Body Snatchers in the Desert' (Amazon US and UK), and 'On the Trail of the Saucer Spies' (Amazon US and UK).

TDG: Thanks for your time guys. Starting with the obvious question - how did each of you get involved in ufology/anomalies research to begin with, and how have your views (on both the phenomenon, and the current state of research) evolved up to this point in time?

Greg Bishop: I have no idea. I started by reading all the UFO/ Fortean books in my local libraries when I was in grade school, then lost interest until I was about 25. At that point, I had a very difficult time with life events and was ridiculously depressed all the time, then I read an article on Wilhelm Reich by Robert Anton Wilson in a now-defunct zine called Phenomena, and my life changed for the better. You might say that UFOs and other strange stuff saved my life.

For many years, I was content to absorb the information and believe that aliens from other planets were visiting us, abducting people, and hiding saucers in remote underground bases. After a few years, I realized that there is little or no objective and/or reliable evidence to support these rumors, and continually turning the scenarios over in your mind while obsessing on the sometimes mutually exclusive "facts" can drive you nuts. I also noticed that people who believe completely in one version of UFO events would defend that narrative to the exclusion of other, just as unbelievable stories. It was like living in an insane asylum without walls.

In 1991, a couple of friends and I started a magazine called The Excluded Middle. My reasons for doing this were many, but it was mainly because it allowed me access to meet and interview almost anyone who interested me. You might be surprised to know that the single greatest influence on my thinking at that time was Dr. Dean Radin, the parapsychologist who I was privileged to meet and interview in 1996. After a five hour interview in which he carefully explained his view of reality, causality, and the illusion of time until he was sure I "got it," I felt that his view at least partially explained some aspects of the UFO enigma.

Although we didn’t talk about UFOs as such, he explained that his research seemed to show that time is only a construct invented by humans to make sense of events that were of concern to our physical bodies in a four dimensional reality. Since words are also an artificial construct, it is difficult to use them to describe something that we cannot perceive with our senses and enculturated reality. I took this advice a step further to start to understand UFO events as something that seems to "pop in" to our perception occasionally from this non-time/non-space area, where everything and every-time exists, has always existed, and will always exist. It’s just so far from our "common sense" understanding of things, that it seems like magic (or the paranormal.)

Nick Redfern: My interest in UFOs began in 1978, when I was thirteen. At that time, I hadn't really given the subject any more thought than the average person does - or does not. Like most 13 year old boys in suburban, central England in the late 1970s, I was more interested in punk rock/new wave music, girls, and football (soccer that is - not the rugby-with-pads "football"!). Actually, not a lot has changed in the intervening 29 years (laughing)!

But it was in '78 that my father told me a story that related to his time working in the British Royal Air Force on radar. He recalled how, in September 1952, on several occasions, unidentified objects were tracked on the radar scopes over the North Sea performing all sorts of incredible movements and speeds. Aircraft were scrambled to intercept these things, but the pilots couldn't get close enough to make an identification, and were finally forced to return to base. Everyone involved was sworn to secrecy and told not to speak outside of official channels about what had occurred. Well, when my dad related this to me, it really got me thinking about the subject, and I then began reading books, subscribing to some of the small magazines and newsletters that existed back in the UK then. From there I began doing some research on local cases, hooked up with UFO groups, began doing a bit of writing and it all took off from there.

My views have definitely changed over the years. Like many researchers of UFOs, I suspect, I came into the subject believing that the evidence suggested that ET was among us and that Government agencies were keeping this data from us. However, over time my views began to change and I came to realize that the ET theory wasn't strange enough to explain the facts. There were, for example, supernatural and occult tie-ins with many cases.

In other reports, UFOs would be seen in conjunction with other weird phenomena - Bigfoot encounters, paranormal encounters, synchronicities, etc. Today, I'm more of a belief (a word I hate to use, but it will suffice) that much of the collective weirdness that we see on this planet is inter-connected. I see that there is a genuine mystery and intelligence behind the UFO puzzle; however, I see it from more of a Keel/Vallee angle; with a phenomenon that camouflages its own origins; changes its appearance to suit the cultural expectations and beliefs of the people of the age it appears in; and is interested in 2 central issues as it relates to us: deception and manipulation.

I see nothing positive about the UFO presence, and suspect that whatever it is, it has no good intentions at all. I'm more in line with Charles Fort's "We Are Property" angle.

As far as the current state of research is concerned, I see good and bad. There are the old guard, who want to keep ufology where it was in the 50s - the "nuts and bolts"/Keyhoe type stuff. Fair enough if that makes them feel comfortable and safe. But comfortable and safe are not what ufology should be about. For example, I could not care less to hear another story about how someone thinks they were taken on board a UFO and have ova or sperm removed. Okay, it's very distressing to the person and they have my sympathy for the way in which it may have emotionally affected them; but having 10 or 10,000 such reports still does not resolve what is at the heart of the abduction issue, and why things are occurring. And it never will.

However, I'm far more interested when someone - such as Rick Strassman - says that DMT can actually be directly linked to abduction style experiences and may allow us to interact with the intelligence behind the phenomenon.

Why? Because that suggests a tangible doorway to the actual answers we seek, rather than just more and more identical testimony. So, I think there needs to be less conventional thinking of the line that: "It's all alien and the government is hiding the evidence in a secret hangar." And, instead, more thinking that delves into issues such as quantum physics, the works of Crowley and Parsons that (pun intended) can clearly open some doors on the UFO subject; as well as altered state research, ritual magic, and more - all of which are inter-linked with UFOs in my view.

Of course, the old-timers utterly cringe at such ideas - because it loosens the moorings on their old-time ufological safety-nets. Too bad for them. Ufology will never progress by standing still or going backwards.

TDG: Once we move into considering the phenomenon in terms of altered states though, the obvious question arises: is this all in people's head? DMT entities or Crowley's Lam may be fascinating in themselves, but how do we approach the topic in a scientific way?

Nick Redfern: As I see it, that is (and always has been) the biggest problem: namely trying to use scientific disciplines to resolve something that doesn't seem to adhere to conventional science, as we understand it. My personal view is that the reality behind the UFO phenomenon is somewhat Tulpa-based. In the sense that it appears in a fashion that is acceptable and "believable" to the culture and society of the period in which it manifests - such as demons and gods to the people of ancient times; or fairies and goblins in the Middle Ages of England; or long-blonde-haired contactee-style aliens in the 50s; and the emotionless, black-eyed Grays of today.

But I also believe that although we create the image Tulpa style, that there is a core intelligence behind the phenomenon also, that it is molded in its appearance according to our beliefs. I also believe that this suits the intelligence to allow its appearance to be molded, because I consider it to be deceptive in nature. But the biggest problem is as you rightly ask: how do we judge this scientifically?

I don't believe - currently, at least - that it is remotely possible to scientifically determine the validity of the Tulpa angle, or DMT-driven, manifested pixies. So that is why I tend to look for the answers in less rigid, conformity-driven areas. If DMT works, or invoking these things according to archaic rites works, then to me that is as valid as anything undertaken in a lab. However, I think many UFO researchers steer clear of such controversial areas, because they are fearful of it destroying their reputations with their peers. Fortunately, reputations mean little to me. Data, evidence, and a drive to find the truth - and to hell with whether people think I'm crazy or not - are all that matters.

