The Day After Roswell - My Close Encounter with Philip Corso

When "The Day After Roswell" came out in 1997, I was working in a bookstore in Albuquerque. We got the book's author, Philip Corso, for a signing.

Our store had a good reputation for events around "High Strange" subjects, partly due to my efforts. Publishers knew we were worth putting on the schedule. Besides, UFO books in general make for good trade - host a novelist or a 'serious' book and you might get less than a dozen people, feature a UFO author and you could count on at least 100.

And it was well over 100 who turned out for Philip Corso that night. It was a great draw, even besides the local interest of Roswell: an ex-military man who had been "deep in", telling all...

Mr. Corso made an impressive speaker. His grasp of names and dates was so immediate that it actually made me envious; he never seemed to falter in his recall. He was able to reel off locations, offices, names, ranks...

He covered the basic elements from the book: that he had been called upon to assist in reverse-engineering and disseminating technologies garnered from alien craft, and that he had seen what seemed to be a small humanoid body packed in blue gel. He was careful to state that such was his only exposure to "the Roswell question", and that he had not himself seen any alien spacecraft

Then he took questions from the audience, and here it was that things started to get fuzzy around the edges. Just as does the book, he started to vary from the things he said he had personally witnessed, and included material from other sources.

At one point he mentioned that someone elsewhere in the government had told him that they had received some sort of strong signals from space, from a direction which Mr. Corso recalled and could provide. And he said, "Someone at one of these things [meaning a previous signing event] told me that in that direction is Zeta Reticuli."

(I groaned inwardly when I heard him say this. Zeta Reticuli was a particular favorite for the UFO enthusiasts at the time, as a home for certain alien visitors. And I just knew that, were I to interview the crowd the next day, a goodly number of them would remember that Mr. Corso had told them that the signal came from Zeta Reticuli. Thus do folktales grow.)

He answered a variety of questions, then we moved on to the signing of the books. As the host for the signing, it was my job to make sure things kept moving smoothly, and I was at Mr. Corso's elbow as I opened books so he could sign them. Thus I was privy to all of his conversations with people.

Most of the discussions were the usual things -- "usual" for a UFO book signing being a mix of sincere inquiry and intense conspiratorial viewpoint. But it was right at the end that things got really interesting.

A young boy came up with his mother; they had been waiting patiently and the boy had a drawing he wanted to show Mr. Corso. The boy was interested in engineering, as was Mr. Corso's son (or was it grandson? - I cannot recall for sure) and the author warmed to the boy and spent more time with him than he had with anyone else.

Mr. Corso praised the boy's drawing and told him to continue in his studies and become an engineer and maybe someday he would go into space. Then they talked about spacecraft and what they might be made of, and Mr. Corso suddenly said, "And even in the hot sun, they are cool to the touch, you know."

The boy asked what, and Mr. Corso said, "Alien spacecraft." My ears pricked up at this, since I had not long before heard him say very clearly to a large group of people that he had never himself seen an alien spacecraft, and now he was telling this young boy that he had touched one.

Mr. Corso proceeded to make a drawing for the boy, a representation of a classic flying saucer stuck into the ground at a 40-degree angle. He said that he had gone up to it and put his hand on it and "even in the hot desert sun it was cool to the touch".

The boy thanked him and took the drawing and left; the event was over. And I was left to mull over what I had heard.

Mr. Corso seemed to be what so many people in UFOlogy had been awaiting: an inside source, finally telling his tale. (Though even in the book he is very vague why he finally decided to break his security oath.) His presentation made him seem sharp and sure of his recall of names, titles, and places. But his willingness to be agreeable to suppositions put to him by the audience made me uneasy. And hearing him contradict a major part of his testimony in less than an hour made me place all of his testimony in question.

I had to conclude that Mr. Corso was a very nice old gentleman with some great stories. I suppose the people around him grew tired of his stories and he went looking for a new audience and found a willing and eager one in the UFO community. And he himself was willing to support suppositions which were presented to him, as a way of pleasing his new audience.

Mr. Corso's death soon after the release of the book brought, if not joy, great satisfaction to the conspiratorialists who could now claim that he was "silenced because he told the truth". But the truth I personally heard him present changed markedly in only a short time, and I carry away the conviction that Mr. Corso's stories are just that, stories, and do not constitute evidence.

Old Favorites Revisited - The Mothman Prophecies

"The Mothman Prophecies" by John Keel, 1975.

Having read this book umpteen times when younger, it was very interesting to skim back through it again. Back in print because of the less-than-stellar name-only movie, I was able to get it through my local library.

I grew up with John Keel and his ilk. I hungrily chomped down anything Fortean, anything High Strange. Since this was back when such books were far more scarce than now, I tended to re-read the ones I had and "Prophecies" was one of my favorites.

And TMP is an entertaining read, so chock-full of accounts of extraordinary flying objects, unlikely birds, monsters, poltergeists and Men In Black as to have been the inspiration for the whole run of The X-Files.

Entertaining, certainly. Serious research material? Another question.

It has been at least 17 years since I last read the book. From that remove, a fresh exposure to it has a different taste. It is in fact difficult not to view it as a paranoid fantasy.

I have respect for John Keel's aspirations as a researcher. Several of his precepts have worked solidly into my thinking. A phrase early on in the book:

Paranormal phenomena are so widespread, so diversified,
and so sporadic yet so persistent that separating
and studying any single element is not only a waste
of time but also will automatically lead to the
development of belief.

has great resonance for me. I have seen far too many people start down the slippery slope of belief and become unable to climb back up.

