UFO’s – Interviews and Reflections

The UFO Encyclopedia : The Phenomenon from the Beginning (2 Volume Set)

October 26, 2010

The UFO Encyclopedia : The Phenomenon from the Beginning (2 Volume Set) by Jerome Clark Many have wished for the existence of a fundamental reader on the immense topic of UFOlogy that cuts through the self-promotions of the cottage industry, sees hoaxes and likely errors of perception for what they are, respects the scientific method [...]

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A Tale of Two Sciences: Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist by Peter A. Sturrock

April 6, 2010

A Tale of Two Sciences: Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist by Peter A. Sturrock (Exoscience: Palo Alto) 2009. by Richard Thieme “A Tale of Two Sciences:  Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist,” by Dr. Peter A. Sturrock, is a personal work by the well-known Stanford physicist and astrophysicist, reflecting on the sometimes complementary, sometimes discordant threads [...]

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A Review of “This Way to the Stars: How Quantum Physics Changes Current Space Propulsion Paradigms, Making Inter-Galactic Travel a Possibility” by Paul Kirsch

March 13, 2009

A Review of “This Way to the Stars: How Quantum Physics Changes Current Space Propulsion Paradigms, Making Inter-Galactic Travel a Possibility” (Timeless Voyager Press: 2008) 96 pages by Paul Kirsch. by Richard Thieme www.themeworks.com From Paul Hill’s posthumously published “Unconventional Flying Objects” to Nick Cook’s “Hunt for Zero Point,” a number of people have attempted [...]

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Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts

February 11, 2009

Published by The Future Fire (2008.14), dedicated to “Social, Political, & Speculative Cyberfiction. An experiment in and celebration of new writing.” It’s s always a treat to be published in a magazine that you also like to read! The story was illustrated nicely by Chris Cartwright of Digital Design. See it at FutureFire. This story [...]

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What is it About UFOs?

November 28, 2007

by Richard Thieme “When you think about it – I mean, really step back and think about it – the reaction, I mean, to Dennis Kucinich’s statement the other night during the Democratic debate, about seeing an aerial vehicle, a large dark triangle, something reported by many people in this and other countries and probably [...]

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Out There by Howard Blum

April 4, 2007

The Swiss Cheese School of Investigative Reporting There are many more holes here than substance. The book depicts the author’s journey, including a number of meetings with anonymous sources that lead to nothing newsworthy, and is not a coherent well-researched account of UFO phenomena or its many subsets (black budget research, disinformation deception and cover [...]

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UFOs Over Wisconsin: an op ed rant

February 11, 2007

“Space travel is utter bilge.” – The Royal Astronomer in England, 1956, the year before the launch of Sputnik The local CBS news (Channel 5/58) had a feature this week on UFOs over Wisconsin. It was different than the usual silly <wink wink> kind of feature that passes for UFO news on most mainstream media. [...]

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More Than a Dream

December 31, 2005

by Richard Thieme [This story has an interesting history. Way back, when I was still in the Episcopal ministry, I wanted to start writing again and wrote a story called "The Bridge" on which this one is based. I had no idea if it showed promise or not and on an impulse I sent it [...]

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Interview with Edgar Mitchell, ScD., Captain USN (Ret)

July 18, 2005

Interview with Edgar Mitchell, ScD., Captain USN (Ret) by Richard Thieme RT: You’ve been involved with consciousness studies, including the exploration of UFOs, for some time. What’s your primary focus? EM: My focus has never been primarily on UFOs. My focus has been consciousness studies for thirty years. I kind of back doored into this [...]

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The Necessity for Invention

July 11, 2005

[This is "flash fiction," a new category generated from the fact that smaller texts are more congenial to online reading at the moment. This was published in The Listening Eye in 2005. Come to think of it, this is a riff on a theme often heard in my reflections on anomalous phenomena. I probably should [...]

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Interview with Mark Rodigher, Scientific Director of CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies)

July 5, 2005

Interview with Mark Rodigher, Scientific Director of CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies) MR: The Roswell case has been further strengthened. A living witness, a name you would recognize, has revealed more than he has ever said before. Confirming things like yes, there actually were alien bodies. Yes, the weather balloon story really was a cover-up [...]

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Are There UFOs on Mars?

July 1, 2005

Are There UFOs on Mars? by Richard Thieme It’s a matter of common sense, really, this UFO business, that and taking the time to understand all kinds of human activity from the psychology of perception to “black budget” and other clandestine operations to the uses of cults and religions for purposes of social control. It’s [...]