But from there, we need to delve more into why precisely DMT and such rites and rituals work. So, ironically, rigid science may be the last place we will find the answers. Doubtless there will be some who will now consider me a witch or a warlock for digging into such areas! But what the heck: sixty years of looking for answers in a purely scientific realm has got us absolutely nowhere in terms of definitive answers.

Greg Bishop: Everything is in people’s heads. Although this statement seems like an exercise in ontology, I believe it to be ultimately true. Everything "outside" our consciousness has to come through our senses and our predispositions as to what should be expected. This is due to our ancient need for self-preservation, and it has worked very well for millennia. The way I choose to look at it is that most things happening outside our heads are pretty robust - if we put our hands in a fire, they will get burned, or if we run an experiment hundreds of times, we should get the same basic results.

The problem with UFOs is that you can’t run any experiments. The sightings and encounters are the "experiments," and while we see patterns and may be able to predict what will transpire the next time someone sees an unidentified light in the night sky, the control of where and when rests with the phenomenon itself. This places UFOs outside of the current methods of science, so maybe it’s the methods of science that need to change to adapt to the phenomenon. See the journals or website of the Society for Scientific Exploration for more on how science may be evolving to meet the paranormal on more equitable terms.

Another aspect of this problem is the worship of science as the ultimate arbiter of what we accept as reality. Science is a great and powerful tool. It has propelled us to an unheard-of level of sophistication in just a couple of centuries, and to a place I couldn’t have dreamed of when I was a kid, in only a couple of decades. How did people ever get by before science came to save us? When we talk about UFOs and other weirdness, the answer is evident. People looked within to use their subconscious tools, and got similar and repeatable results.

In a study of which I am sure many reading this are aware, Dr. Rick Strassman administered DMT to a group of test subjects who experienced episodes which are almost exactly like those described by UFO abductees. While all did not have these experiences, a significant portion did, and not all of them were aware of the available literature on abductions. Does this not meet at least one of the criteria for scientific proof? The results were repeatable and basically offered a UFO encounter on demand. The problem is that our society takes a dim view of "altered states," especially those that are induced by drugs - like those that were self-administered by Crowley - and millions of others since the 1960s. This has to stop if we are to advance our understanding of existence and the non-human intelligences that inhabit areas that we can’t get to with our physical senses.

It might be surprising to those who have read Project Beta that I hold these beliefs, but I think that there is a reality to the UFO enigma. Thousands of witnesses can’t all be deluded or lying. Our minds are sense organs just like our eyes, ears, noses, and skin.

TDG: Sceptics will say though that these are all just hallucinations, and the commonalities are due to similarities in brain chemistry and/or influenced by culture. Scientists such as Michael Persinger have put forth theories to do with stimulation of the temporal lobe which allegedly explain all the aspects of entity experience. Martin Kottmeyer has done research into the sci-fi precursors to abduction experiences and their similarity. What makes you think that UFO/entity contact experiences are more than just hallucinations? Is this not just another type of UFO belief system?

Nick Redfern: I think that the important question relates not to whether these events are due to hallucination or not, but to the actual nature of what a hallucinatory experience may represent. The possibility that hallucination can actually be externalized and given a semblance of reality (perhaps in a Tulpa-like form) is something I do not dismiss, and have a lot of time for. And, with DMT research, some critics have said that the results of such studies are merely internal experiences on the part of the participants. But I don't see it as being that simple; perhaps it acts as a key (in simplistic terms) that opens the door to another realm or realms. And what if those realms straddle both physical reality and the world of imagination and can skillfully interact in both?

Perhaps this is why the UFO phenomenon changes so often (from Flying Saucers to Flying Triangles; from long haired Contactee-style aliens to Black-Eyed dwarfs). Not because it's "all in the mind" in a skeptical sense. But that perhaps our imagination and perception actually influence how the phenomenon appears to us over time. So, ironically, hallucinatory experiences may be an integral part of the mystery - but not in a dismissive way. Rather, in a way that allows us to actually "meet the phenomenon", so to speak, but in an altered state - which may very well be the most successful way of doing so.

Greg Bishop: It depends on what you consider as "reality." The fact that so many people have had the same experience is an issue in itself. Also interesting is that many of them (according to abduction researchers) have had identical experiences that include details which have not been published. Personally, I don't agree with researchers lumping every experience into the "E.T.s are coming from other planets to steal our DNA" scenario. It seems like a plain example of anthropomorphic chauvinism.

Researchers like Persinger and commentators like Kottmeyer add valuable facts and theories to the database, but I believe that they are mistaken if they lump everything concerning extra-human contact into the "nothing but" category. Kottmeyer suggests that we take cultural influence into account concerning the recollection of the experience (specifically the Hill abduction case.) I don't think he was suggesting that all abductions are the product of hallucinations based on science fiction.

Everything we experience is an "hallucination." Our view of the world and reality is due to brain chemistry and structure and is influenced by culture. As I alluded to in another response, our reality is constructed out of things that seem to be true most of the time. If something goes "wrong" with the brain, and someone experiences things that most of the population does not, they are "hallucinating."

All of our waking moments, the brain is taking sensory input and furiously trying to stuff it into "boxes" that conform to our expectations. Most of the time, this works fine. During the altered state of a UFO experience or contact, not so well. Granted, there are plenty of people who go 'round the bend and relate episodes that have little similarity to the majority of the contact database. It is difficult to get much valuable information from these experiences. Those with a "message for the world" tend to turn me off, since it is likely that the person's ego is getting in the way of any core experience, and influencing their conscious recollections.

If we were able to be in the room when an abduction takes place, I don't know if we'd see aliens walking through the wall, or the person simply twitching around on the bed. In either case, I believe that there is occasionally something important going on here involving interaction with non-human consciousness, and that this has been going on for millennia. As Nick said, DMT and ritual magick may be keys to opening up this realm, which exists and has always been there. The tools are available.

TDG: After the early years of ‘nuts and bolts’ theories, followed by Keel and Vallee’s ultraterrestrials/Magonia theories, and then the abduction period of the 1980s, the past decade has seen somewhat of a change of focus in ufology, with books by both of you illuminating the role that intelligence agencies and disinformation have played in the field (Nick with On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, Greg with Project Beta), not to mention Richard Dolan's UFOs and the National Security State. When you consider these ongoing programs of disinformation, and meld it with the amount of cranks, frauds and conmen that have littered the history of ufology, is there any respectability/solid cases left with which to work?

Greg Bishop: There are plenty. The results depend on the researcher. Those with a predisposed idea about what they will find, especially those caught in the "aliens from other planets" dogma, will only find what they expect, and will continue to be stonewalled by both the phenomenon itself, and those in positions of power (this includes government agents) who show and tell them just what they want to see and hear. Most researchers and cultists want to find that the government is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. I think that they are hiding evidence of their ignorance. Sure, some portions of and persons in the government know a lot more than we do, but I think that they know a lot more about the results of extra-human contact - not the why, the how, or the where.