And Belief, as Keel famously said, Is The Enemy. To accept a belief is to wear the blinders accompanying that belief, and miss things not associated with it. Beliefs are sticky things, easy to pick up but hard to set down again.

The quote above seems to support a position of investigatorial distancing from the subject, a desirable objectivity. But unfortunately for Keel's credibility he continues with the next sentence:

Once you have established a belief, the phenomenon adjusts
its manifestations to support that belief and thereby
escalate it.

That is quite a different thing from the objectivity just previously presented! "Get interested in weird stuff," Keel is saying, "and not only will you become sucked in but you will be made an active focus of it."

TMP is full of instances of Keel himself being made the focus of "the phenomenon". Odd people come to town and ask not so much about UFO sightings, but about Keel's activities and interactions with his associates. His car is broken into and notes taken, his mail is tampered with; someone seems to be tapping his phone. On face value, the classic claims of a paranoid, only in this case it is not The Government which is doing it but Someone Else, the Agents of The Phenomenon.

Even the title smacks of delusions of grandeur: where there are "prophecies", there must be a "prophet", and the attentions Keel say were paid to him would prove him to be such an important personage.

A simultaneous problem and attraction of TMP is the wealth of anomalous reports with which Keel supplies us. In Keel's universe anomalous events are happening so continuously as to make those who are not witnesses feel inadequate. In the quote above he calls paranormal phenomena "sporadic" but you wouldn't know it from this book - unusual events are so constant as to not be unusual. Just as pornography may have the effect of leading you to believe that everyone else on the planet is having more and more varied sex than you, so does "The Mothman Prophecies" make one feel unstudly for not having extraordinary experiences nightly.

"The Mothman Prophecies" is a landmark book in many ways. It helped to associate in the public's mind UFO reports with other paranormal activities such as monsters and poltergeists. (Just as Jacques Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" associated UFOs and fairy belief, in a more scholarly way.) TMP helped to standardize the image of the Men In Black, with results familiar to any moviegoer or X-Files fan. It gave us The Mothman, a critter right out of nightmare, resurrected by the movie to the degree that Mothman reports are now retroactively presented after major disasters.

But upon re-visiting this book, I have to feel that it is has less value as a representation of the events of the day, and more value as a record of one man's fascination with, and descent into, a particular form of belief. All the more ironic since Keel warns us against that belief even as he embraces it.

Thought for the Day - Nehru

Two for the Toolbox - Recommended Books

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. By Roy Peter Clark; Little, Brown 2006.

I started to write as soon as I started to read, which is to say very young. I write daily; prevent me from writing and you will have to deal with the consequences: distant stares, mumbling, note-scribbling, sudden odd ejaculations (of words).

And I like to think that I have over the years gained some proficiency in writing. But there is always room for improvement, always fresh insight into the process, and I regularly sample books on writing craft looking to pick up pointers.

Writing Tools caught my eye the other day. I was struck by the presence of the words "tools" and "strategies" in the title, rather than the "rules" and "guidelines" featured so prominently in many another book devoted to writing. And as advertised, I found in this book tools immediately welcome and useful in my writer's toolbox.

Clark's background is journalism, and many of the tools are devoted to increasing clarity and conciseness. But these are characteristics as important in fiction as in nonfiction, and the tools can in fact be used on any form or genre.

Each 'tool' is covered in a short chapter, the 50 chapters grouped as "Nuts and Bolts", "Blueprints", "Special Effects", and "Useful Habits". (It would be more accurate to say that the chapters, averaging four pages, are not short but rather just as long as needed -- Clark stresses allowing words the space they need while keeping them reined in.) 'Homework' is assigned in the "Workshop" exercises for each chapter.

The book is replete with examples of fine writing in a variety of styles; Clark's critical analysis turns each of these examples into a lesson. He also asks us to ponder previous pages of the book and consider their alternative forms.

I said above that I found the tools presented in this book immediately useful, and I would hazard to say that any writer, of any degree of experience, could open this book at random and find something useful. Roughly half the book is dedicated to strategies for creativity and structure (Chapter 28: "Put odd and interesting things next to each other") with the remainder presenting tools for tightening up what has already been written (Chapter 5: "Watch Those Adverbs").Writers could do worse than to copy synopses of these chapters onto cards, then draw a card at random as the "tool of the day" to apply to works in progress.

After just one pass through this book, I already think of each chapter as a separate tool in the toolbox. Just as in my carpenter's toolbox, there are tools for selecting, measuring, and cutting; tools and hardware for joining and building; tools for removal of material and for finishing and polishing. And just as in my carpenter's toolbox, I find satisfaction in knowing that I have the proper tools at hand to build new projects.

The book itself is the best tool of all. I am going to buy a copy, plus several to loan out.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Core Conditioning Illustrated. By Partick S. Hagerman; Alpha Books 2006.

During the last gardening season I wrenched my back, which injury took several months to fully heal. More recently I suffered neck spasms with accompanying nausea. These incidents drove home for me that the care & feeding of muscles is very important, and that as we grow older we must be ever more diligent in our care.

While many exercise techniques focus on the "public" muscles, the ones that affect how you look in a swimsuit, it is the "core muscles" which in fact dictate much of our posture and affect much of our health. Consisting of not only the lower back and abdominal muscles but also the muscles around the internal organs, core muscles are the focus around which the limbs and head orbit. Arms and legs bulging with muscle may look impressive, but any system is only as strong as its weakest element, and many people go about with sadly neglected core muscles.

