Fringe•ology – Book review

This post is another review of a relatively new book, written by journalist Steve Volk on the paranormal and his experience of it. The full notice is:

Volk, Steve. ( 2011). Fringe·ology: How I tried to explain away the unexplainable – and couldn’t. New York: HarperOne, 321 p.  ISBN: 978-0-06-185771-3

The majority of people who became interested in the paranormal may have started out of curiosity, but in the end, most of them are consciously, or not, engaging in some sort of spiritual quest. They try to make sense of themselves, others, their lives, the world, and their place in the world. This book is very much a reflection of this common path, but contrary to many books on the same topic it is very informative and well-balanced. I certainly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a sound and fair introduction to the paranormal.

A middle-of-the-road approach

Steve Volk’s book covers a number of topics related to the paranormal such as near-death experience, psi and remote viewing, consciousness and alternate perceptions of reality, UFOs, ghosts, prayer and meditation, and lucid dreaming. The main thread in the book is Volk’s quest for better understanding the paranormal, and particularly his own experience of living in a house “with a ghost”. The book is written for the larger public, where there are many personal descriptions of his encounters, discussions and interviews with key researchers in the broader field of the paranormal. Yet, along those descriptions, Volk introduces the reader to the main issues and challenges linked to a particular aspect of the paranormal, in a plain but informed language. Furthermore, the book has also at the end a list of sources for each chapter, with many of the key texts on the topic, showing that he did his homework.

The main message of the book is that when it comes to understanding the paranormal, a middle-of-the-road approach is the only one that is really helpful. In numerous occasions, Volk presents the views of the “extremists”, namely the reductionists and materialists’ view where there is nothing paranormal and the New Age view where anything is accepted uncritically as paranormal. Both ways lead to dead-ends. The reductionists miss important and well-documented evidence, and more importantly miss how relevant the paranormal might be in the life of many people. The New Agers, on the other hand, will construct views of life and the world that have little connections to reality, and where scammers of all shapes and colors can exploit people without any shame.

It is also interesting to read that the paranormal can be presented as something helpful and useful, not just a mere curiosity. People who experience near-death experience are oftentimes transformed for the rest of their life; people who practice meditation and prayer do find improvement in their life; lucid dreaming can indeed help people with serious psychological wounds such as PTSD, etc. Yet, Volk remains in the middle-of-the-road with these issues too. Maybe it is purely psychosomatic, maybe there is something else, but there is no way to know for sure. In such a situation where something does work but it is not understood, all we can do is to keep an open mind and try to understand. As Volk wrote, he wishes that the war between the “extremists” be over, so that we can study the paranormal free of the belief systems of both the debunkers and the New Agers, and yet in a way that is rigorous. I certainly share the same wish.

The UFO chapter

The chapter on UFOs is, unfortunately, weaker that the other ones. It is based essentially on Volk’s research and interviews with people involved in the Stephenville UFO incidents of 2008. Although the description of the events is informative and balanced, the main thrust is not really about UFOs, but about how a community came to interpret an unusual event as being either truly extraordinary or a misunderstanding. Volk shows well how the believers, the MUFON investigators and the debunking journalists, polarized the situation in a way where a middle-of-the-road approach could not really emerged. In the end, an informal truce was declared within Stephenville where people are “allowed” to accept either interpretation. This chapter certainly illustrates that paranormal events are also social constructions, and whether something is “declared” paranormal or prosaic is more dependent on social dynamics than on the actual evidence. The same analysis could have been done on a famous haunting story, which would be more in line with the other chapters of the book. So the UFO chapter, although not bad, is bit off topic.

Conclusion

The book concludes, in essence, that the paranormal is indeed a fringe aspect of reality, difficult to measure (most often not even measurable) but “real” enough to not go away. People can make the paranormal whatever they want because there are no ways to determine for sure what it is all about. In other words, it is a liminal phenomenon, stuck in between reality and fiction. If people can make the paranormal what they want, then why not making it into something useful, helpful and meaningful (without having to pay tons of money to a “guru” or a scammer to know how you should go about it). This is common sense, but when it comes to the paranormal, words of common sense need to be repeated often and loudly.

Overall, it is a well-written and well-research book on some aspects of the paranormal. It is written in a way that will please most readers, and keep them interested through the 321 pages. The author’s resolute stand for a middle-of-the-road approach is refreshing and much needed.  I would not be surprise if this book is transformed into a television documentary about a journalist’s quest to understand the paranormal.