By dangling the promise of "real proof" in front of the gullible, they use the UFO subject to direct our attention away from the core phenomenon and towards evidence that we are more advanced scientifically and technologically than most people realize. This is a way to concentrate and centralize power. In a minority of cases this may be a legitimate enterprise (national security, prevention of wars, etc.) Meanwhile, UFO researchers and the public are trapped into looking at the pointing finger rather than what it might be pointing to. This is what the intelligence people have been working on for decades, and it has been very successful.

In order to escape this trap, interested parties need to take a broad and patient view of the information coming from "inside sources," believing nothing, but retaining everything. This can be difficult, but the payoff may be the realization that these counter-intel people ultimately have little power over us and our perceptions, and that we may be able to find some answers on our own. As someone once said, (I’m paraphrasing here) - the things that are available as open source information are far more revealing than the classified stuff. The goal is not the journey, the journey is the goal.

Nick Redfern: I think there are a lot of good cases that still defy explanation and that still point to the presence in our midst of "something else." But, as above, it's not what it appears to be. The ET motif is convenient to it, for its purposes in our world today. One hundred years from now it may be manifesting as something else, but still playing its games of manipulation. There are many high-quality reports in some of the early FBI, USAF, and UK Air Ministry files from credible observers. However, I firmly believe based on my research that the Government - via disinformation - has actively, and somewhat ironically, actually subtly promoted the ET angle via "leaked" documents, whistleblowers, etc., because that theory is seen as less disturbing than the idea that there is a presence among us that utterly defies explanation and that seems to inhabit a world where reality, magick, rite and ritual, Tulpa-style activity, perception, cultural belief, and drug induced "hallucination" all seem to play a key and integral role.

So, for me, that's the important thing: that there are good cases out there - many, I think, in fact - but they aren't what they appear to be. And sifting through the lies and disinformation to get to the core of the mystery is tough. And those in the know want us kept as far away from the real picture as possible; and instead, they want us in the safe realms of either it's ET or it's all nonsense.

TDG: Nick, you ruffled some feathers in ufology with your book Bodysnatchers in the Desert, in which you suggested that the Roswell incident had no 'extraterrestrial' underpinnings, but was in fact tied to biological tests on human subjects and experimental aircraft design. While I found your arguments convincing, at the end of the book when I looked back over the main thesis - that deformed Japanese POWs were used in tests on prototype aircraft suspended from balloons - it just seemed a bit too 'out there'. In the intervening years since publication, have your conclusions or interpretations of the evidence changed at all?

Nick Redfern: Actually - and very interestingly - many people have commented on the issue of "deformed Japanese POWs were used in tests on prototype aircraft suspended from balloons." In reality, none of my sources said that. What they said was that between May and August 1947 there were reportedly 7 or 8 (and maybe more) controversial high-altitude experiments undertaken in the New Mexico desert in which POWs and handicapped people were used in high-altitude exposure flights and other experiments, and were simply loaded into gondolas attached to these balloons.

However, the flight that involved a hybrid type device - namely a huge balloon array with a flying wing type prototype aircraft fixed rigidly below it that could be detached at a certain altitude - had nothing to do with deformed people at all. Indeed, how could deformed or handicapped people fly such a flying wing after it had become detached?

If you look at pages 110 to 112 of my Body Snatchers in the Desert book, it's made clear that on the key flight/crash that led to the Roswell legend, that this device required a trained crew - brought from Japan (where the original device that led to the US version was created) and given one of those "offers you can't refuse." They were fully trained Japanese pilots/POWs and not in any way handicapped or deformed; so there were several things, apparently, at work in that period (again, see pages 110 to 112 for confirmation concerning the trained-pilot angle).

Do I still accept that scenario? Yes I do. For a number of reasons. Since publication of the book, various people have come forward with accounts that corroborate the "human experiment" angle. As one of many examples, Keith Basterfield, a well-respected Australian researcher confirmed on the Project 1947 List - and to me personally - that he was told (by a guy whose father worked in British Intelligence) of a scenario practically identical to that in Body Snatchers - but that Keith had received this account some 6 months before Body Snatchers was published.

I have spoken directly at length with Keith's source and consider him very credible. The only difference was that Keith's source wasn't aware of the specific Japanese angle, but everything else was there: huge balloon arrays, high-altitude tests, the use of handicapped people, and accidents in the desert, etc. Also, several old-timers who read the book told me that there was a connection with the bodies found at Roswell and activities at Fort Stanton, New Mexico in the late 40s.

According to the official website of Fort Stanton: "...Fort Stanton later became America's first federal tuberculosis hospital and first German internment camp during World War II. The Fort also served as home to Japanese interned during the war, persons with mental and developmental disabilities, and State prisoners recovering from substance abuse." Now take a look at this map and see how close Fort Stanton was to Roswell and where the debris/wreckage was found. Fort Stanton is denoted on the map by a red star.

Following on from the Fort Stanton leads, I have uncovered intriguing files (officially declassified to me) confirming FBI, US Air Force and Intel community interest in a child who died in 1949 in Lincoln County (where the Roswell debris was found) and who - it was suspected - may have been affected by deliberate bio-warfare. I have all the files on this and they show that all the data on the death of this little boy was shared with the directors of the CIA, Office of Naval Intelligence, FBI, and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

So, there was definitely weird bio-related activity afoot only a few miles from the site of the "UFO crash." There are many other leads I've been pursuing that lead me to still state with confidence that if the truth of Roswell comes out, it will be shown to be inextricably linked with human experimentation.

So, my conclusion is that the UFO mystery on our world is largely comprised of 2 things: human-created activity that is then hidden by the Intel world behind a "UFO/ET" smokescreen; and an unidentified phenomenon/intelligence that appears extraterrestrial but that, in reality, has unidentified origins and unclear intentions, and seems to inhabit and originate in a strange realm, where ritual magick is far more likely to invoke it than sending radio signals into space ever will.

TDG: Continuing on with Roswell, in terms of the 'evidence', to me it has always seemed somewhat of an indictment of the approach that ufology (in general) takes. We have Brazel, a guy who has previously found debris on his ranch from military tests, finding more debris on his ranch. Surely, this should suggest to any researcher that they are likely dealing with a human - albeit probably top-secret military - solution to the mystery. Sure, the UFO memo, and later testimony of Marcel etc, offers much temptation to a ufologist to speculate on an extraterrestrial origin (and that should certainly be an option to consider, I'm not denying that). But many ufologists seem to want to latch on to that ET evidence, and ignore the simple facts such as Brazel's past experiences in finding debris. Your thoughts?

Nick Redfern: Yes, this is one of the most important factors of all in the Roswell controversy. Namely, that by rancher Brazel's own admission, prior to finding the "Roswell debris" he had found on the ranch-property the remains of 2 prior balloon tests launched by the military. So, what are the chances of a 3rd event occurring - where balloon-like materials were found - on the same location and it not be connected to that same military?