I do massage; one problem area on many people is the lower back. I have consistently found that those with persistent lower back problems have weak abdominal muscles. Interestingly enough, weak core muscles also cause problems "referring" into the upper back, and neck. Core muscles help dictate how the thorax relates to the pelvis, and when weight is improperly positioned upon the pelvis it causes problems right up the spine and all the muscles related to it. Core muscles also affect the operation of the internal organs, especially digestion.

Perhaps one of the greatest impediments to developing core muscles is their internal nature -- excepting a hard-won "sixpack" of abdominal muscles, most core muscle development is not obvious to the beholder or in the mirror. But luckily a bit of diligence in core exercise produces feelings of stability and well-being which will provide reinforcement for continuing the effort. And luckily, simple and effective exercises exist to tone and strengthen core muscles.

The best of these exercises have been collected into this book. Say what you like about the "Idiot's Guides" (I know some library patrons who avoid them because of the implied insult of the title) they typically present essential information in clear style. And this book is particularly well laid-out, with nicely organized and progressive exercise plans.

The initial exercises, deceptively simple, provide results rapidly enough to encourage the reader to continue. Users move from exercises using body weight alone to resistance bands, while adding in balance exercises using workout balls.

Symmetry of effort is stressed throughout the exercise plans. One drawback of machines and weightlifting (and don't get me wrong -- I've clanked a lot of iron in my time) is the likelihood of over-developing one muscle group at the expense of another. It does you little good to have rock-hard abs if your lower back is weak -- in fact, a recipe for injury. And since symmetry is an inherent part of posture, these exercises also work to improve posture and balance.

These exercises can be done basically anywhere (many can be done on office breaks), with no or simple equipment. Results are felt more than they are seen, in terms of a pleasant firmness of the muscles involved. Other benefits, more obvious to onlookers, are cumulative in the form of better symmetry and more graceful movement.

I find muscularity appealing, so long as it is not carried to freakish extremes. I will always have dumbbells and barbells around; I like a good session of weightlifting to clear the head and build a pump. But I will also devote equal time to maintaining the core muscles, so the strong limbs are not attached to a weak foundation. And this book is a useful tool in making the most of that exercise time.

The satisfactions of good soil

There is a large garden area between our house and the road. Before we moved in, most of it was kept in crops by the person in the small house on the property. After we moved in, I took over the gardening of half of it.

The neighbor, seeking to create a harvest for canning which could be shared with the landlady, had always treated the patch like a small truck garden. He got a neighbor with tractor to plow up furrows each spring, used lots of bag fertilizer, lots of pesticides... In contrast, I was looking more for kitchen crops and pursued a more biodynamic approach. Rather than having it plowed I hand-dug the beds, rather than fertilizers I used compost; I have never liked to use pesticides.

After the neighbor moved out I took over the gardening of the whole plot. His practices, normal for much of the farming world, had left the soil caked hard and difficult to work. Water tended to run off rather than soak in; the hard earth showed few tracks. I set out to restore it.

Since it is a large plot, to regenerate the entire area would have been overly ambitious. I settled instead on deep planting holes for the pumpkins, each year digging in a new spot. In this way the area of improved soil with loosened drainage slowly grew. I also started to mulch the entire area as deeply as possible.

The result? Where before it was difficult to force a shovel blade even a few inches into the earth, it now may be plunged in with ease. Where before the soil was dry, hard-edged and pale in color, it is now darkly rich and moist. Where before there was little evidence of the small lives which make soil fertile, the soil is now teeming with earthworms and other workers of the soil.

I went out just now and pulled aside some of the mulch from the area which had previously resembled the packed surface of a country dirt road. Using only the tools of my fingers, I easily drew out a handful of earth. It was rich and full of humus, and even deep in January there were earthworms evident near the surface rather than slumbering below.

It is good soil. The sight and smell of it makes me think of spring planting and autumn harvests, of seeds and sprouting and salads. If my fingers can so readily penetrate its dark richness think of how easily rain will soak in, and how eagerly plant roots will delve.

My planning and hard work and patience turned the tired, abused, "mined out" patch of earth into a good place of garden. It was dirt and is now soil. Once again I am leaving the soil better than I found it. And I am proud.

TV Series review - Due South

I've recently been laid up with a chest cold. Feeling (gasp!) even too poorly to write (a true measure of illness) and coughing too much to read, I turned to the final resort of the sick-at-home: daytime TV.

I'll admit to watching, and enjoying, several episodes of "The Incredible Hulk", including one in which Lou Ferrigno had a "real" part as a bodybuilder. The shows hold up rather well, even beyond the nostalgia factor. But no matter how enjoyable a TV show may be, the accumulated effect of commercials soon turns me to those lively shiny disks, DVDs.

I grabbed a likely distraction off of the to-be-watched pile (OK, Pile 1 of many), the 1994 series "Due South". Though I had not seen the show when aired, I had heard favorable reports of it at the time and so saved it to watch when Patricia purchased it as trade goods at a yard sale.

The premise of the show is simple: a Canadian Mountie, down from the Yukon to serve on the gritty streets of Chicago with a street-wise local partner. Buddy situation, with the fish-out-of-water twist used many times before and since.

I found the show endearing from the get-go -- personable actors, clever writing, a "good heart". To call it a fish-out-of-water plot is actually misleading, since Constable Benton Fraser swims quite well even in the dirty waters of Chicago, bringing a mix of common sense, trail experience, and Holmesian observation to the task. He is more of a Stranger In a Strange Land.

But a warm, charming, and sincere Stranger -- Fraser, the ultimate Boy Scout, cares about honor, cares about the law, cares about people... He is ever ready to help, not only little old ladies with their groceries but whomever he meets. Even the jaded police officers around him start to be affected by this shining (literally, in his Mountie uniform) example of uprightness and empathy.

