Monday, December 26, 2011

Our Aliens Are Better Than Your Aliens

News reports indicate renewed global efforts are underway to prosecute Nazi war criminals remaining at large. Some US-based organizations support the efforts.

Those not afflicted with conspiracy-phobia will be reminded of Operation Paperclip, a confirmed post-World War II US intelligence project in which Third Reich key personnel were targeted for recruitment. Select Nazi scientists were provided asylum in the States in exchange for their contributions to American intelligence interests. “Our Germans are better than your Germans,” went the Cold War era running joke between the CIA and KGB.

The New York Times published further details of such recruitment efforts and related issues in a 2010 article titled, Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says. The article, written by Eric Lichtblau, provides key details of a 2006 US Justice Department 600-page report, The Office of Special Investigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust. The report, heavily redacted by the Justice Department prior to its release, was obtained and subsequently published in its entirety by the Times.

Further concerns might be raised by the fact US-based funding entities, including the Rockefeller Foundation, financially aided eugenic research conducted in pre-World War II Germany and elsewhere. This has long been accepted as fact among historians and as reported on George Mason University's History News Network, among any number of sources defined as credible by the professional research community.

Now, any self-respecting realist will find nothing surprising about world powers demonstrating double standards. Most of us are all too aware politics courts hypocrisy, so let us move along to further considerations of how such circumstances might be relevant to ufology.

Progeria and Genetic Testing

A couple years ago, a valued associate and good friend, Iza, known on line as stiver, brought Progeria and its implications to my attention. She contributed substantially to my understandings of the following information.

Progeria is a rare childhood genetic disorder, typically including an enlarged head and absence of hair, in which accelerated aging occurs. According to the Progeria Research Foundation, the disorder is due to genetic mutation. 


Dolly's taxidermied remains.
Iza studied other evolving genetic research, including cloning. She noted the curious similarities between symptoms of Progeria and certain clones, such as Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Dolly developed arthritis and other disorders common to much older sheep, resulting in her premature death at the age of six years, only about half the life expectancy of the average sheep. Essentially, Dolly died of old age while still young, Iza noted, just like those stricken with Progeria.

If any doubts remain that intelligence officials would take serious interest in genetic research, consider a BBC report about cloned cattle. Scientists observed in six cloned cows what was literally termed reversed aging! The cows simply aged at a significantly slower than normal pace.

A small number of UFO and alien abduction researchers have considered the implications of Progeria and genetic research. Some of their resulting work is reasonably well conceived while some leaves more than a bit to be desired.

Nick Redfern tried to raise awareness of relevant possibilities. He wrote about Progeria and related circumstances in some of his books, as well as posted about it on UFO Updates List. Redfern wrote the List, “And I still find it interesting that I found files – forwarded to the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft people at Oak Ridge and the Biology Division at Oak Ridge, no less - in 1947 on radiation experiments undertaken that summer on people with Progeria.”

I find it interesting, too. I also find it interesting that those diagnosed with Progeria so closely resemble descriptions of supposed human-alien hybrid beings as described by alleged alien abductees. Let us explore such things and the potential ties to Oak Ridge, also known as Atomic City and as cited by Redfern, a bit further.

Covert Research

A 1977 article titled, Private Institutions Used in CIA Effort to Control Behavior and published by The New York Times, delved into mind control experiments perpetrated by the American intelligence community during Project MKULTRA. Among other noteworthy items, the article cited some 25 years of covert experiments conducted at colleges, medical institutions and research facilities, funded by nonprofit organizations acting as conduits for the Central Intelligence Agency.

During the 1990's the Clinton administration established the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. The committee was created to investigate allegations involuntary human research subjects were deceived and abused during radiation experiments, some of which were alleged to have been perpetrated by MKULTRA personnel. The committee ultimately concluded an estimated 11,000 people were treated negligently by the US government in the course of radiation experiments, some of which were fatal.