Wonders in the Sky – Book Review

This post is a review of Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubeck’s Wonders in the Sky. The full citation is:

Vallée, Jacques and Chris Aubeck. (2010). Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained aerial objects from antiquity to modern times. New York: Penguin, 508 pages. ISBN 978-1-58542-820-5

The well-known ufologist Jacques Vallée, after a long absence from the ufological scene, published another major book with Chris Aubeck. This is an important event given the very steep decline in serious ufological research observed during the last decade. Although it is a well-researched and substantive book, with proper references (a rarity in ufological literature), it may actually be the last significant book of serious ufology; an approach that seemed to have run its course.

A useful reference book

Vallée and Aubeck, with the support of many volunteers from several countries, have gathered 500 cases of UFO-related observations that were put in writing and dating from 1460 B.C. to 1879 C.E. In each case, the exact source is provided, with at times a short discussion to explain how the original source was translated. As well, they have included about 80 cases that were considered as interesting but that were considered as hoaxes, obvious misperceptions, tall tales, or off topic because they were “religious visions”.

The introduction is essentially a discussion about the existence of the UFO phenomenon prior to the 19^th century, something that Vallée and Aubeck consider as a little known fact, and a crack at Stephen Hawking who considered that only “weirdoes and cranks” report UFO sightings. The end of the book provides a short analysis about the physical trends that could be extracted out of the material gathered. For those who read Passport to Magonia, the book structure will appear familiar. There are several reproductions of ancient drawings and paintings illustrating the cases under analysis.

As Vallée and Aubeck acknowledge, some of those cases have very little information, but they offer an overall picture that the UFO phenomenon has a long history. From the point of view of providing references for further research and study, it is certainly a useful book. As well, the authors and their network of volunteers have put a lot of work and energy in making this book. They should be congratulated for that. As a reference book, it should be added to the book collection of anyone interested in UFOs.

The fallacy of inductive thinking

In spite of being a valuable reference book, Wonders in the Sky suffers from all the usual problems linked to ufology as a research endeavour. To start with the introduction, the issue of whether the UFO phenomenon predates the 19^th century, and that only weirdoes see UFOs, is a rear guard battle. As Vallée and Aubeck noted, Van Daniken made the idea of ancient UFOs quite popular in the UFO buff circles since the 1970s. As well, many popular books on UFOs make at least passing references about pre-1947 UFO sightings. So, who are they trying to convince?

The issue of weirdoes has been beaten to death in ufology, and Jimmy Carter’s sighting report is a well-known argument in this story. The real discussion should not be about who report sightings, as much as who is talking about UFOs. Unfortunately, many vocal UFO buffs are indeed weirdoes and cranks, and they have deeply discredited ufology since its early days. This is an old and well-known issue. To bring Hawking in this fray does not help in any shape or fashion. Ufology books tend to be nostalgic of the days where ufologists saw themselves as pioneers of a new science, facing adversity from all fronts. This one shares this feature as well, although only moderately. The sad reality of the early 21^st century is that UFO-related issues are increasingly facing indifference rather than hostility.

A more substantive problem, however, is that this book (like most UFO books) proclaims to be “fact based” (or inductive), yet it fails to realize that any fact is actually an artefact. A fact is a tiny slice of perceived reality that is transcribed in some form. Reality being way too vast for the human mind to absorb, it has to be cut down into tiny pieces about what is relevant. And this where the problem is: how to determine which piece of reality is relevant. In the end, what is a fact comes down to conceptual and methodological choices about what is relevant. Different choices will bring different “facts”. Hence a fact is indeed an artefact of human decision-making. In other words, a fact-based or inductive approach will never be purely objective because it is contingent on decisions made about what is relevant.

Wonders in the Sky, contrary to many UFO books, at least provides some discussions about how the authors came to select or reject the cases they have. The criteria, however, are for the most part the typical ones found in ufology: objective physical phenomenon, reliability of the witness/source, lack of motive to make up a story, etc.

The real criteria are actually not discussed directly. The introduction, like Vallée did in most of his previous books, does not state directly his conceptual framework informing his methodological choices. It is left ambiguous. Yet, if one reads carefully between the lines (and has read read his previous books), his framework is that the truly anomalous UFOs are effects produced by some sort of psycho-social-physical technology emanating from some sort of intelligence. Once this conceptual decision is taken, then a number of fact selection criteria are put in place. First, only cases that seem to have an anomalous physical dimension are included, which in turns excludes for instance synchronistic subjective events that might be UFO-related. Second, the necessity of having a “technology” of some sort involved implies that somehow flying objects are a discrete category to be separated from other anomalous events such as sea monsters, or hauntings. Lastly, the decision of involving a foreign form of intelligence then precludes the possibility of including “self-referential” anomalous events such as “religious visions”.