There are several running bits such as the Mountie's eternal spotlessness even in the midst of crime and grime, vague references to his odd past, and his use of educational Inuit folktales. Fraser, cleancut and handsome, is also a chick magnet but is either oblivious to their attentions or dumbfounded how to deal with them when he does notice.

The show is a pleasant fantasy; Fraser is present "in an unofficial capacity" (his day job is door guard at the Canadian Consulate) but is always involved in jurisdiction-sensitive police matters. He also dislikes guns and somehow always manages to counter well-armed thugs with footwork and fisticuffs. (And, oh -- the Mountie's sidekick is a willful deaf wolf.)

"Due South" is also an odd balance of gritty street realism, dry humor, and near-slapstick. One particularly schizophrenic episode features Leslie Nielsen in a noir turn (as an old bull cop hunted by his greatest enemy) which lets him show his chops as a serious old-school actor, then the next moment has him take a pratfall right out of the Airplane! movies. The show alternates between buddy comedy, street drama, and social commentary, all with a great soundtrack.

Definitely recommended, and worth the viewing.

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There is a bit of an anachronism about the show, and I'm not just referring to the mobile phones the size of a shoe. It is common today, with DVD sales perhaps even more lucrative than the initial airing of a series, for series arcs to be long and complex, with minor characters re-appearing to add texture to the setting. In the mid-90s this practice was less common, and "Due South" stands out for having a wealth of interesting minor characters, street people and local residents, about whom we slowly come to know more. It adds to the thoughtfulness and humanocentric nature of the series as a whole, and presumably this approach had an effect upon cast and crew.

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It is also interesting timing that I should watch this show now, with its inherent discussion of what it is to be helpful to other people and my recent essay on service.

A Frozen Moment

Clear, cold night last night. There was an extra-thick layer of ice on the car's windows this morning. It took me quite a while to scrape them enough to assure safe driving -- in fact, it put me in danger of being late for work.

But the ice crystals on the windows were unusually large and lovely.

___________________________________________________________________________

Of course, it is inaccurate to say that the ice almost made me late.

I make me late.

Flappin' Forth from History

While flipping around cable the other day, I happened upon one of the "religious" channels. The fellow there was talking about pterodactyls -- enough to get my attention.

It seems there have been reports from New Guinea of large flying critters, descriptions of which sound very similar to a pterosaur. The presenter said that he had personally led several expeditions to N.G. to get evidence on the creature. The first trip was primarily to interview the locals; later trips were to seek the creature itself.

He said that the main reason "mainstream scientists" had been unable to discover the ptero was because it was nocturnal. (I guess "mainstream scientists" don't go out at night.) He also claimed that under certain conditions the cryptid critter was phosphorescent and, best of all, would spatter the ground below with glowing poop! He said that a member of their expedition was even bespattered with the luminous loosenings from the creature's bowels.

I was beginning to think that it was all a shaggy dog story, a modern version of the Fabled Foo Bird ("If the Foo shits, wear it!"). But he was earnest, and very serious.

Why would this come up on a "religious" show, a show often devoted to anti-evolutionary diatribe?

It is in fact a desperate, sad attempt to co-opt the fossil record to support creationism. If they can show that dinosaurs are alive today, they can argue that fossils are much more recent remains, only thousands of years old rather than millions. Sad too, that these religiosos see themselves as the valiant "true scientists" gathering information where "mainstream" scientists have failed. (Of course, what "mainstream" scientist wouldn't give his left arm to study a pterosaur...)


Really a shame though -- like so many reports of crypto-critters, I would like to believe in it because it is such a wonderfully resonant tale. And what a business opportunity! What cryptozoologist wouldn't like some glowin' pterodactyl dung for their birthday? Perhaps sealed in a little vial, to act as a talisman as they grope their way through the dark mists of folklore to the promised land where previously unknown (or perhaps just rumored) animals frolic and play and pose for photos.

If I really thought that he could take me on an expedition where I could get lightsticked by a dinosaur, I would be in the first pew at that church!

I Love a Mystery. Still.

I was watching a show on The History Channel, the subject: USOs (Unidentifed Submerged Objects), the soggy analog to UFOs. While this may be a new subject to many people, I am in familiar waters here.

I grew up with the weird. UFOs, USOs, ancient astronauts. Lost civilizations, alternative histories, pole shift. Bigfoot, Nessie, cryptozoology. These and anything else rumored and fantastic were my diet. Ivan T. Sanderson, John Keel, and Jacques Vallee were my mentors, at least in book form. I sat on the front patio with binoculars watching for anomalous lights in the night sky (really, it didn't have anything to do with the girl across the street and her inadequate window blind). I traipsed around the mountains near my home looking for odd tracks and spoor. I actually had interview forms prepared, for reports of the fantastic. Just. In. Case.

So I find the current heavy flow of TV programs devoted to the fantastic almost irresistible. Some of the shows are cheesy, heavily sensationalized rehashes of hoary old tales. But a surprising percentage of the specials offer new material, well-researched and -presented. These shows are popular enough that money is available to invest in research, and I have learned that I cannot overlook even a story with which I think I am very familiar since the shows may uncover new witnesses or finally show a photo or video of which I had heard but never seen. I don't always sit and watch the shows, but typically instead keep an ear on them while doing housework or somesuch, while occasionally focusing in on a tidbit.

