It is in this context that von Lucadou developed a
psycho-social model of RSPK, as other people around the event are also
influencing it as they observe it. The model to study RSPKs has four phases:
(a)
Surprise. Typically, there is an individual who
is living significant emotional turmoil (oftentimes a teenager, but not
always), but because of some social dynamics cannot express it. The use psi, by
banging walls, moving objects, etc., becomes an alternate way to communicate
about their psychological turmoil. That person is called the “focus person”
because the psi events are focussed around him or her. Yet, the people
surrounding the focus person are also playing a role by their surprise, and by starting
to think that the explanation is to be attributed to some sort of malevolent
non-human entity (demon, evil spirit, ghost, etc.), rather than to the focus
person. In doing so, these people called the “environment” maintain
indeterminacy in the system by avoiding to observe the real system at play.
(b)
Displacement. After sometime, the events become
known and other people join in. They are typically believers in the existence
of non-human entities, such as psychics, self-declared parapsychologists, etc. These
newcomers are called the “naive observers,” because of their belief that
non-human entities are responsible for the phenomenon. The naïve observers
redirect the search for the problem source away from the actual source (the
focus person and his/her distress) hence there is a displacement of attention.
This allows the indeterminacy to be maintained, so that the psi phenomenon can
continue but usually in a different manner, as the message from the focus
person seeks to be understood by the environment.
(c)
Decline. After more time elapsing, other people
join in, but with a much more critical view of the events. They start to assess
more carefully what is going on, asking more thorough questions about what is
going on, introduce even measuring instruments, and at times can make a
connection between the events (which usually have a symbolic meaning) and the
unhappiness of the focus person. These people are called the “critical
observers”. Given that they pay a much closer look to the systems at hand, they
reduce the indeterminacy and by doing so the intensity of the phenomenon drops
sharply.
(d)
Suppression. At the end, society through the authorities
(police, social services, municipal works, etc.) get involved because of the
disturbances. They usually declare the phenomenon a hoax though the media,
often by accusing the focus person and his/her environment of being responsible
for all this. By having the authorities focussing intensely on the phenomenon,
no indeterminacy is left, and there is no more psi effect occurring.
The Belgian UFO wave
as a large scale RSPK
Surprise
Like for most RSPKs studied by von Lucadou, the Belgian UFO
wave started gently leading to surprising event. As discussed in the previous
post, late September 1989 would probably be a meaningful start date for the
wave. The SOBEPS, when the wave became public, were at first a bit worried that
the September public announcement of a UFO landing in the USSR would create a
climate of ridicule affecting them. What is clear, however, is that the
symbolism of triangular objects in the sky of Belgium was slowly rising from
September. There is little doubt that the first night of massive observations
(29 November 1989) came as a surprise to everyone. The SOPBEPS only realized
that something was going after receiving many calls from witnesses. Those calls,
however, came a few days after the events, and were sustained in part by the
televised interview of the two Eupen police officers, and especially the wide
press coverage of 1 December 1989. In other words, many witnesses realized that
what they saw was a much bigger “event” than they thought, and it was at that
point that they decided to report their experience to the SOBEPS. Hence, the surprise
period could be defined as being from late September to about 1 December 1989.
The surprise was not only a matter of witnessing a large
event, but also according to SOBEPS, most witnesses of the night of 29 November
did not know what to make of all this. Some speculated that it could be
extra-terrestrial visitations, but without pursuing this interpretation
further. All those witnesses, from the point of view of the MPI, constituted
the environment of the event, the ones who were surprised; the ones who started
to think about the extra-terrestrial explanation (i.e. non-human entities being
responsible for the disturbance). Like in other UFO wave cases analyzed through
the lenses of the MPI, who is the focus person remains unclear at this time.