The advisory committee heard testimony, sometimes absolutely horrific in nature, from individuals claiming to be victims. One such self-described victim was Suzanne Starr, a woman who, among other nightmarish allegations, stated she was subjected to an induced pregnancy resulting in her baby boy being taken from her, presumably for further experimentation. One reasonable interpretation would be that a primary difference between testimonies narrated by Starr and those narrated by some possible alien abductees is that Starr blamed CIA operatives for her abuse rather than aliens, whatever that may or may not ultimately indicate.

It should be noted that certain MKULTRA victims, some of which were indeed conclusively verified to have been among those abused during the notorious operations conducted at Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, claimed to have observed pathetically mutated individuals at the facility. The details and existence of such alleged mutated individuals cannot be confirmed and may of course indicate circumstances other than actuality in at least some instances. My point being there are demographics in addition to alien abductees that describe experiences similar to that of abductees, including allegations of extensive testing, including genetic, the circumstances of which have historical precedence and substantially more likelihood.

All things considered, if a claim of a stolen fetus or ominous encounter with a child having wispy hair, large eyes and an enlarged head were to ever be substantiated, could we sincerely look one another in the eye, with full knowledge of factual information such as cited in this post, and say space invaders were really the most likely explanation? Really?

18 comments:

  1. hi Jack! with all due respect, sometimes it seems that it's possible to get too excited about any seeming 'real world' connection to abduction reports....i can see where a person would sense a similarity. but when i tease out in my mind how this would come about -

    so, rogue gov't elements start to irradiate progeria stricken children in 1947. in order to draw a link between this event and the hundreds (thousands?) of alien abduction reports, largely starting in the 1970s or 1980s, you have 30 to 40 years in which, maintaining utter secrecy, hundreds (thousands?) of genetically-altered progeria afflicted children must be created, gestated, reared somewhere by someone, trained to behave like little aliens, and then transported all over the US (and the world?) to carry out faked abductions.

    this sounds like an enormous project, spanning decades, requiring vast resources, rampantly large scale human experimentation, lotta cash, lotta people.....

    at this point i find myself asking "Really?" With the level of evidence you have so far presented, plus concerns such as not ever recalling an abductee comparing their abductors to people afflicted with Progeria (a disease which has received a fair amount of publicity), it's hard for me to consider this scenario much more likely than even the ETH (which i'm not convinced by, either).

    i'd have to see a lot more evidence and/or fleshing out of how this could be accomplished 'realistically' before i'd term it anything other than far-fetched. steph

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  2. I was not suggesting the scenario you described and disputed, Steph. I was suggesting the following facts deserve consideration:

    - American-based nonprofit organizations funded research into eugenics.

    - The States provided refuge to select Nazi scientists and key personnel in exchange for services in their areas of expertise, during the MKULTRA and radiation testing years, no less.

    - The CIA conducted covert research projects, exploiting involuntary human subjects, through nonprofit organizations acting as funding entities. Such organizations previously funded eugenics research projects, which might give pause to wonder the actual original sources of the eugenics-funds.

    - Confirmed and alleged involuntary research subjects provided testimonies that are similar to that of alleged alien abductees in some instances, including tests of reproductive systems, perceived telepathic messages and administration of drugs, among many more consistencies.

    - Radiation testing is confirmed to have been conducted on people with Progeria (among some estimated 11,000 others) and related files were forwarded to Oak Ridge personnel.

    - Those stricken with Progeria suffer from rapid aging.

    - Research of cloning indicates the aging process is sped up or slowed down in clones.

    Those are facts. What those facts indicate is open for debate.

    I suggested and continue to assert such facts imply quite human beings, as opposed to alien beings, should be our initial suspected perpetrators of any alleged programs involving human abduction and/or hybridization. If some readers see no potential relevance between facts as listed and abduction lore, so be it.

    I am not suggesting conclusions are in order about alleged alien abduction. Quite the contrary, actually, as I highly encourage competent and thorough research into the many possible explanations for reports of abduction. Conclusions are not yet available for the cases of true interest, limited in number as they may be, and in spite of the fact many would have us prematurely believe otherwise.

    I therefore agree, Steph, we should be very careful in asserting conclusions where they do not yet fit. That is how we got in the mess we are in now, where people claiming they have proof of alien abductions and alien-sponsored hybridization projects are invited to speak at events hosted by a supposedly scientific research organization.