Jacques Vallée has long complained that he was the only one not knowing what UFOs are. That may be so, but he, like any other UFO researchers (using the extra-terrestrial hypothesis or not), needs some sort of deductive hypothesis or framework to determine which slice of reality is deemed relevant. Good and sound scientific research is expected to present and justify these deductive assumptions in a clear and explicit manner. After all those years, I still do not understand why Vallée feels the need to hide behind the fallaciousness of inductive thinking.

Did ufology’s yardstick was moved ahead?

The authors declare that their research as led them to four major conclusions: (1) anomalous aerial phenomena had a major impact on witnesses; (2) each epoch has projected its own worldviews into the interpretation of these phenomena; (3) they have impacted human civilization in important ways; and (4) older cases can inform contemporary research. Unfortunately, the analysis in the Conclusion chapter does not demonstrate those findings, except for the no. 4. The reader is called upon to figure out him/herself how Vallée and Aubeck came to such conclusions.

The majority of the cases presented in the book are essentially unexplainable oddities reported by various people throughout time. In some case, it may have had a major impact on the witness (like religious conversion), but in most cases it was just an odd thing. Hence, conclusion no. 1 is not warranted with the material presented. I suspect that this finding is simply an import from the authors’ research on contemporary UFO experiencers (which again can be open to discussion as how widespread this finding is). With very few exceptions, the conclusion no. 3 is absolutely not demonstrated in the book, and certainly no serious sociological analysis is provided to substantiate it. This one is clear import from Vallée’s non-avowed conceptual framework, and from that point of view it is no different from “inductive” ETH ufologists who see extra-terrestrials everywhere. Finally, conclusion no. 2 is certainly sound, but the book implies rather than demonstrating it (as well, this is no big news).

In the end, it is possible to say that this book is interesting but failed to provide ufology a desperately needed fresh start. It might not have been the intent of the book, but clearly ufology is getting in a bigger “mess”, as Vallée is keenly aware.  The greatest opportunity missed by this book is that by looking into pre-modern eras the authors could have really set aside their unfortunate and implicit notion of technology to understand UFOs, and started to look into ancient anomalies as simply human events. As well, as Vallée has been aware for quite a long time, ufology and parapsychology would greatly benefit from talking to each other; this would have been a golden opportunity to do so.

Jacques Vallée is in my opinion the best researcher in the world of ufology. In this second decade of the 21^st century, he also appears to be one of the last remaining few serious ufologists. He published probably what is to be his last major book, in an atmosphere now much less contaminated by the moronic Roswell/Majestic hysteria. Unfortunately, not even the greatest ufologist can save ufology from itself.  

Book Review - The UFO Phenomenon

This post is reviewing a book published in 2009 (for a change...). I was please to find a serious book about UFOs that does not fall into the ETH mythology; such books are not often published. The author is an occultist, but his book is not too much influenced by his beliefs, and he should be congratulated for not letting his own views color too much his analysis. The full notice is:

Greer, John Michael. (2009). The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy, and Disinformation. Woodbury: Llewellyn, 248 p.

Overview

In the first part, Greer’s book provides a very good overview of the history of the UFO phenomenon, and about how the ETH myth was created. He covers the most famous UFO sightings since the ancient Roman times to this the present period, and he concludes very soundly that “[s]ince the dawn of recorded history, in fact, human beings have been seeing weird things moving through the air, and those things have usually had a very close resemblance to the hopes, fears, and speculations of those who saw them” (p. 6).

He provides also an interesting explanation as to how science fiction and the lack of traditional religious belief in the later industrial age have set the stage for the UFO phenomenon. His argument is very close to Méheust’s, but he does not refer to him, and Méheust’s book is not in the bibliography either.

The rest of the first section provides a well-documented description as to how the UFO myth was developed over time. From the 1950s contactees, to the history of NICAP, to the Roswell and MJ-12 stuff, and the abduction narratives, Greer explains how the ETH mythology got firmer while it became clear that the phenomenon was becoming increasingly elusive.

As well, the book provides an interesting and accessible sociology of the UFO knowledge, exploring in a symmetric way the various hypotheses about the UFO phenomenon. I certainly recommend this book for any new comer to the world of ufology. The book is well-written, properly documented, and provides level-headed arguments.