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Incident at Wolf Cove

October 1, 2004

[Incident at Wolf Cove was published in the Summer/Fall 2004 issue (xxiii,i) of The Puckerbrush Review, Gossamer Press, Old Town, Maine.Prior to her death, the editor, Constance Hunting was a wonderful editor and offered nuanced support for many writers. The old PR was a treasure. The story was also published online as "a real page-turner" [...]

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Interview with John Alexander, Science Advisory Board of NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science

June 26, 2001

Interview with John Alexander, Science Advisory Board of NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science – http://www.nidsci.org) and author of Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First-Century Warfare, St. Martins Press. [break] RT: I want to talk with credible people. As a respected professional, I know the effect ridicule can have. No one wants to be mistaken [...]

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Interview with Joe McMoneagle , Remote Viewer

June 5, 2001

Interview with Joe McMoneagle RT: The people I speak to seem to accept the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the least unlikely, and when so many people of this caliber take it seriously, I am suggesting that we should too … how would you define your understanding of or relationship to UFO phenomena? JM:  I have two [...]

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On the Dark Side of the Moon

May 22, 2001

I’ve been lucky. Mentors and friends have shown up at critical moments of my life to offer conversations that help me find my way. You’re never too old, I guess, to receive some balance and perspective from a wiser elder. Even when the conversation sounds a little wild. The talk at the coffee shop this [...]

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The Silence of the Lambs

May 8, 2001

“I always thought I was a cynic,” author and journalist Gary Webb told me, “but my colleagues insisted I was an idealist.” We were talking about the power of the national security state which has evolved since World War II and which had punished Webb for exposing the links between drug trafficking by the CIA, [...]

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Interpretation

April 13, 2001

When living systems – including people like us – spontaneously reorganize themselves, we call it hierarchical restructuring. Systems seem to be hardwired to do this when they become overwhelmed or baffled. It’s as if life itself provides a Zen koan that confronts our reasoning with a puzzle that reasoning cannot solve. Some begin the process [...]

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“The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up” by Terry Hansen

March 26, 2001

“The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up” by Terry Hansen Xlibris. 2000. Reviewed by Richard Thieme IUR, International UFO Reporter, Spring 2001 (Volume 26, Number 1) a publication of the J. Allen Hynek Center for the Study of UFOs It is a staple of the modern era of propaganda and public relations [...]

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Interview with Russ Estes, Producer co-author of “The Abduction Enigma: The truth behind the mass alien abductions of the late twentieth century” (Forge: New York: 1999)

January 20, 2001

Interview with Russ Estes, Producer co-author of “The Abduction Enigma: The truth behind the mass alien abductions of the late twentieth century” (Forge: New York: 1999) RE: I haunted the edges of UFOlogy and the paranormal world for many years. It was my hobby – haunting sites, the paranormal. Then 12 years ago I semi-retired [...]

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Interview with Kevin Randle: Following up on Roswell

January 15, 2001

Interview with Kevin Randle: following up on Roswell RT: Why are scientists’ horizons so narrow? KR: It may be the fault of UFOlogy. Very few people embrace science, and it has an anti-intellectual bias. In France, they claimed that “rocks fall from the sky,” and everyone laughed, but the next year, they examined the rocks [...]

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Interview with Jill Tarter, director of Project Phoenix of SETI

January 15, 2001

Jill Tarter: I would feel much more comfortable if one of the people you plan to speak to is Philip Klass. More to the point, Phil knows everybody in the business and because he made the study of UFOs a search to find credibility, he is aware of the foibles and lack of rigor and [...]

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Interview with Thomas E. (Eddie) Bullard

January 10, 2001

Interview with Thomas E. (Eddie) Bullard RT: How do you get into this area? TB: I have had an interest in UFOs since I was a kid. Spaceships were always interesting. I was in grad school in Folklore and when it came time to do a dissertation, the obvious thing was UFOs. This was the [...]

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Interview with Frank Drake, author of the Drake Equation

January 8, 2001

Project OZMA and SETI, author of the Drake Equation estimating the frequency of advanced civilizations in our galaxy By Richard Thieme RT: Since Project Ozma, you have been working with SETI or projects like it for forty years. So – at this point in time – what do you think? FD: Let me make two [...]