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  3. hi Jack! i don't dispute your facts. i just don't understand what makes this set of facts seem so compelling to you re: the abduction problem. i'm also a bit adrift as to how you define the abduction problem in the first place.

    cheers!! steph

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  4. There are very few abduction "reports" with names attached to them. The notion that the reports are more specific than the ideas covered in the post is an illusion.

    Jack reports on people and institutions who exist or did exist. There's no proof aliens exist. Something which has no proven existence can't be more specific than something which does. If there is proof, provide it. If there are thousands of abductees, millions, name them.

    In addition, abduction researchers, especially the hypnotists, do not publish detailed demographic information regarding the abductees which would allow those reports, in the hundreds and not the thousands or millions the abduction industry contends, to be critically received. That lack of specificity and the anonymity of the abductees permits abduction charlatans to leverage criticism into a honeypot because they control the amount of data disseminated, circumventing objective analysis.

    The reason this mystification is undertaken is readily ascertained. The abduction industry is covering its ass.

    What would also be readily ascertained is that the demographics of the "abductee" population would include people who have been physically and sexually abused as children, people with evidence-based claims to such abuse, such claims involving registered offenders or multi-victim situations, and/or who are socioeconomically in crisis.

    Googling, in Google Scholar, hypnotically+induced+psychopathology is helpful as regards mind control as is the fact that some abductees also make mind control and manchurian candidate claims. Multiple personality disorder is also a feature in those claims. The usual suspects.

    The trick has always been to ascribe the behavior and technology of humans to aliens. This trick works because nobody believes humans are very clever.

    Here's a flash for you: Humans are pretty damn clever.

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  5. To "anonymous" - Consider me thick-as-a-plank but what does your comment have to do with Jack Brewer's topic -specifically the unfortunate children who are afflicted with Progeria? [And, I'm not sure I even understand the point Jack was making.]

    ~ Susan Brown

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  6. hi Jack! "That is how we got in the mess we are in now, where people claiming they have proof of alien abductions and alien-sponsored hybridization projects are invited to speak at events hosted by a supposedly scientific research organization."

    Here's where we disagree. IMO whoever MUFON gets to speak at their meetings doesn't matter one bit - except inasmuch as it reflects the larger, much harder problem: real people are having very disturbing and distressing experiences with no good (or even so-so) answers as to what's behind it, how they can healthily deal with it, or how to make it stop.

    In this context, i second Ms. Brown's comment as well. steph

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  7. Every time someone mentions an estimate of hundreds and thousands alien abductees, I'm reminded of the Tom Deuley's statement regarding the Ambient Monitoring Project:

    "Finding subjects was our biggest problem. We at first wanted 60 - in the end we only found 13... There is something very wrong here. With an estimated 3 million or more claimed abductees in the US we could not find 15. Our requirements were high, but not that high. Nearly any medical study can find 1%; we could not find 1/1000%. This may say more than (the results of) our study."

    Tom Deuley is not just any researcher with limited access to AA subjects of research. Besides all the impressive credentials on his resume, he is also a member of MUFON BoD and the author of the AMP project. The objective of the AMP was to take us closer to that so-desired proof that people claim to want. AMP is still frozen, apparently due to lack of funding.

    In the same time when AMP was struggling with lack of funding, such AA researchers like Jacobs and Hopkins "received a $200,000 private grant--Jacobs will not reveal the donor--to conduct in-depth research on accounts of abductions by aliens. (Results of their first poll, conducted by the Roper organization and released last week, are that one in every 50 adult Americans claims a UFO abduction experience.)
    ...
    John E. Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has a $200,000 contract from Scribner to write his own book about abductions."
    http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-20/news/vw-159_1_ufo-abduction/2

    Therefore, people, who demand proof, need to ask themselves, why in our technologically developed world we haven't produced a grain of hard evidence. Is it because of the aliens' magical ability to cover their tracks, or because some very earthly entities have interest to invest not in scientific research, but in perpetuating beliefs and grotesque distortion of factual data.