The author, however, is first and foremost attacking two main views about UFOs: the ETH and the complete denial about the existence of UFOs, what he calls the null hypothesis. From this point of view, Greer’s book is moving beyond the familiar (and boring) territory of ufology.

The hypotheses in ufology

It is interesting to note that Greer is using an approach close to what can be found in sociology of science for his evaluation of the various hypotheses about UFOs. Among others, he is using Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm to understand how the ETH and the null hypothesis came about as the dominant views in ufology. Yet, both the ETH and the null hypothesis are fundamentally logical fallacies. As he wrote, “ [a]t the core of most arguments for the extraterrestrial hypothesis, as we’ve seen, is a bit of dubious logic claiming that if an unknown object seen in the air isn’t a hallucination, a hoax, or a misidentification of something more ordinary, it must by definition be a spacecraft piloted by aliens. The defenders of the null hypothesis, far from challenging this questionable logic, have simply taken it and stood it on its head, arguing that since an unknown object in the air can’ t be a spacecraft piloted by aliens, it must by definition be a hallucination, a hoax, or a misidentification of something ordinary.” (p. 129).

Some of the most common alternative explanations are also presented by Greer. They include the intraterrestrial, cryptoterrestrial, time-travel, demonic, ultraterrestrial, and neurological hypotheses. For him, most of them are problematic, but they at least provide a wider look at the UFO phenomenon. Only the geophysical hypothesis (mostly the work of Devereux and Persinger) appears strong to him, although not completely able to explain the phenomenon. I certainly agree with him.

Solving the mystery?

The last section of the book is entitled “Solving the mystery,” and it is also the weakest one. Greer’s argument is three-fold. First, from time immemorial humans have seen apparitions, especially when in an altered state of consciousness, and this explains the complete lack of evidence about UFOs, as well as the phenomenological similarities between sightings (like the “ Oz factor” ). Second, there was a vast conspiracy by the military, and the U.S. Air Force in particular, to hide secret prototypes under the guise that they were UFOs (i.e., aliens in spaceship), which explains the physical traces when it is not caused by geophysical activities. Third and last is the cultural dynamics of UFO stories combined with the governmental conspiracies for hiding secret planes that provided the common content to the UFO phenomenon.

It is clear that the cultural dynamics described by Greer had a great role to play in providing the content of the UFO experience. As well, there is no doubt that some military establishments used the UFO phenomenon to hide secrets, which in turn just fuelled furthermore the UFO mythology. But the existing facts about UFO cannot be all explained that way. To paraphrase Hynek, I guess the U.S. Air Force is everywhere around the world, ready to produce hoaxes to hide its aircrafts.... No! This explanation can certainly cover a number of unexplainable sightings, but they cannot account for the ones that are truly unexplainable, especially when the UFO defies the laws of physics. A good example is the Belgian wave of 1989 where the secret American aircraft explanation has been proposed, but it still failed to explain the incredible UFO behaviour.

Another problem is about Greer not discussing at all the parapsychological (or psychical) hypotheses about UFOs, which is quite odd as there is a healthy corpus available. His notion of apparition is not very well-developed and he relies essentially on superficial comparisons with shamanism in a pop culture context to make his point. In the end, he does not explain anything on the issue of apparitions, while by integrating parapsychology he would have been able to provide some serious explanations about apparitions.

All this to say that, no, the mystery has not been solved as the section’s title implies.

Rear guard battles

The book, however, is more problematic from the point of view of those who are not new comers in the world of UFOs. Greer shows well why the ETH is so problematic. But ufology in its ETH version is on the decline, and more energy could have been spent on explaining the phenomenon rather than explaining what it is not. Similarly, the issue of the null hypothesis is overdone. There are very few people nowadays who reject completely that there are no UFOs (if not define as alien in spaceship, but just as what it is: unidentified flying objects). The fact that there are strange things in the sky that we cannot explain is nothing new, nor nothing hidden. Starting with the Project Blue Book of the 1960s, up to the present declassification of UFO archives by the many countries to include Belgium, Britain, Canada, Chile, France, and Russia (and there are probably others that I am not aware of), these various governments came to pretty much the same conclusion: there are strange things in the sky that we cannot explain, but they do not appear to be dangerous nor made of useful physical technologies, and therefore it would not be a wise use of public funds to investigate these aerial mysteries. Debunking the ETH and the null hypothesis, in 2009, is a rear guard battle.

To conclude, this book is an excellent introduction to the UFO phenomenon, especially for those who are new to the field. But for those who are not new, the book is not on the leading-edge, and is either superficial or focuses on the wrong issues.

Eric Ouellet © 2009