"American Scientific Ufology is Dead!"

The King is Dead, Long Live the Rex

By James Carrion
Follow The Magic Thread
4-18-12

American scientific Ufology is dead. Its once glorified remains lay decomposing and waiting to be buried in the already littered graveyard of Ufology. Once the king of the Ufological Universe, American Ufology has relegated itself to the realm of charlatans and magicians as well as those who once claimed to be in pursuit of UFO truth but now spend their time resting on their laurels while making the rounds of the UFO speaker’s circuit followed by loyal groupies.

These “usuals” tell the same tired old stories of past research studies, new sensational and unproven claims, and regurgitated UFO trash that can be found anywhere on the Internet. The true scientists, real scientific studies and in depth real investigations are long gone. If you don’t believe me, then search the speaker list of any American UFO conference and you will see the usual characters that hop from event to event like a traveling circus. Examine the content of their presentations and you will be hard pressed to find anything that even comes close to resembling science.

Alleged science based UFO organizations like MUFON are a shadow of their former selves and even though MUFON boasts of years of continuity, thousands of members and trained field investigators and a cadre of PHD consultants, you will also be hard pressed to find any real science within the organization, its journal or its conferences. After more than 40 years of existence collecting UFO data, MUFON cannot even bring itself to state in unequivocal terms what it has learned from the UFO phenomenon. MUFON fails at science because it refuses to establish standards of evidence, expose blatant frauds and focus more on research rather than just on investigation. “Others talk, we investigate” is the MUFON motto but instead it should be “Others talk, we conduct research” , as accumulating years of UFO data without interpreting the data does as much good as accumulating garbage in a landfill; no one benefits from the collection.

Taking the place of America in the UFO Research Universe is the Rex, the Latin word for King, as true UFO investigation and research is now taking place south of the US border in experience rich Latin countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. After spending three days in Peruibe, Brazil at the UFO conference sponsored by Revista UFO, the Brazilian UFO magazine led by A.J. Gevaerd, I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of the presentations as well as the speakers themselves. Here’s a recap of why Latino Ufologists are on the cutting edge of UFO research and investigation.

Scientific Studies of Abduction Cases in Argentina

Argentinian Psychologist Gustavo Cia gave an excellent presentation on the Abduction related Project Demeter- Persefone, a joint collaboration between the organizations, Investigacion de Fenomenos Anomalos (Fenomalias) run by Gustavo and the Centro de Estudios UFO (CEUFO) run by Oscar Alfredo Mario. The purpose of the project is to compare physical, neuro-physical and psychological data that has been accumulated in the project’s database and from which hypotheses are being tested by current and future research. Gustavo’s eighty-eight slides of project technical and methodological data and startling conclusions cannot be properly treated in this article, but I am hoping that once translated into English will be available for anyone to download from the Internet.

Forensic Photo Analysis

Tony Kurowski, an expert in Forensic evidence and a photo analyst for Revista UFO, gave an outstanding presentation on how witnesses misinterpret UFO photo data, convincingly showing the most common errors of lens flares and focal point distortions that make up most of the “I took the photo and noticed later” cases to how everyday objects can be misinterpreted as UFOs. Tony also delved into the many military platforms both known and covert that can be mistaken as UFOs. When asked how many of all of the thousands of photos he has analyzed were truly unexplainable, Tony remarked that only one out of every thousand made him raise an eyebrow.

Fresh New Cases and Evidence

Marco Aurelio Seixas, a Cardiologist from Sao Paulo, Brazil talked about what constitutes scientifically acceptable evidence while other presentations were focused on recent sightings and investigations in different areas of Brazil (the largest country in South America). Retired Peruvian Air Force officer Julio Chamorro spoke about his official UFO investigations on behalf of the Peruvian Government and the many bogus reports filed on the Internet of UFO crashes on Peruvian Soil and retrievals by covert U.S. forces. Chamorro also discussed what he considered true stories like that of a Peruvian fighter jet chasing and shooting at a UFO, witnessed by Chamorro himself and hundreds of other people on the ground as well as a bizarre sighting by former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

With such quantity and quality of data south of the Equator, It is no wonder that Billionaire Robert Bigelow made his round of the South American continent trying to purchase UFO investigations and research from some of the major UFO players in that area. What Bigelow managed to do instead was to spark strong Anti-American sentiment as his cohorts arrogantly tried to negotiate only in Bigelow’s favor, wanting UFO information but not allowing it to be used in return by the local UFO organization. This anti-American sentiment was so strong, I could almost hear the chants of “Yankee, go home” as the crowd was riled up by the very angry presenters. Bigelow’s romp through the South America will be the subject of a future blog article.

In summary, I found myself drawn to the quality of research, openness, and the camaraderie I observed among the UFO conference attendees and presenters. Here they were no UFO speaker “superstars”, just dedicated UFO researchers with a passion for investigation and research and a desire to share data. Absent also, were the fortune tellers, aura readers and new age cultists that seem to flock to and hawk their wares and services at American UFO conferences.

And less I forgot to mention, the biggest different between Peruibe and American conferences was that Peuibe had free attendance. The crowd looked to be somewhere between 700 and 1000 people, most of them young or middle aged, a sizeable contingent given that Peruibe is a two hour drive outside of the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo. I am already looking forward to next year’s conference.

Traveling as I do so much to Brazil, I plan to network as much as possible with the many wonderful South American UFO researchers that I met in Peruibe. I feel fortunate to be a part of this South American community where Scientific Ufology is still alive and well and I predict that it is from these grassroots organizations and researchers that future breakthroughs in UFO research will occur.

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