Tonight's show on USOs, a broad term encompassing everything from anomalous blobs or pinwheels of light underwater to sonar contacts with objects moving through deep water at incredible speed, was particularly interesting, offering new material and even fresh perspectives on timeworn reports. For example, I learned that Christopher Columbus logged a report of an unusual light which rose out of the water, hovered over the water "with a light like that from a wax candle", then sank back beneath the waves -- a report I do not recall previously hearing. There was also video footage from a similar occurrence in Puerto Rico, which I had heard of but never seen.

I have to contrast the almost-nightly "high strange" show ("high strange" used as a measure in the weird world -- the more highly strange something is, the more deserving it is of research) with the popular media wasteland in which I grew up. There were a few books on UFOS in the public library, Keyhoe and Adamski and the like, copies of which I soon owned myself. There were a few worn books on "monsters" and anomalous creatures, Yeti and Nessie -- copies of which I soon owned myself. The bookstores had a few of the more mainstream titles on sensational subjects, Frank Edwards and James Churchward and the like, and need I mention that these soon appeared on my bookshelf? I slowly added more titles via constant scrutiny of used book stores.

It wasn't until 1973 and a TV special entitled "In Search of Ancient Astronauts" that the trickle became a flood. The special, based upon Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods?, caught the public attention and started a new craze of interest in anything high strange. (That, and the fact that there was a "flap" of UFO sightings getting a lot of press just then.) Suddenly, many old works were back in print, as well as many new works with provocative titles and covers which just happened to use the font and layout of the cover of Chariots. I can assure you (since I read all of them) that a lot of it was crap, the research and "logic" composed primarily of questions and dubious interpretations of mythology. (One standout I recall: the author asked, "Since some of the stars we see from Earth obviously form into shapes which we call the constellations, is it too much to assume that the stars were rearranged to configurations which would mean something to us here on Earth?" Well, yes -- especially since many of those "obvious" constellations are not obvious at all and have widely different interpretations depending upon the culture of those naming them...)

Anyway, suddenly everyone was interested in subjects for which shortly before they had mocked me; at the age of 13, I was the "old hand of high strange". Public interest kept rising (and in fact has never stopped rising), and the TV series "In Search Of..." in 1975 further popularized many subjects and stories which had until then resided only between the covers of my well-worn paperback books. If I had been a bit older, I might have been able to dine out as an "expert" on high strange; as it was, I was called upon to argue points with people who were themselves "instant experts" based upon what Leonard Nimoy had told them the night before. (Nimoy was the distinctively-voiced host of "In Search Of...")

One of the popular questions of the day was, "Do you believe in flying saucers?" The question always made me wince, not for the least reason due to its nonsensicality -- what are you asking me I believe about them? But of course the assumed meaning was "Do you think flying saucers are physical objects piloted by people from other places in space"? I had to develop an answer, the question was so common that it was unavoidable. And I have been pondering the question for almost four decades now.

And the answer? No. Yes. Maybe. There is no answer. Or rather there is no answer, no absolute, which can rest easily upon the evidence presented to date.

But its the wrong question. Ask rather, "Do you believe the UFO phenomenon is real?" and I will answer with a firm yes. The "UFO phenomenon" -- reports of odd moving shapes in the sky, sometimes coming to rest upon the earth -- is a constant in human experience. Can I explain it? No.

This position is very frustrating, even challenging, to those for whom the answer is the goal. For them the answer is everything, so much so that they may go to some embarrassingly silly lengths to swallow "proof" or formulate theories in which the average 6-year-old can pick holes. What's the point of wondering, these people feel, if you cannot reach a conclusion?

But I side with John Keel, one of the great names in UFOlogy. He stated, simply and famously, that

Belief is the Enemy.

Once you start to believe in a certain way, especially in subjects highly strange, two things begin to happen: you unconsciously don blinders which keep you from seeing contrary evidence, and you actually start to attract people and phenomena which will most directly prove your belief as true in your eyes. I have seen it happen many times -- people set out looking for knowledge, for proof, then start chasing after belief and once down that path the "ratchet effect" named by Jacques Vallee sets in and these folks steadily believe odder and odder things and accept weaker and vaguer things as proof and one day they are wondering why the rest of the world is looking at them with very odd expressions.

The people who chase after belief have some excuse; delve a way into these subjects and you will start to encounter reports of very odd things indeed, stick around a bit more and some of these things start to happen around and to you. (Read John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies for a classic overview of this escalation. But please ignore the dreadful movie of the same name.) As you start to "live the life" and more things happen around you, a sly little delusion of grandeur creeps in and the focus shifts from the world at large to your own little world and suddenly you are not a reporter but a player. This shift can be seen in the autobiographical reports of dozens of UFO researchers. (Again, I refer you to Mothman Prophecies for a discussion -- Keel is very aware of this psychological effect, even as it is happening to himself.) Suddenly, it seems as if "proof" is all around you, and you marvel that people in general can not see it, and it may become something of a mission in life to inform them, educate them. Save them, even.

UFO enthusiasts are sometimes characterized by detractors (and competitors, for it is a highly competitive field even in the midst of people sharing their research findings) as paranoids. And it is easy to argue that position. If the government is opening your mail, you must be important or they wouldn't bother, right? If the Space Brethren choose me from all on the planet for a revelation as to their purpose here, I am demonstrably special, yes?

But while it is easy to label contactees, abductees, and people who run around crop circles with divining rods as kooks and paranoids, I think we are actually dealing with a much bigger distinction here, something of a chasm. And which side of the chasm you are on is largely decided by How Much You Need To Believe. People who have a high need to believe (and as the subject at hand is highly strange a high need for belief is required) are above that chasm wall over there, people who keep more of an open mind are over here on this side.