Displacement
Starting on 2 December 1989, the SOBEPS becomes actively
involved in the events. From the point of view of the MPI, they collectively
constitute the naïve observers because, in spite of their rigor and sober
approach, they remained committed to prove the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis
(ETH), i.e. ultimately assigning the origin of the phenomenon to non-human
entities. New observations are recorded but at a much lower rate from none to
half a dozen per day, until the next large observation day of 11 December 1989
with 24 observations. There are intense discussions in the press, especially
during the period of 12 to 18 December 1989 (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:
118-122). On 18 December, the SOBEPS gives a first press conference, well
attended by journalist (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 123). It is really at
this point that the notion of a wave of triangular UFOs is shaped in social
representations.
The SOBEPS gave a description of the more common elements
emerging from the witnesses report. However, as discussed before the triangular
shape was common to just about half of the observations. By doing so, the
SOBEPS, consciously or not, gave the impression that there were stronger
commonalities between the observations that there actually were. In turn, this
creates a notion that a “nuts-and-bolts” ET spaceship visitation could be more
plausible. The notion of ET visitations is present also in the public realm but
the press remains for the most part relatively objective. That press conference
was in many ways a form of displacement as the ET visitation hypothesis becomes
more prevalent.
What is particularly interesting with the Belgian UFO wave
was that another social dynamics emerged during the displacement phase. Also on
2 December 1989, the Authorities (both the police and the military) started
their own investigation, away from the public spotlight (Bougard &
Clerebaut, 1991: 73). On 6 December, the police approached the SOBEPS in order
to collaborate with them on the UFO sightings (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:
79). If one reads carefully the SOBEPS book, however, it became apparent that
the main objective of the police was to “get ride” of all the UFO-related work,
as they were submerged with calls and reports. This attitude is certainly
comprehensible, as the police have limited resources, and dealing with crime
remains its institutional priority, not UFOs. On 9 December 1989, the press
reports that the Belgian military investigates the UFO wave (Bougard &
Clerebaut, 1991: 78). On 15 December, the military gives an interview in the
press confirming what was reported about their investigation a week before
(Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 122). On the 18 December SOBEPS press
conference, the Belgian military has representatives in support of the SOBEPS
and 21 December, the Minister of Defense confirms that they cannot explain what
is going on (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 125-126). Then in January 1990, the
SOBEPS is invited to visit the Glons radar station (Bougard & Clerebaut,
1991: 143); by the end of February 1990 an official letter of collaboration the
SOBEPS is drafted by the military (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 144-145).
This set the context for the further involvement of both the
military and the SOBEPS in the aftermath of the March 30-31 UFO. This led,
ultimately to the public release in June 1990 of the report about the chase. By
then, however, the military would continue to collaborate with the SOBEPS, but
at a much lower level. In many instances, as a personal commitment of DeBrouwer
who became a two-star Air Force general. The investigation of the March UFO
chase led the Belgian military to come to the same conclusion that all other
armed forces who investigated UFO before: there are things in the sky that we
cannot explain, but they do not seem to be a threat and we do not have the
resources or the mandate to investigate them further (De Brouwer, 1991:
490-491). Interestingly, by June the decline in observations becomes much more
marked until the one-day spike of March 1991, and the one of July 1992.
The active involvement of the authorities, including
providing public support to the SOBEPS by being present at their 18 December
press conference, constitutes a change in pattern if compared with
“traditional” RSPKs. In the MPI, the authorities usually try to quell any
rumors of unexplainable phenomena. But in the case of the Belgian UFO wave, the
response was the opposite. This is very much comparable to what was found in
the MPI analysis of the Zeitoun Marian apparitions. When the authorities are
supporting the naïve observers, then phenomenon does not decline sharply.
Decline (?)
The decline phase could be assessed as starting in June
1990, where there are few observations on average until the spike of March
1991. However, there were “critical observers” involved early on. The first
sceptic attack in the Belgian press occurred on 8 December 1989 (Bougard &
Clerebaut, 1991: 77), and the next day (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 113). On 11 December 1989, the hypothesis that a
F-117 could be the culprit is discussed in the press, and other sceptical
hypotheses about AWACS are presented over the following days (Bougard &
Clerebaut, 1991: 114-115).