Frankly, I think that the idea that balloon-like materials from outer space could crash at the same place where 2 human-built balloons had previously crashed is absurd and stretching credulity way too far. But so many people so desperately want Roswell to be ET - and that is the problem. Frankly, I hate that "Oh, mommy, please let Roswell be alien" attitude.

Maybe aliens did crash at Roswell; but if they didn't, then the UFO community needs to have the strength to face that fact and move on to other cases. But so many people in the subject don't want to do that, because Roswell is the cornerstone upon which so much of present day UFO lore is based: a cover-up of the ETH, crashed UFOs, dead aliens on ice, "Hangar 18" type tales, Area 51 and claims of "back-engineering" etc. And if Roswell collapses, so does much of the lore. Too bad. Move on.

TDG: Okay, let’s move on then! What are your hopes (realistic or not) for ufology over the next decade?

Greg Bishop: My hope is that researchers will move away from the "nuts and bolts" theories of UFOs. That idea has run its course and hasn't gotten us any closer to the source of the phenomenon. There is good evidence that some in positions of power realized this a long time ago and have been covering up their ignorance with the appearance of omnipotence.

Those interested in UFOs should not confine themselves to the study of furtive gray beings who rape our women and unexplained lights in the sky. Study up on other aspects of the paranormal, like cryptozoology, ghosts, EVP etc. There are definite connections present, no matter how much those in each discipline would like to ignore each other. If you are so inclined, a look into intelligence operations and spycraft wouldn't hurt either.

Our views of how we perceive the world outside of our minds and how the mind interacts with that world will need to be changed if ufology is going to make any significant headway. 19th century science and Aristotelean logic (the methods by which most of ufology operates) sets the observer apart and above that which is being studied. If 20th and 21st century physics has taught us anything, it's that the observer sometimes affects events as much as the observed.

A radical idea: Someone should start a ufological movement that requires its officers and members to have ingested a psychoactive substance or engaged in some other sort of "mind-altering" experience! I believe that this may be an important aspect to "opening the doors" in regards to non-human intelligence. Their mere experience appears to open up paths to understanding that may operate beneath conscious awareness. It might be a new "Invisible College." The problem would be that the society at large would have to change apace with this new view of reality for any findings to have an impact. Stuck in the material world and forced to do things we often don't want to for our survival, most of the population will say "So what?"

Looking further into the future, I hope that ufology goes in a direction that irritates even me by the time I am as old as the old guard is now. It will mean that things are changing, and that is always a good thing.

Nick Redfern: My main hope for the next decade is that ufology will gradually move away from the standard "nuts and bolts" angle that has dominated it for 60 years. It dominated my thinking for a good while until I woke up about 10 years ago. Those who grew up in the Keyhoe era of Flying Saucers are reluctant to move on and embrace the high-strangeness type phenomena, and prefer to remain stuck firmly in the "good old days." It's a comfort zone for some of them; because the "other stuff" is seen as being too weird and unsettling. For them, it has to be ET, it has to be nuts and bolts, it has to be literal aliens abducting people for their DNA. These are the parameters that have been constructed, accepted, carefully nurtured, and promoted by the old guard of ufology, and that get people on seats at the conferences, and sell magazines. But this has got us nowhere in terms of actually understanding the core mystery. So I'm hoping that by 2017 we will have a radically different (and radical!) UFO research community that places as much importance on DMT research, Ritual Magick, and other things I've discussed in this interview, as it does on radar-visual cases and photographic analysis. And now I expect to be burned in effigy by outraged ETHers (laughing)!

Of course, 10 (or even 100) years from now, we could still be asking "What really happened at Roswell?" or "Did aliens kill Captain Mantell?" That would be truly depressing. The past is gone. The early years of ufology are long gone, and there is only so much now that can be learned from what has come before. Let's move forward, and think outside the box (because thinking inside it has got us nowhere in terms of actual answers). Let's see if we can encourage people to realize that much of ufology needs a good, radical overhaul. In short, ufology needs its own V for Vendetta.

Robert Bauval turned Egyptology upside down in the mid-1990s when he put forth his ‘Orion Correlation Theory’ – the hypothesis that the three pyramids of the Giza Plateau in Egypt were laid out to mimic the three stars of the constellation Orion’s belt. His ideas provoked both genuine interest and absolute outrage within academia, and his theory remains controversial. Now, twelve years on, Bauval is back with a new book, 'The Egypt Code' (Amazon UK), which not only revisits the Orion Correlation Theory, but goes even further by proposing that the sky was of ultimate importance to the Ancient Egyptian conception of cosmic balance. He kindly gave us some time to discuss the new book, and also his thoughts on numerous related issues.

SR: Hi Robert, and welcome back! It's been a while - over six years since your last solo outing, with Secret Chamber, and a few years since Talisman with Graham Hancock. Has all this time been devoted to the writing of the new book The Egypt Code?

RB: Hi Greg. Yes, it's been quite a while since Secret Chamber was published. Time does indeed fly. In February of 2005 I moved from England to Egypt with my wife Michele. My publishers, Century Books (Random House) had fixed the publication date of The Egypt Code to October 2006, which was great because it gave me the chance to write the book at a pace that allowed me to also bring into it the experience of being on location. Writing this genre of books is not solely sitting at a desk and typing, as you know. The final draft was completed in early 2006 and the editing and production stage was wrapped up this summer. The Egypt Code is now ready to go public.

SR: It's been more than a decade since the 'alternative Egypt ' genre really hit the mainstream with The Orion Mystery, Fingerprints of the Gods and the 'Age of the Sphinx' controversy. Since that time, things have settled down quite a bit, with few new discoveries or theories. Do you think The Egypt Code may spark a bit of a revival of these topics in mainstream discussion?

RB: The controversies that were generated in 1990s have been debated to the hilt. It's now time to move the discussion onwards. The Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) remains controversial. So be it. The Egypt Code takes the thesis forward to fit the notion of a sky-ground correlation into the overall context and timeframe of pharaonic Egypt. It takes on board many issues that were not dealt with in my previous books, and seeks the common denominator that motivated the 3000 years of pyramid and temple building along the Nile.

The Egypt Code, as the title implies, looks for the 'code' or 'law' which could explain the astronomical alignments, specific locations and sky symbolism of the main religious monuments, and also the migration of religious centres along the Nile. Although it is well known that the 'law' of Maat (the 'cosmic order and balance') was the basis of pharaonic rule, The Egypt Code argues that it was actually 'read' in the sky as a sort of 'astrology' in the short and long-term cycles of the celestial bodies. More to the point, it shows how the ancients may have attempted to create a social order that would respect and be in perfect tune with the cosmic order, and consequently how they integrated the celestial cycles into those of their earthly realm as a counterpart of the visible cosmic world.

Now will this cause a 'revival' in discussions of these controversial topics in mainstream Egyptology? I very much hope so. But really The Egypt Code was not written with this in mind. The intention is to show to all how once, long ago, a people had devised and put into practice a system of social order that was in full harmony with Nature and acknowledged its integral connection to the larger cosmic environment. Such a system induced awe and respect for Nature and its cycles and the wonders of the cosmos, and provided the basis for responsible rule, Maat, based on a sense of stability and permanence that lasted several millennia.