    Such kind of lavishly funded disinformation makes it extremely difficult for independent researchers to penetrate the wall. It takes a lot of unconventional, yet rational thinking to see evidence outside the square (I wouldn't call it even a box) with the sticker "Made in UFO-land" It takes even more courage to present their findings to a public fed with false claims of pseudo-scientific conclusions.

    Ufology was intended to develop but never became a science. It is only a huge collection of credible and false testimonies in a forest of theories built on patterns. Some theories are impossible, others stand strong until a new bit of discrepancy puts them to sleep. Jack presents here the progeria connection even not as a theory, but as a supporting point in his main thesis, additionally clarified in his comment. The progeria connection is mentioned as a heads-up tip, similar to mentioning that the medical procedures on Betty Hill in the UFO closely resemble certain modern procedures in our own medicine.

    I understand the confusion in understanding the progeria connection from the above paragraph, but to become a well shaped theory, worth of detailed presentation, it needs a lot of additional work and an ample package of facts and explanations. In mean time, learning about methods and history of cloning, may help to understand where this theory is heading.

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  8. Striver, are you able to provide a link to the results of the Roper poll that were released last week? I would be very interested to read it. Thanks very much.

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  9. Emma, There is a little confusion. The "Results of their first poll, conducted by the Roper organization and released last week," is a quote from the article, a link to which I provided above. The article itself was published on May 20, 1992.

    http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-20/news/vw-159_1_ufo-abduction

    The first poll took place in July 6-September 14, 1991, "survey by Bigelow Holding Company. Methodology: Conducted by Roper Organization" (data retrieved from iPOLL Databank)

    I don't know where the results were officially published for the first time. Probably more can be found in the John Mack's book "Unusual personal experiences an analysis of the data from three national surveys conducted by the Roper Organization," Published 1992 by Bigelow Holding Corp. in Las Vegas, Nev.:

    http://openlibrary.org/books/OL15448881M/Unusual_personal_experiences

    A good source for the results and a comparison with those of the second, almost identical poll, conducted in 1998 also by Jacobs and Hopkins, is on the archived page of NIDS here:

    http://web.archive.org/web/200101220731/http://www.nidsci.org/news/roper_surveys.html

    Then there was another, third survey by SciFi channel in 2002, also conducted by Roper Poll. At the link below you can look at the questions, which are a very simplified internet version of the Jacobs/Hopkins questions from the 1991/1998 polls. According to that quiz, I'm also a potential abductee. I don't know whether the official sponsor of the 2002 poll was also a Bigelow-named company, or the SciFi channel.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20090529102957/http://www.scifi.com/ufo/quiz/

    The results of the third poll are here:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20030625065639/http://www.scifi.com/ufo/roper/06.html

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  10. The sheer audacity of the Progeria hypothesis prompted me to do a little bit of web-searching. What i found was interesting. First, as progeria leads to an average death at age 13 (most lifespans of the afflicted range from 8-21 years), this was not 'experimentation on people' - it was torturing children, plain and simple. This should be investigated on that basis alone.

    Second, there are not a lot of progeria children at all. The disease usually results as a spontaneous genetic mutation which would be expected to occur at a standard rate. It does not run in families except for a handful of instances.

    Wikipedia claims 140 diagnosed Progerians in the entire history of the disease, which was first described in 1886 by Jonathan Hutchinson.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeria

    cont'd.

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  11. The Progeria Research Foundation site
    http://www.progeriaresearch.org
    currently has 92 progeria kids registered with their organization, worldwide. With the huge boom in human population of recent decades more progeria would be expected, as the mutation occurs at a more or less standard rate. Thus, more people would equal more children with progeria. Any way you slice it, 92 people out of a worldwide population of around 6.8 billion is rare rare rare.

    How many children with progeria were around at the times of these horrible crimes referenced in Mr. Redfern's Oak Ridge files? From 1886 - 2000 is 114 years. Taking the figure of 140 afflicted children from Wikipedia and spreading it out over the time this disease has been recognized, that would be about 1 and a quarter cases per year worldwide. Considering the drastic manner in which this disease shortens the lifespan, maybe 10 or a dozen children with progeria were alive on planet earth at the time of these criminal activities?