As a curious coincidence, on 19 December the US invaded
Panama, and the F-117 is for the first time publically acknowledged as being
part of a real military operation. This will provide a lot of fuel for the
F-117 hypothesis, as the plane’s shape and stealth ability became much more
present in social representations. The critical observers will use extensively
the F-117 in their counter-analysis of the Belgian UFO wave. In January 1990,
the French popular science magazine Science
& Vie, started what the SOBEPS called a “crusade” against the Belgian
UFO wave reports (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 140). In May 1990, there are
more sceptic attacks in the press (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 219).
In spite of the somewhat active presence of critical
observers, it appears clear that they could not match the legitimacy that the
military authorities gave to the SOBEPS by collaborating with them. Hence, the
decline phase occurred but not so much because of the action of the critical
observers, as much as the loss of interest by the authorities in June.
As noted by von Lucadou in his research on RSPKs, during the
Decline phase the phenomenon may try a last ditch effort to get the message
across. From that point of view, the two last spikes of observations in March
1991 and possibly July 1992 could constitute such last effort.
Suppression (not)
The wave was “officially” considered finished after the
March 1991 spike of observations in the first SOBEPS book (published in 1991).
The spike of July 1992 was added as an important event in the second book
(published in 1994). Where does it end is a matter of interpretation, but
definitely the wave ended. There was no cover-up per say, in the sense that the
authorities did not intervene to quell the rumors about UFOs. Once more, a
parallel can be established with the Zeitoun case study, where with the support
of the authorities, an anomaly tends to die out of a loss of interest rather
than by closing the indeterminacy by using the prestige of the authorities to
focus on a particular explanation that excludes the possibility of a paranormal
event.
As in the case of the 1952 UFO wave over Washington D.C.,
the focus person that would provide the psi force for the events is not
obvious. Yet, by using a similar approach to the study of the 1952 wave, it is
possible to propose a group of focus persons that could be at the centre of the wave. In
this case, there was a social tension that appeared quite evidently, although
it is not often noted by ufologists. The “intense” period of the wave, from
November 1989 to late spring of 1990, is also exactly the period of the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the end of communist dictatorships in most of the Warsaw
Pact countries, as noted in a previous post. It was the effective end of the
Cold War. Yet, again and again, a more localized look provides some more interesting
insights.
Most of the UFO sightings are geographically centered on
NATO installations: the Glons radar station (near Liège) that was then one of
the nerve centres of the AWACS surveillance system (and visited by the SOBEPS);
Mons where the NATO military headquarters are located (SHAPE); the zone between
Mons and Brussels (where the NATO political headquarter is situated) was the
location of the March 1990 UFO chase.
As well, many of the triangular objects observed in the sky of Belgium
are very much reminiscent of the well-known NATO tri-dimensional dark metal
sculpture of its logo at the entrance of the Brussels headquarters. If NATO can be credited for its bloodless
victory at the end of the Cold War, it also lost its raison d’être, which is
struggling to re-establish ever since.
References
Bougard,
Michel and Lucien Clerebaut. (1991). "Chronique d'une vague". In
SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un
dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS, pp. 51-296.
Walter von Lucadou. “The Model of Pragmatic Information
(MPI)”. European Journal of
Parapsychology 11 (1995): 58-75.
Walter von Lucadou, H. Römer, and H. Walach, “Synchronistic
phenomena as entanglement correlations in generalized quantum theory”. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14(4)
(2007): 50-74.
Walter von Lucadou and F. Zahradnik. “Predictions of the
Model of Pragmatic Information about RSPK”. Proceedings
of the Parapsychological Association Convention 2004, available online at
http://archived.parapsych.org/papers/09.pdf.