You may have noticed just then the shadow of the one of the most often-used weapons in the high strange armamentarium -- "true believers" often accuse skeptics and critics of having "closed minds". But in my many years of being involved with matters high strange, it has been my experience that the opposite is true -- it is the true believers who operate with closed minds, or at least minds with only tunneled access, the tunnels passing between the blinders which their belief has caused them to adopt. Their desire to find support for their belief all-too-often closes their minds to all but that which directly feeds their belief.

I for years worked in a bookstore where I was in charge of the "High Strange" titles. And by extension, the "High Strange" customers. It was fascinating, and I genuinely enjoyed interacting with customers to find out what they were looking for and best supply the books they needed. But I also soon learned to keep a certain detachment from the customers, to keep them at arm's length. Many of them would make the erroneous assumption that, since I was knowledgeable about subjects highly strange, that I was, perforce, a believer. And some of the people were "especially highly strange", clinically paranoid, the sort of person whom you do not want to know personal details about yourself lest their belief system should involve visiting your home late some night...

(This is no exaggeration. Some of my regular customers, people who had sought to involve me in their meetings and socializing, were later implicated in the disappearance and murder of the wife of one of the group members. And part of the planning for the murder evidently happened in the cafe of our bookstore. Keeping these people at arm's length was a good policy.)

I'll say it again: Belief is the Enemy. An enemy made stronger by the fact that many people do not have a strongly internalized distinction between the definitions of "believe", and "think", and "feel".

But yet, I still love a mystery.

I am delighted that even though there are more cameras on the planet than ever before, with more people toting them around who would like nothing better than to have something sensational to post on the Net, we still don't have definitive pictures of cryptozoological stars like Nessie or a sasquatch. It thrills me that, even with GoogleEarth an example of how carefully the planet is scrutinized from orbit, there are still wildernesses in which new species are discovered each year, that even on a world which seems to be shrinking every day due to telecommunications there are still Mysterious Places. I am stimulated by the idea that, for all of our amazing ability to analyze materials left by previous denizens, many of our "conclusions" regarding how they lived are actually just guesses.

There is always more to discover. We are far from running out of mysteries.

And I love it.

There were Dragons in the Earth in those Days

While we were at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History to get the latest on the Mars rovers, we also happened upon something wonderful in the lobby.

It is a casting of a reconstructed dinosaur skull, the original of which resides in The Children's Museum of Indianopolis. The skull was discovered in South Dakota and the species it represents named "Dracorex Hogwartsia", the "Hogwarts" reference in honor of J.K. Rowling the author of the Harry Potter series.

The "dragon king" part is easy to attribute, because the skull looks exactly as though it came from a dragon. No "from certain angles...", no "if you added..." -- it looks exactly like a freakin' dragon. Anyone, primitive or sophisticate, who dug up this skull would be perfectly justified in believing that Here There Be Dragons.





When I crouched down and looked it in the eye socket, a chill went up my simian spine.

The images do not do it justice -- get yourself down to the Natural History Museum and look eye to eye with legend.

---

postscript -- The "Hogwartsia" reference in the species name is a nice nod to Rowling's book series, and is likely to get lots of kids in to look at the exhibit. And I have no argument with the Harry Potter books -- fun reads, which have gotten millions of children interested in reading series. But personally I think the skull more closely resembles the dragons of Paolini's Eragon series, particularly the cover art from Eldest.




Link to drawing of the skull, by Robert Bakker:

Dracorex skull drawing

The Red Planet, loyal Servants, and a Question

We are very fortunate, here in out-of-the-way New Mexico, to have regular access to some of the finest science lectures around. Los Alamos Labs has a lecture program, Sandia Labs scientists are everywhere, and there are many aerospace-related companies in the area. Seminars, symposia and conferences in space science and astrophysics are common.

One of the anchors for these lectures is the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, not only as a venue (nice big lecture hall with a Max screen, and a planetarium around the corner) but also as home to some of the lecture talent. One such is Dr. Larry Crumpler, volcanologist, Research Curator, and part of the team guiding the exploration rovers on Mars. (His wife is also with the Museum, and she is involved with the project mapping Venus. And yes, the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" jokes fly fast and furious.)

Since Dr. Crumpler is on the team we have here had the inside track on the status of the Mars rover missions in regular updates, all of which we have attended. Dr. Crumpler and other members of the team have presented information which was sometimes only minutes old when the talk began. There is also a very nice full-scale mockup of one of the rovers at the Museum. (And our next-door-neightbor helped assemble and pack some of the equipment which is currently on the rovers.) So we have had a greater-than-average exposure to the rover program, and it was with eagerness we went to the 3-year update the other night.

That's right -- three years. The exploration rovers which had an optimal mission design of 90 days (and team members confide they would have been satisfied at 70) are still on Mars, moving around and doing science, three years later. Over-engineered to counter earlier NASA failures, the success of any mission predicated on the lifespan of the weakest link, the rovers are slowly wearing out but still forging ahead.

As I think of our two representatives on the Red Planet it is hard for me not to feel a warm avuncular pride in their accomplishments. There they are in that harsh environment (admittedly, one they are designed for -- does a penguin consider cold water harsh?), steadily increasing our knowledge about Mars and giving us new images of another planet. And as we get more images, it is interesting how my sense of the alien fades and familiarity grows; the images from Mars might be of the Sahara, and some of the rocky slopes look just like places I have visited in New Mexico. The more we get to see of it, the more it becomes possible we could think of Mars as a place to live... Every time I see the images of dust devils on Mars it gives me chills, not only because of the ineffable coolness that these are actually images from another planet, one with an atmosphere which helps sculpt it, but also because I have seen and been enveloped by just such dust devils here in the Southwest.




Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-CalTech



And it is difficult for me not to personify, even anthropomorphize, the two rovers. They are our agents, designed as much as possible to do what we might if we were there. They are exploring by human direction, but exploration is an indication of curiosity in living organisms and by association seems to be a characteristic of the rovers. They are acting in our service and in our stead -- the whole point of their design -- and it is easy to put myself "in their wheels" and imagine myself as they are, literally a planet apart, alone, but steadfastly continuing on their mission. I can feel the drag of Spirit's inactive wheel, the arthritis in Opportunity's arm; can feel both weariness and determination to continue. And I feel again that avuncular pride I mentioned before.

If I can feel this way about something which looks like a cross between a golfcart and a preying mantis, what will it be like when our robot servants become more humaniform? This is a question which has been asked many times in science fiction, and as our robotics technology improves and becomes more commonplace is a question we may be asking ourselves on a daily basis.

Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-CalTech


My first major exposure to the question was Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, a collection of stories all revolving around that theme. (Please disregard the movie of the same title, which shares a few character names but is otherwise quite detached from the sensibilities and themes of the original work, and in fact owes more to Williamson than Asimov.) Even in their primitive forms, Asimov's robots pose problems for society as they progress in our perceptions from pets to servants, and eventually to seeming like people. Many other works have examined the idea since: Simak's robotic factotum loyally serving one family over generations, Bradbury's story-telling androids which can seem more real than uninspired flesh-and-blood, the killing-machine-developing-a-soul arc of the Terminator movies. More recently, Spielberg's movie AI did a thoughtful and sometimes chilling job of making us consider just what it is that makes us individuals worthy of respect and protection.

Our exploration of space and the other planets will be largely robotic for some time to come. Robots will increasingly share our tasks here on Earth, and have already removed from us many dangerous or drudging tasks. Robots are becoming increasingly flexible, and electronics are improving to allow robots to act more autonomously.

What will it be like when they become more humaniform, when they not only work in factories but share our homes as companions and servants, when what we see when we look at them looks more and more like what we see when we look in the mirror? What will it be like when they seem less like machines, and more like individuals?

It's a good thing science fiction has been asking these questions about robots for a long time, because I for one don't want to be caught unprepared when they ask us.

---

postscript -- I once asked a scientist on the rover team if team members yielded to the temptation to personify the rovers. They were spending 14 hours a day dealing with each rover long-distance; if I could feel an attachment to the unit, surely the pull would be much stronger for them, especially with a team assigned to each rover.

He took a while to reply; I could tell he was composing a careful answer. He finally said, "Since we spend so much time with the rovers, and they are doing our work for us, and each one has a different situation and mission, it is easier to think of them as individuals. And... some members of the team... are a bit more likely to... imbue them with a personality."

Then he quickly went on to the next question.

Yes, Things May Happen

There's a sign I pass daily on my way to work, up through the canyon. It is one of those diamond-shaped road signs, complete with a windsock, reading:

GUSTY WINDS MAY EXIST

It has become one of my favorite existential ruminations, a daily Zen reminder. Yes, somewhere on the planet (or beyond - mental image of dust devils on Mars) gusty winds may indeed exist.

There's a new sign up this week, on the highway which approaches the canyon. In response to criticism that provision of information regarding storm/road conditions was poor for the last 2 storms (the "talker" sign over one stretch of the highway giving out the DWI Hotline number rather than alerting drivers that the road was icy ahead), the Highway Dept. has placed several mobile "talkers" along the route. And this sign has added to my philosophical musings.

In large, friendly letters it suggests to all:

Drive Safely

WINTER WEATHER POSSIBLE

This, while positioned in a surround of snow.

Well. Wisdom and insight is where we find it, not always where we look for it. And I wouldn't be the first one to find insight in something noticed along the road.

Please, Dear Reader, Drive Safely. Gusty Winds may Exist. And here, in the middle of January, WINTER WEATHER is POSSIBLE.

Book Review: "Fun Home"

I never got into comics much as a kid. Oh, I was familiar with a lot of the titles, even bought one now and then to peruse while draining the sandy sweetness of Pixy Stix. But they never got under my skin as they did with some people I know.

Many years later (how many years past Pixy Stix?) I have become interested in comics and particularly graphic novels as a medium. Watchmen got me started - elegantly cyclical, subtly detailed; I get something new out of each reading, and have loaned it with good results to many people who had not previously encountered graphic novels. I have encountered many worthwhile works since then: the ponderous metaphysics of Swamp Thing, the dark world of The Dark Knight, the cross-work fun of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Frank Miller's amazing Sin City... And Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics helped me look in a new way at not only comics but how we interact with all visual media.

The latest work to impress me is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Like Watchmen, I would not hesitate to hand it to someone who needed an introduction to the possibilities of graphic novels as a form. But Bechdel's work is perhaps an even better introduction, since Watchmen deals with the superhero mythos and Fun Home is an autobiographical work about growing up, and family, and life -- things to which anyone can relate regardless of how they feel about tights and capes.

Bechdel's storytelling style is something like John Irving: wry, intelligent observations on everyday life with the occasional bizarreness thrown in, and then sudden shocks of revelations delivered in a dry voice. This delivery is often in the form of juxtaposing scenes of everyday life with narration of memory or great change, what Scott McCloud calls the "interdependent" and "parallel" modes in comics structure.

Why a graphic novel, rather than a text-story version? First, Bechdel is an artist; favoring words must seem almost an insult to images, when you are able to draw them. But the primary reason is that Bechdel has a nice command for steering the reader across sudden time jumps and philosophical considerations, using the "implied time" between frames.