SR: Indeed, the new book covers many aspects of astronomical observations which appear to corroborate the Ancient Egyptian fascination with 'staying in tune' with the sky. For those who haven't read the book yet, could you give a quick and simple summary of what you've uncovered?

RB: Yes. There are two interlocking themes. The first expands the thesis (from my previous books) that the ancient Egyptians regarded the beginning of time – which they called Zep Tepi – at the first appearance of the star Sirius in c. 11,500 BC, and shows how the landscape of the Memphite-Heliopolis region mimics the sky landscape that contains Orion and Leo at that epoch.

A new idea is introduced: that a section of the sun's path (ecliptic) from the Pleiades to Leo is also incorporated in the sky-ground scheme. The second theme involves the hypothesis that the myth of the returning 'phoenix' to Heliopolis can be explained by the so-called Sothic Cycle of 1460 years of the Egyptian calendar, and the Sothic cycle that began/ended in c. 1320 BC was a major contributing factor to the dramatic events that are related to Akhenaten and his solar city at Tell El Amarna. All in all, I try to show that the Egyptians 'followed' the changes in celestial landscape which, in their way of thinking, was following or adhering to the law of Maat, the cosmic law.

SR: Speaking of this need to 'stay in tune' - The Egypt Code marks somewhat of a return to your research from The Orion Mystery, into pyramid and temple complexes on the ground mimicking constellations in the sky – most notably the similarity of the layout of the Giza pyramid complex to the constellation Orion. However, in that earlier work, you tentatively tied the Dashur pyramids to the stars in the Hyades, and the Abu Sir pyramids to the Pleiades. In The Egypt Code, there is no mention of a Dashur correlation – is this a weakness in your thesis that the pyramids were built to mimic the stars in the sky?

RB: The pyramids of Dashur have always been the odd ones out. Evidence has convinced Egyptologists that the two Dashur pyramids, as well as that at Meydum further south, belonged to the pharaoh Snefru, founder of the 4th dynasty and father of Khufu. But three pyramids for one king is a serious "weakness" to the tomb theory of Egyptology. I do not mention Dashur in The Egypt Code because I have discarded my previous hypothesis that they may represent stars in the Hyades. It's true that this is also a "weakness" in the star-pyramids theory. In any case, in The Egypt Code a case is made that the 'star-correlation' scheme included only pyramids and temples in the Memphite region that are located immediately north of Abusir.

SR: If the Egyptian architects were truly aware of precession, as you surmise, why build temples which aligned with the rising of stars, only to have to continually adjust that alignment over time with the effects of precession by modifying the building? Of course, it's also an argument that could argue completely the reverse – surely over time, these necessary changes in alignment informed them of precession. Your thoughts?

RB: I remain convinced that the ancient Egyptians were aware of precession. Changing the alignments of temples to 'follow' the change in azimuth of a star such as Sirius created, as it were, a calendrical 'fingerprint' to mark the epochs – perhaps in the minds of the Egyptians this was another means to 'follow' Maat, the cosmic order.

SR: The Egypt Code seems to steer well clear of the really controversial 'alternative history' ideas – for instance, you mention the Giza alignment to what you term 'Zep Tepi' (circa. 11,500 BC), but do not advocate a lost civilisation from that time - rather, you describe its importance in astronomical terms only. Similarly, you discuss redating the Sphinx, but mention only Colin Reader's theory, and not the West-Schoch dating. Was this a conscious decision, perhaps in order to get more Egyptological recognition for your theories?

RB: I do not advocate a 'lost civilisation', nor have I done so in the past (although, of course, my colleagues, including Graham Hancock, have done so). Zep Tepi is a concept that, in ancient Egyptian ideologies, meant the 'beginning' or 'the first time'. I advocate that this concept was defined in the celestial landscape by the first appearance of Sirius in c. 11,500 BC.

I have not wanted to repeat the many discussion involving the West-Schoch case because I have done so at length in my previous books, as indeed many others also have. I highlighted Colin Reader's theory not because I seek Egyptological 'recognition' for my theories but because Reader makes a very good case that the Sphinx's causeway dates from the early dynastic period which, as it happens, agrees with my conclusion that it defines a date in the solar year of c. 2800 BC, which I have coined the 'jubilee date'.

SR: On your theory that the Egyptians built the pyramid complexes – in the third millennium BC – in the image of the sky at 'Zep Tepi' (in the 12th millennium BC): wouldn't this almost be an impossibility, to 'shift the sky' over that period of time and be able to picture how it would look, without the use of computers? Astronomy software makes it easy for us in the modern age, but was such a feat beyond the Ancient Egyptians?

RB: We do not need computers to visualise the effect of precession. Precession has been know for centuries, if not millennia, when no computers were around. There are two possibilities for the ancients: either they kept long term records, or they had some simple means to compute it. To be honest, I have no answer to this. All I can say is that the date '11,500 BC' is highlighted with astronomical as well as symbolic means in the Memphite-Heliopolis region developed by the pyramid builders. We can either ignore it or explore why and how it finds itself there. The scientific process says we should pursue the investigation, even if it defies some of our pre-established views.

SR: Despite the apparent hostility of Egyptology's orthodoxy towards yourself and others, like Graham Hancock, it seems that there has been more emphasis in Egyptology over the last decade on considering astronomical influences on the Ancient Egyptians (Kate Spence's work for example). Do you think this sea change in the orthodox view can be put down mainly to your work, even if only through the high profile that the controversy took?

RB: It is obvious that, at long last, astronomical influences – and especially stellar ones – have now crept into Egyptological orthodoxy. I would like to think that my theories have had something to do with it. Perhaps, as you say, because of the controversies that were created. If so, then this is a good thing and more controversy is probably needed.

SR: Lastly, to move away from the central topic: besides your research into ancient Egypt, are there any other 'alternative' topics that interest you? Any particular books or theories that you recommend taking a look at?

RB: My interest outside ancient Egypt – although linked to it – has been the Hermetic and Gnostic traditions. Although nothing very new has emerged in recent years, what is of particular interest is how ideologies linked to these traditions are being revived with a vengeance not in academic or historical books but rather in fiction novels such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

This, of course, is an area where fiction meets facts, where myth meets history, and where speculation meets proof. But isn't this the new way to liberate research from the yoke of academia and draw everyone into the discussion? Perhaps less known is the novel by the Spanish author Javier Sierra, The Secret Supper, which revives and brings to dramatic attention that gentle form of Cathar Christianity and how this may be the true 'code' in Da Vinci's masterpiece of The Last Supper (La Cena). I highly recommend this book because it shows how the dissemination of radical and controversial ideas can be better brought to the general public in the decades to come.

This interview originally appeared in Issue 6 of Sub Rosa magazine (free PDF download).

John Higgs has spent 10 years writing and producing in a wide range of media, producing both television and radio series as well as a best selling videogame for the PlayStation 2. John has recently released a book about the life of the infamous psychedelic advocate Timothy Leary, titled I Have America Surrounded (Amazon US and UK).