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Interview with Peter Sturrock

December 26, 2000

Interview with Peter Sturrock RT: What’s your current title? PS: I am Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics at Stanford University. RT: And what is your interest in UFO phenomena? PS: I’m a student. That’s about it. RT: Was there a moment when your understanding of the phenomena shifted, a contextual shift, a quickening? PS: No, [...]

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Interview with Julie Hill, daughter of Paul R. Hill

December 21, 2000

Interview with Julie Hill, daughter of Paul R. Hill RT: Your father’s approach (in Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis) was so refreshing. JH: Most things that people see, we say how can we explain it? rather than, how can we explain it away? RT: Why was the book published posthumously? JH: He tried. When [...]

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Interview with Richard Haines, retired NASA research scientist and former Chief of the Space Human Factors Office at Ames Research Center

December 21, 2000

RH: I have a lot of ideas on a lot of subjects in this field, ranging from photic bacteria as basic explanatory hypothesis to fractal dynamics that would explain a lot of the characteristics that are seen and described by people. I have written papers on the fractal part. I have been involved with the [...]

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Interview with Walt Andrus, former Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network)

November 16, 2000

Interview with Walt Andrus, former Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) WA: My original interest started on August 15, 1948 when my wife and son and I in Phoenix AZ on vacation saw four objects information that flew from east to west across a clear blue sky at one in the afternoon. They disappeared one [...]

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An Interview with John F. Schuessler, Executive Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network)

November 4, 2000

An Interview with John F. Schuessler, Executive Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) I began with the human space flight program in 1962 at the end of the Mercury program and retired because of the Gemini program. I went into design of the environmental control system and became responsible for the ECS on the Gemini [...]

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Surfing the Web

January 2, 1999

No, not THAT web. The REAL web. Three times this week I awoke with a strong impression of particular people, all of them important to me, all of them distant. I hadn’t heard from any of them in a long time. In each case, the sense of their presence was unmistakable, persistent. And significant email [...]

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Which is Moving, the Lunatic or the Fringe?

July 1, 1998

Q: When you watch a flag blow in the wind, which is moving, the flag or the wind? A: The mind is moving. For introspective types, the movement of our minds is good recreation. The fun of investigating phenomena that challenge our consensus realties is observing how our minds move in response to anomalous data. [...]

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Out There

May 16, 1998

The economy of the next century will in all likelihood be driven from the outside in, that is, from near-earth space, the moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and a little later, bodies like Europa, Titan, or Triton. Triton is a distant moon of Neptune, but distant ceases to matter when wherever we are is the [...]

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Magic

April 10, 1998

When we were children, the earth was often “bathed in celestial light,” as Wordsworth said, and the landscape included a kind of transparency that revealed a benevolent intelligence behind the “natural order.”   Then the magic vanished, leaving a life lived more on the surface of things, habits that pressed our perceptions and behaviors into pre-formed [...]

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Delusions of Grandeur

November 7, 1997

We had quite a time coming to believe that meteorites were real. Told that two Harvard professors suggested that was the case, Thomas Jefferson exclaimed, “I would rather believe those scientists are crazy than believe that rocks fall from the sky.” When lots of rocks fell from the sky on a single French village and [...]

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Contact

August 20, 1997

Some people don’t like the scene in the movie “Contact” in which Jodie Foster as a SETI scientist meets the aliens because we aren’t shown what the aliens look like. I think that was the right way to do it. We can’t think the unthinkable; from inside the old paradigm, we can’t imagine what the [...]

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UFOs and the Internet

July 8, 1997

[This summer marks the 50th anniversaries of the first modern publicized report of UFO phenomena by Kenneth Arnold in June 1947 and the "Roswell incident" in July 1947. This column is much abridged from the articles "How to Build a UFO ... Story" (Internet Underground: November 1996) and "Stalking the UFO Meme on the Internet" [...]

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Stalking the UFO Meme. or, How to Build a UFO … Story

November 1, 1996

Stalking the UFO Meme by Richard Thieme published as  “How to Build a UFO … Story”  in Internet Undergr0und. November 1996 (Vol 1, Issue 12) “There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said. “He is shouting like mad, only hark! He is waving his hands, he is waggling his head, He has certainly found a Snark!” [...]

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The Stock Market, UFOs and Religious Experience

May 23, 1994

The Stock Market, UFOs and Religious Experience reflections on a speech I have given for investment analysts,  religious seekers, and other interested parties … As a consultant and public speaker, I address a variety of issues: leadership, the uses of power, and the transformations of organization; diversity, conflict reduction, and team-building; and ethics. But I [...]

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