    I am sure that others more familiar with maths can come up with better numbers than i give here. But the striking thing, to me, is the infinitesimal numbers of progerians compared to the enormous impact of the 'alien face' on the public consciousness and the number of reported sightings of 'greys'.

    The Progeria Research Foundation also has a touching page with little profiles, links to websites, and pictures of 15 children who unfortunately were born with the disease. They are cute as all get out, but do not look like the sketches of 'hybrids' i have seen (in Hopkins and Rainey's "Sight Unseen", for example). Mr. Brewer, it would be helpful if you could include pictures or descriptions you have reference to which strike you as similar to these children.

    The children on the foundation site do have quite large cranial domes, but these tend to make their eyes look rather small. The drawings of hybrids i have seen have very large, often slanted, eyes. Many progerians also have very distinctive long pointy noses which are not reported in hybrid accounts with which i am aware - most hybrids are reported as having flat faces with very small noses. While some progerians seem to have the slight build reported of hybrids, they have none of the mind-boggling quickness reported of the visitors. After all, progeria is a form of incredibly rapid aging, and between arthritis, osteoporosis, etc. these children move like the very old people that they biologically are.

    Take a look for yourself: http://www.progeriaresearch.org/meet_the_kids.html

    Lastly, i remember watching the afternoon talk shows in the 1980's and 1990's. Alien abduction experiencers and researchers were highlighted on these programs *** as well as *** progeria patients and their families. Progeria was pretty well out there in the media at that time and it seems likely that at least one abductee would have pointed out the resemblance if they saw one.

    While i believe that the appalling actions referenced in Mr. Redfern's Oak Ridge research deserve investigation, i still don't see this as looking like an obviously fruitful direction for finding out much about the strange beings many people have been confronted with throughout the centuries.

    Or even what is often sneeringly called 'the alien abduction craze' of recent decades. I hope people find this info helpful in evaluating this for themselves. steph

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    1. Good info Steph!

      I too don't see any connection between the unfortunate Progeria stricken children and the image of a 'grey' alien or descriptions of 'hybrids'.

      I recall watching a documentary on Progeria a few years back and some of the young people live into their early twenties - though it's rare. Even when they are in their early years (5-10) they've already developed atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and arthritis. Bless them, it's so heartbreaking for their families especially.

      ~ Susan

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  12. Very good info. Thanks Steph. Indeed Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome is a cruel DNA disorder and, fortunately, a very rare one. There is no reason to assume that these children are any of the claimed "alien hybrids."

    All innate progeria cases are very well documented and extensively studied. The reason progeria is of such importance and great interest for genetic research is not the symptoms, but the cause of the disease, which is found to be a defective progerin. Progerin is a protein needed for cell adhesion and, when defected, leads to shortened telomere lengths. Short telomere lengths lead to premature aging.

    Telomers progressively become shorter during a DNA replication as in cloning. Many rightly argue that Dolly The Sheep didn't die of progeria but of rapid aging due to critically shortened telomere lengths. This is rather correct because the reason of her aging was in the telomere lengths but not in the progerin protein. However - the result is the same - rapid aging.

    We don't have any reference (I hope) how a human clone would develop but from what we know, we can assume that a cloned human is at great risk to develop progeria-like symptoms. On the other hand, other cloned animals develop abnormally large organs.

    Regarding the large black eyes - I think you'd agree that this type of eyes started to be reported only after the publication of the Communion, which had a great influence in the creation of the collective image of a gray alien. Most of these recollections come from altered states of mind during hypnosis and therefore are distorted by personal and collective symbolism. Betty and Barney Hill for example rigorously deny any large magical eyes.

    In conclusion, I would like to repeat that the expressed ideas here is only a theory. However, regardless how absurd it may sound, I think it is no more absurd than the theory that small gray rapists from other planets come here to create hybrids with questionable purpose and by way-outdated methods. I rather hope that the both theories are bunk.