TDG: Hi John, thanks for your time, and congratulations on a wonderful book in I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary. First off, and if you'll excuse the pun, how did you first get 'turned on' to the idea of writing about Tim Leary's life of "flat-out epic grandeur"?

JH: I’ve known the English beat writer Brian Barritt for a good ten years or more, and from him I heard all the stories of Leary’s life, especially his time as a fugitive. Gradually I started to notice that whenever Leary was mentioned online or in the media, there was an awful lot of stuff that was wrong or out of context, and for years I kept saying that someone should write a book about him, something that could sweep away a lot of the confusion that surrounds him and put his life and ideas into perspective. Eventually, I got fed up with waiting and did it myself. It just needed to be done, really, it’s just too good a story to ignore.

TDG: As luck would have it though, as soon as you did another biography came out, by Robert Greenfield. There's been quite a bit of a reaction to Greenfield's book, with those close to Leary describing it as a hatchet job...I think Ralph Metzner stated simply that it was 'character asassination'. Your book seems to be more balanced - you certainly look at the negatives to Leary's personality, but you also try to understand the motivations, the mindset of the times etc. Was this a conscious decision, to try and present both sides of the story?

JH: Actually it wasn’t - certainly not during the writing. There are much more than two sides to any story. I’d be very wary of anyone who claimed to have written a ‘fair and balanced’ book anyway, I’m not sure that’s possible, for the decisions that influence what you put in and what you leave out are ultimately personal things. What I did do was try very hard to keep myself - and particularly my judgmental side - out of the book as much as I could. I tried to concentrate on just what happened and why it happened. I think that a reader is much more engaged in the story if you respect their intelligence and allow them to draw their own conclusions, and they are also more aware of how those opinions keep shifting as the book progresses. Let’s face it, by the time Leary is in solitary confinement in Folsom prison convinced that the arrival of a comet is a message to him from a galactic intelligence, its just not necessary to spell out that some things haven’t worked out too well!

So my approach was more like a portrait artist trying to capture a good likeness rather than a reporter trying to be neutral. A lot of decisions about the book, especially the pacing, the chapter headings and the title, are all chosen to give a sense of the guy, to capture that likeness. What I’m delighted by is that it seems to have worked, and that people who knew and loved Leary, and people who think he was an idiot, have praised the book for almost identical reasons. It’s certainly an approach I’m keeping for my next book, anyway.

TDG: In recent years, there seems to be a fair amount of blame being laid at Leary's feet for the negative status of hallucinogens in modern mainstream society. Daniel Pinchbeck, in his excellent Breaking Open the Head, labeled Leary "the central villain in the psychedelic saga...naïve, charismatic, sloppy, self-promotional and out of control." Do you agree with this assessment of Leary's role?

JH: Yeah, Leary gets accused of being the central villain of psychedelics about as often as he gets accused of being its central hero. I'm generalising wildly here, but the ‘villain’ label tends to come from people who have a professional or academic reputation to protect, and the ‘hero’ label from people whose interest in psychedelics is part of their lifestyle but not their career. This is partly because when Leary promoted LSD to the masses he was encouraging illegal behaviour, which obviously is something that professional people can’t publicly support.

But mainly it is argued that Leary went ‘wrong’ somehow, that he went ‘too far’ and brought the subject into disrepute by doing so. The ‘villain’ label is a common accusation, especially in academic circles, and in many ways it is understandable. Researchers are well aware of just how suspiciously psychedelic research is viewed, and in response they often insist that this negative image should not be linked to the drugs themselves or to research into them. Instead, the problem is blamed on those who have undertaken similar research previously - it is these earlier researchers who were ‘bad’, not our respectable researcher or his work. It’s not uncommon for researchers to replicate Leary’s work and use his ideas (‘set and setting’ for example) but not only fail to credit him, but to only invoke his name when they insist that their work is completely different to his.

But the fact is there is a lot of the weirdness inherent in psychedelics - far too much for academia to handle - and that’s true regardless of who is studying them. Pinchbeck strikes me as following the exact same path Leary lay down years earlier. For example, he’s now progressed to the stage where he is channeling apocalyptic messages from the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl. Now, I don’t want to belittle this experience, and it is clearly a big deal to him. But at the same time it is also a recurring occurrence in heavy psychedelic users, rather than a major new event. Its further evidence that Philip K. Dick’s messages from the alien supercomputer VALIS, Robert Anton Wilson’s messages from Sirius, or Leary’s Starseed transmissions are a recurring phenomena. I certainly don’t claim to understand what any of these experiences mean, but it is clear that there is a pattern there, and that this pattern arises from prolonged psychedelic use and is not the ‘fault’ of the first individual to experience it.

You can’t blame Leary for how weird psychedelics are – don’t shoot the messenger!

TDG: There could be a strong case though for condemning him personally for his lack of responsibility though, couldn't there? His actions caused severe upheaval for his family, in particular his children. Forgetting Leary's influence on a cultural level, what do you think of Leary the person?

JH: Oh it’s probably fair to say that there’s some truth in most of the dirt flung at Leary. You’d be hard pushed to find many people who believe that his actions were ‘responsible’, for a start, and he was certainly a bad father to Jack and Susan (although Zach Leary will tell you he was a wonderful step-father). I certainly wouldn’t argue with any of that, but I would argue against the importance people have put on it, especially recently, and how people have used it as an excuse to dismiss the significance of his life and ideas. I don’t think it is news that people are flawed, let’s be honest!

TDG: Do you think Leary paid enough attention to the history and traditional usage of psychedelics?

JH: To put this is context there was very little information available about things like this in the early 60s, when Leary first encountered psychedelics. Information about Eastern religion and thought was becoming available, but there was nothing like the understanding we have now about traditional drug use. Leary was very much a pioneer without a map, only really having the personal experience of people like Aldous Huxley to guide him. That said, if all the information that we have now was available, I'm not sure how much importance he would have placed on it - he was always much more concerned with the future than the past.

TDG: You also mention Koestler's theory of 'juvenilization', suggesting that Leary's dream of turning the world on may be something that comes to fruition through the generation following his. With the upsurge in interest in psychedelics and shamanism over the past decade, do you think this may actually have some validity?

JH: You know, I’m not convinced that this upswing in interest is as big as a lot of people think. It may well be that the Internet has allowed the Shamanically-minded to find others with similar interests, and to have access to much more information, and this has given the impression of an expanding scene. But ultimately only a small proportion of the population are attracted to shamanism, while the vast majority of people want nothing to do with it. I’m not talking about the normal religious or spiritual impulse here, but those who are prepared to force their head outside of this reality in order to see what’s out there. This is just a hunch that I can’t back up with figures, but I suspect that this proportion of the population remains pretty constant – it’s just that the visibility they have fluxuates (and the form they take shifts as well, from tradition tribal shamans to Victorian spiritualists or hippy Acid eaters.)

I see shamans like a goalkeeper in a football team – the guy who dresses differently from the rest of his team, and stands apart from them at the border of the portal. Now, a team only wants needs one goalkeeper at a time. What Leary did was pretty unique in human history, I think. By persuading millions to take LSD and pushing expanded consciousness into mainstream culture, he created a team with many goalkeepers at once. Perhaps not the best prepared or trained goalkeepers, but goalkeepers nonetheless! Of course, the situation corrected itself and we’re back to the normal one goalkeeper again – because the team works best that way.