Bechdel has a fine voice, and the work is rich with both historical & literary allusions and historical & literary influences. The lines:

I was Spartan to my father's Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his Nelly. Utilitarian to his Aesthete.

give some idea of the flavor of the writing, with the illustrations varying from point to counterpoint with the text. Far from the "Pow!", "Uggh!" some people expect from comic books, the reader can expect to visit a world in which Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and James Joyce are oft-quoted off-frame players.

Humorous, saddening, literate -- Alison Bechdel's Fun Home comes highly recommended, both as a read and as a fine example of how some writer/artists dignify the genre of the "comic book".

To Serve Man (not a cookbook)(well, maybe)

I was talking a while ago with Izzy, a very thoughtful person whose words I often ponder. (He is an excellent fellow with whom to share a fire on an eerily-lit snowy night.)

Izzy was talking about how we are here in this life to do as well as we can for ourselves, but also that there is need for balancing this by being of service to others. The gist of his premise is that if you are not of service, you are not complete as a person.

I've been giving this a lot of thought. I'm a helpful kind of guy; I hold doors, help with parcels, let people merge in traffic. I like things to go smoothly and I also think that if you can turn a frown upside down you are doing your little bit to battle human entropy. I think we are indeed here to be of help to one another, and sometimes all it takes to be helpful is a genuine inquiry after someone's health or a listening ear. But I had never thought of it in terms of service before.

It is especially of interest to me since I have realized that, while I enjoy being helpful, I get bent out of shape if I perceive that someone is perceiving me as servile. Arguing definitions here, perhaps -- but in my lexicon there is a great chasm between the words helpful and servile. I help people because I feel it is right to do so, not because I think I am their inferior or from a need to be a doormat.

And even when one is of service, it takes some careful consideration to assure that one's efforts are worthwhile and not actually harmful. For just as there is a chasm between the words mentioned above, there can be a chasm between what someone wants and what they actually need. Because want is often expressed by someone's ego, and while it is a kindness to bolster a sagging ego it is an error to feed a demanding ego -- if you give it suck it will attach with lamprey teeth and you will be nursing a monster. To feed a demanding ego is to actually give support to the closest enemy of the person you think you are helping.

I shall continue to ponder this (and ponder the role of my own ego in considerations of the matter). In the meantime I shall continue with my small helpfulnesses, for their own glory and not mine own. But there is one area where I can increase my efforts, and I thank Izzy for getting me thinking about this more than usual.

I don't have to look far to see how I can be of service, and it is in a form difficult of misapplication. I do massage, I do body manipulation, I do energy healing, and all rather well. In short, I can make people's bodies feel better. A service I can offer freely and without debate about consequence, as it feeds the body and the spirit and is also a balanced diet for the ego. I can do these things; I see I do not do them often enough. But I can offer them more, and I can dedicate a greater part of my time and self to becoming more insightful and skillful when I do get the chance to apply these skills.

So in the time to come watch for me to better Serve Man (and Woman) in this way, my own recipe for a happier world. With a dash of Izzy.

Bring It On!

Just as we have finished cleaning up after the last two snow storms, there is more weather aflake in New Mexico.

A mass of moist air is moving up from the south, with another cold mass of air coming down from the north, the two projected to grip the middle of the state in a pincer action tomorrow afternoon.

I recognize the hassles, the impact on business, the leaky roofs which this new storm could bring. But I welcome it.

Why?

It could be I have a deep-seated appreciation of seasons, and the need for them.

It could be that I enjoy seeing the world transformed by a deep layer of snow.

It could be that I value reminders that there are forces greater than ourselves, to balance the hubris of humanity.

But mostly it's because I really dig seeing chicks in fur-trimmed snow boots.

Each In His Own Way

We have several bird feeders in the side yard, and a watering station. It makes us a destination for the birds both local and migratory, an avian oasis. During the recent deep snows we were the only source of food around, and the activity was constant. (Except for one period where no songbirds were to be seen, after which there was a neat radial pattern of feathers and blood drops on the snow not far away -- all types of birds are fed here.)

All the bird activity makes it more pleasant and interesting to do dishes; we have something to watch out of the window while scrubbing pots.

The cat also appreciates the view. In warmer weather he has a viewing station, a "hunting blind", under a tall curving clump of grass midway between the two groups of feeders. He rarely goes after the birds, preferring instead to enjoy his concealment and his time on his personal veldt, a small lion. We call it "cat TV".

With the deep snow, his usual spot is just a snow drift among others. But not far away is an area which the ground-feeding juncos have industriously scratched clear in their pursuit of the seed we scatter. The cat has taken to crouching there, between the trunk of the old pear tree and a smaller scrub tree. He is not as well-concealed, and the birds surely know he is there, but it makes for a decent post nonetheless. Sometimes he is alert and twitches at every bird-flit; other times he dozes and only reacts to large movements.

At the base of the pear tree is a flat stone, and upon the stone is a small greyish resin statue of the seated Buddha. The (grey, fluffy) cat's station is close by.

I look out the window, suds to the elbow.

The Buddha sits and prays. The cat sits, and preys.

Each is at peace, in his own way.

A Neologism

A co-worker was today complaining about her husband being unavailable because he had his cell phone turned off. She said he was 'AWOL'.

"No," I blurted out, "he's incellunicado!"

A Google shows no hits on this term. Good Lord - I'm first.

And you heard it here first.

incellunicado - adj. To be incommunicado due to one's cell phone being turned off.

Thought For A New Year

To change one's life, start immediately,
do it flamboyantly,
no exceptions.

-- William James