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    1. Stiver wrote to Steph: "Regarding the large black eyes - I think you'd agree that this type of eyes started to be reported only after the publication of the Communion, which had a great influence in the creation of the collective image of a gray alien. Most of these recollections come from altered states of mind during hypnosis and therefore are distorted by personal and collective symbolism." - - -

      If I could just interject here...There were abduction cases, prior to Whitley Streiber's Communion cover (published 1987), that included descriptions of small, usually hairless gray beings with bulbous heads, huge usually dark wrap-around eyes, slits for noses/lips and little to no ears.

      A question could be why did Streiber purposely make the head smaller and the face more human looking (smiling lips and a nose). In Communion (or maybe it was his follow up book Confirmation) Streiber admitted to not presenting the female alien, who he claimed had been in his life since he was a child, for what she really looked like (which he described as frightening even horrifying - with a huge head and wrap around dark eyes, no true lips or nose). Maybe Streiber simply did what a good writer does. In his situation - homework on earlier abduction reports and then cleaned up the cover to make it compelling but not scare the bleep out of most people. Personally, I'm just not convinced that Streiber has been completely truthful about his experiences as a whole. He admitted to Budd Hopkins that he had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. As a horror/sci-fi writer he of course had (and probably still does) a rich imagination.

      And for a few pre-Communion examples of dark-huge-eyed, bulbuous-headed alien grays with no nose/lips/ears that most of these people recalled from conscious memory: Marianne Sheffield - 1952 in Agawam MA....,Betty Andreasson (and her father who saw the beings coming towards the house as he gazed out the backwindow when their power went out) - 1967 in South Asburnham MA...., Identical twins Jack and Jim Weiner from MA. & their two camping companions - 1976 on the Allagash Waterway, ME.

      Travis Walton - 1975 in Snowflake AZ...., Judy Doraty and other family members - 1973 in Texas City, TX. (she also recalled seeing a calf on board the 'craft' and it was alive in some metallic contraption with its bodily fluids being drained),...., Antonio Vilas Boas - 1957 in Brazil (the female - though resembling what today some people have looked back and called a "hybrid", actually had disproportionately huge eyes, a pointed chin and hardly a nose or lips.


      ~ Susan

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  13. I applaud each of your research efforts. I would like to hopefully clarify my personal perspectives a bit and then encourage your continued study and discussion.

    I originally cited stiver's work in the related post because I suspect the SYMPTOMS of Progeria (not the children suffering from it) may be somehow relevant to SOME reports of alien abduction. Everyone commenting is well aware of the abductee narrations related to breeding, cloning, so on and so forth. My point being we would need to know much more about why, specifically, alphabet agencies were ever interested in Progeria, radiation and related circumstances in order to know how relevant any of it might be to ufology. As Redfern pointed out, the specific government departments interested in such research is reasonably noteworthy in and of itself and, as I pointed out, research into eugenics is a given.

    Additional considerations might be given to whether or not we think intel agencies would take interest in cloning from the perspective of altering the aging process. As stiver originally brought to my attention and as referenced in my post, cloning research resulted in decreased aging in some circumstances (in addition to rapid aging in others). Personally, I would find it very difficult to believe such topics would not be of interest to the intel community.

    I am not suggesting my implications justify conclusions. I was just presenting facts for consideration, more research is required and all that stuff.

    I realize some of you are presenting other points for consideration. Please feel encouraged to continue to do so and I hope you find your research and discussion efforts to be productive and rewarding.

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  14. We don't know where that aircraft came from and it is a coincidence that it coincided with a lot of Nazi activity around anti-gravity advances. And the genetic experimentation is also very interesting. We've heard it many times that the physical beings that visit us are human, or even from another part of Earth we don't know about. So there are a lot of possible truths.

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  15. Lyn Buchanan's book, "The Seventh Sense" is a brilliant exposition of the nature and practice of several types of remote viewing. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in pushing the envelope of conventional consciousness in order to explore the capabilties of the human mind. It is with pleasure that I advocate its inclusion on the required reading of any psychologist.
    Robert A. Yaffee, Ph.D.

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