So I’d say that Leary’s idea that in the future everyone will turn on isn’t likely to happen. But the ideas Leary brought back with - especially the idea that we create our own reality, are responsible for it and can change it - those have been absorbed and accepted by the next generation. That idea is the bedrock of things like NLP, life coaching and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for example, and is more likely to be discussed by businessmen than hippies. And of course, there’s the influence of the outbreak of LSD on the formation of postmodernism, which I mention in the book, which has had a massive influence on our current culture. So in this sense, I think the theory of juvenilization still stands up.

TDG: In the book, you very quickly discuss a few little known aspects of Leary's interests, one of which was his strong affinity with occultist Aleister Crowley. Do you have more details of how and when Leary became interested in Crowley?

JH: I nearly included a bit more about this in the book but I couldn’t be sure when Leary had first read Crowley. Robert Anton Wilson has written (from memory I think that it was in Cosmic Trigger) about how the message Leary channeled in prison (the ‘Starseed Transmission’) was eerily similar to that received by Crowley, which he recorded in The Book of The Law. Which is interesting, but it does beg the question of whether or not Leary had actually read The Book of the Law at that point. To the best of my knowledge, he hadn’t – I believe that Leary was introduced to Crowley’s books by Brian Barritt, who lived with him during his fugitive years in Algeria and Switzerland. I’m fairly certain that there wasn’t a copy of The Book of the Law in any of Tim’s homes during this period, although there were other Crowley books. But I can’t be sure that he hadn’t seen the book in America during the 60s, – it’s very hard to prove a negative such as this – and because I couldn’t be certain I left a lot of this stuff out. But yeah, Leary certainly identified with Crowley during this period, he believed they were both undertaking the ‘Great Work’, that of changing human consciousness.

TDG: To finish up - in the final chapter of I Have America Surrounded, you mention the question of what things would be like today without Leary, but quickly brand it impossible to answer. I'm going to put you on the spot though, with a twist. What if Leary had 'joined forces' with Aldous Huxley, Humphrey Osmond etc, in promoting moderate (and medical) use. Give me John Higgs' version of what the world would be like today (get as speculative as you like).

JH: Greg, you are a cruel man. That is not an easy question. You can certainly point to events in the Sixties that wouldn’t have happened – The Beatles would never have written ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, for a start , which is a horrible thought. But projecting beyond that…

Okay, to stick my neck out - if we assume that Leary had kept psychedelics among the academic elite, and that no-one else had come and taken his place and spread them to the masses, then neither you nor I nor most of your readers would have heard of them. What little research that would have been done – like the research before Leary - would have been contradictory and inconclusive. With no obvious commercial, military or controllable medical use on the horizon, research funding would have slowly dried up.

Now, there are many who have argued that the mass use of psychedelics – in particular the awareness of the interconnectedness of all things - was a major factor in the development of the environmental movement. Without this, there would be no-one trying to raise awareness of climate change. There’s also the argument – too long to go into here but which I find convincing – that we should thank psychedelics for the arrival of the personal computer and chaos maths. From that, we would not have the climate models that we have now. As a result, no-one would be aware of how much trouble we are in. All of which casts Leary’s ‘irresponsible’ behaviour in a different light, wouldn’t you say?

TDG: Thanks for your time John, appreciate it.

In the middle of 2006, a number of sensational video clips of UFOs were presented at a website titled the Australian UFO Wave. Word about the videos spread, as new videos continued to be added - some were excited by the amazing footage, others very cynical. At the start of August, a new video - this time of an actual alien - seemed to tip the scales for most everyone in favour of the site being a hoax. In mid-August, an Australian filmmaker by the name of Christopher Kenworthy stepped forward to claim responsibility, describing the project not as a hoax or deception, but as "an immersive artwork". Kenworthy also revealed that the site was part of a larger project, that of creating a documentary about the 'immersive artwork' and public reaction, which was made possible by a grant from the Australian Film Commission. Chris Kenworthy was kind enough to answer a few questions from TDG about the Australian UFO Wave:

TDG: Thanks for talking with us Chris. Can I ask, what inspired you to come up with the Australian UFO Wave website? Did you have a previous interest in UFOs and the paranormal, or was it just a sudden flash of inspiration?

CK: It's been on my mind for a long time. I've been interested in UFOs since I was a child, when I had a handful of experiences that were somewhat inexplicable. And even back then I had a strong urge to create simulations - I faked a few still photographs of UFOs, by taping outlines of objects to my window and photographing the result (without the window frame being in the shot). By focussing on the background, I made the UFO look slightly out of focus. They were pretty good for a nine year old.

But I've continued to have a variety of UFO experiences. This may mean I'm fantasy-prone, or that something else a bit stranger is going on. I have no idea, but it certainly interests me. And my desire to create this project was more like a compulsion. I felt the same when I made crop circles back in the nineties. I wasn't a major circlemaker, but I felt compelled to make formations - not to fool or trick people, but to be close to the phenomenon and to interact with it. And in those days, when I was making circles, I saw more UFOs than at any time in my life. Most circlemakers will tell you the same thing.

So, the Australian UFO Wave came out of all that history. I've been interested in visual FX all my life, and then I learned how to create FX, and in a couple of books and articles I showed how to fake a UFO as a means to demonstrating various FX techniques. Once I'd seen how it could look, and the effect it could have on people, this idea that had been simmering for a long time began to obsess me. The biggest surprise was that it received funding.

TDG: Do you think though that by 'making an entrance' via the Australian UFO Wave, you've opened yourself up to deep suspicion about any claims you make in future, even about your own personal history and motivations?

CK: Of course, and that's the price I pay. But that's the case for any UFO witness; people doubt what you say. It's just that in my case more people will doubt what I say. And that's OK. Whatever happens now, some people will assume I'm part of a dark plot to cover up the truth. If the government had called me up hired me to hoax UFOs, I might agree, but it was my idea from the outset.

TDG: Reading through what you describe as the aims of this 'immersive artwork': "1. To give people a taste of the drama and excitement of a UFO Close Encounter, creating a genuine sense of wonder." In your opinion, will people appreciate being given a taste of the drama, or will they be more inclined to not appreciate being taken for a ride?

CK: I must admit that I was afraid I might simply annoy people, but I've been relieved to find my Inbox full of praise ( as well as hate mail). Mostly it's from outside of the UFO community, but there are even some people from within the community who understand what I was trying to do.

TDG: The second aim, is "to improve research into videos of genuine UFOs...as we discovered, researchers are woefully equipped to spot fakes." As someone who can obviously do the faking, can you therefore provide real-world input on how to spot the fakes? With the low cost of high quality gear these days - and video being recorded directly to digital - have we reached a point where no video can be trusted, or will there always be a way to spot a fake?

CK: One of the points I wanted to make is that there are lots of ways to spot fakes, and that people should have seen them. Although people spotted the clues at the end, nobody wrote to tell me they'd seen the clues or mistakes that run throughout the earlier clips. People need to be more vigilant. Secondly, I wanted to underline that a clip should not be trusted (or shared on websites), until a reputable researcher has spoken to witnesses and had the original tape analysed. A couple of researchers did ask for more info and witness contact, but when we stalled they posted the clips on their sites anyway. Faking short clips is one thing, but faking an entire event (with actors acting as witnesses after the fact, and a full camera tape) - that would cost ten times our budget, just for one clip. So if researchers do their job properly, faking clips would be impossible for all but the highest budgets.

TDG: You also claim that the site shows "skeptics that they often rely on faith rather than evidence." What percentage of skeptics analysed the clips in a methodical way, rather than relying on faith?

CK: I have yet to hear of skeptics who did methodical research into these clips. Such research may have occurred, but I certainly wasn't informed, and most of what I read on the web or that was sent in emails consisted of the standard skeptical responses - balloons, meteors, lens flare...

TDG: Do you accept that many serious ufologists will view your project in a very dim light, as just one more thing detracting from serious research into the UFO phenomenon?

CK: I know that many are annoyed, but I also know that when these people see that I am a UFO witness who cares about the subject, they look at the project a little more objectively. I wouldn't want to harm research, but I think it needed a bit of a kick in the backside. That said, there are probably some fabulous researchers out there who were never taken in - I just wish they'd written in with their suspicions, or put them on the web early on. Lots of people did publish their suspicions once we got down to the last few clips (as plausibility was reduced), but we ran for two months with barely a whisper of suspicion.

TDG: Yet, on your site you make comment that "I do resent sitting in a cinema and hearing people review each scene (and even each line) out loud as they watch. Audiences are so critical that they fail to immerse, and rarely become engaged with the material. I wanted to create video art that, by its nature, drew people in to experience the raw emotions and the wonder of a UFO sighting." This seems to reflect a dichotomy in your own opinion - should audiences react critically, or immerse themselves? And doesn't a project such as the Australian UFO Wave just make it all the more likely that people do not "immerse themselves", for fear of looking naive and gullible?

CK: When I see a UFO clip on the web, I rarely get to the end without seeing the flaws, so I'm not immersed. Sometimes, though, I see a clip that's so convincing that my critical faculties have nothing to get hold of, and lo - I'm, immersed. Whether the clip is fake or not, that's a fantastic experience. That's what I hoped would happen to the general public when they viewed this project. But UFO researchers are not the general public, so I hoped that even if they got that thrilling sense of wonder, they would then switch their critical faculties back on. Perhaps some did.

I don't like an audience to be uncritical, but I prefer it if they do their criticism after the film is over. As a director I find it very difficult to watch a film without noticing the camera set-ups (and a thousand other technical details) moment to moment; but I try not to analyse all that until the film's over. I want to get lost in the story, just for a while. The problem with modern audiences is that they start the criticism while a film is still on.

And I would never say anybody was gullible for taking the clips at face value. If a magician shows you a good trick, you're not gullible for appreciating the illusion.

TDG: To what degree was the project meant for personal gain, either through advertisement earnings or through publicising your own name around the globe?

CK: The advertising over three months has brought in less money than I earn in a day - it was there initially to remove suspicion that this project was somehow funded. And now I leave the ads up as they contribute to the costs of running the site. But it's loose change, really. And the project itself wasn't a huge earner. The total budget was $15,000, and out of that comes insurance, legals, writers, actors, producers fees - and so on, so this project was for love more than money.

Every project I work on as a writer or director is for personal gain, but it's never solely for personal gain. I want to create worthwhile art. As for publicity, it remains to be seen whether this project will enhance my career or not. Of course, I hope that every project I work on will publicise my name around the globe, but that's an afterthought, and never a motivation.

This interview with Dr Jacques Vallee originally appeared in Issue 4 of our free online magazine SUB ROSA (PDF download). It is presented here for easy access, but we do recommend reading it in SUB ROSA as the graphical presentation is far superior. There are also a number of other fascinating articles in the magazine - why not download every issue...they are free after all!

There are few people who bring more credibility to the field of UFO research than Dr Jacques Vallee. As one of the most respected investigators of the phenomenon over the course of more than four decades, he has perhaps the widest experience and knowledge about the topic of any person living today. However, Dr Vallee brings far more to the field than simply his experience – he also brings the credentials of a true Renaissance man.

Born in France, he received a B.S. in mathematics at the Sorbonne and an M.S. in astrophysics at Lille University. After coming to the United States as an astronomer at the University of Texas – where he co-developed the first computer-based map of Mars – Dr Vallee later moved to Northwestern University where he received his Ph.D. in computer science.

He went on to work at SRI International and the Institute for the Future, where he directed the project to build the world's first network-based conferencing system as a Principal Investigator on Arpanet, the prototype for the Internet. He has since become a successful venture capitalist, and currently serves as a General Partner of Euro-America, a Silicon Valley group that invests in North America and Europe, primarily in high-technology.

In May 1955, aged 16, Dr Vallee first sighted a UFO over his Pontoise home. Six years later in 1961, while working as an astronomer, he witnessed the destruction of tapes which had recorded the tracking of unknown objects orbiting the earth. His interest in the UFO phenomenon became a career (of sorts) when he joined with Dr J. Allen Hynek in researching the UFO phenomenon for U.S. Air Force’s well known investigation, Project Blue Book. His contribution to the field was recognized by Steven Spielberg in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which the French scientist played by François Truffaut was modeled on him.

Since the 1960s, Dr Vallee has written a series of ground-breaking books on the UFO phenomenon. His 1969 book Passport to Magonia was instrumental in changing the perspective on anomalous sightings and experiences, as he set forth the hypothesis that the phenomenon was simply the latest incarnation of something which had been happening throughout human history (explained in past ages as fairies, demons, and signs from God). Dr Vallee’s rejection of the ‘nuts and bolts’ explanation of UFOs (as interstellar spaceships) gained him a hostile reception from some parts of the research field, leading him to describe himself at one point as a “heretic among heretics.” In 1979 he again challenged the ufological community with the publication of his book Messengers of Deception, in which he warned against the dangers of UFO cults, government deception, and the trickster nature of the phenomenon.

Dr Vallee continues to investigate ‘border phenomena’ in his own time, around the globe. He also serves on the scientific advisory board of Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, Nevada.

-----------------------

SR: Many thanks for taking time to talk with us Dr Vallee. First off, the obvious question – you haven't published any books since the Dimensions/Confrontations/Revelations trilogy, and your fascinating memoir of the early days of UFO research, Forbidden Science, in the early 1990s. Have you been involved in UFO research over the past decade, and if so, do you plan to write any more on the subject?

JV: True, I haven’t published any UFO book since Fastwalker ten years ago, but I have published several books on other topics, dealing with technology, finance and the history of the Internet. I am finishing an English translation of a novel called Stratagem, which has just been published in Paris. In the current situation I find it easier to say what I have to say in fiction form.

SR: Your fiction novels have actually been somewhat overlooked, at least in the English-speaking world – you have of course previously won th