cont...
I, too, had once been witness to an unexpected spectacle of a brilliant
white light from which a cone-shaped beam extended to the ground. Unlike
Susan I even saw a human figure silhouetted against the cone apparently
inspecting or attempting repairs on his craft. The craft however, in my
case, had been of very terrestrial design. It was a corn-picker.
The headlight often rides about 10 feet above the ground and partially
points down to illuminate the gathering mechanism so the driver can guide
the picker down the rows of corn. Seen from the front most of the picker is
simply invisible because it is night and the glare of the light hides all
but the gathering header. Even that is not fully seen, the light only
reflects off the cylindrical surface below the light and off the nose in
front. The nose floats along the ground to pick up any corn plants that
have fallen over due to wind or soft ground. I suspect the sense of
intersection arises from the structure of the nose which is sometimes
reinforced by extra metal at the tip, also the nose as a whole does not
extend straight out from the unit but forms a shallower angle and may thus
reflect more light. The fluffy nature of the cone of light may be due
either to light reflecting off the convex curve of the gatherer or to the
cloud of dust and air-borne debris kicked up by the picker when it is
moving. The only thing that I wondered after I heard Susan's experience was
whether it happened at the right time of year.
Did it happen during corn harvest season? Answer: Yes, November 7th is well
within the normal limits of corn harvest season which tends to run
mid-October to mid-November.
There is still, however, the matter of that enigmatic detail of the "black
waves" on the windshields during the close encounter. Actually, they don't
seem particularly mysterious to me. Anyone who regularly drives at night in
sparsely trafficked rural areas is familiar with this effect. When a bright
enough point of light forms a screen of light on the windshield, heat
currents and small-scale air turbulence will form silhouettes on it. As one
speeds up or slows down the car, the amount of turbulence alters in
response. It is an optical effect which is utilized in schlieren
photography and helps aeronautics researchers study turbulence effects and
shock patterns formed by design changes in planes and rockets. Whether
Jennifer and Susan were unfamiliar with this phenomenon because of more
urban habits or because their adrenaline rush fogged their thinking can be
speculated on, but the issue is probably unimportant.
As for the missing time in this sequence of events, my guess is that it was
eaten up in those several occasions Susan and Jennifer stopped to get a
better look at the UFO. How long they gazed at Jupiter or how much
conversation they engaged in is difficult to guess at. Might they have lost
track of time talking about the conference they had been to or about their
lives in general? Probably the most damning consideration is inadvertently
offered by Carpenter himself. He observes that Susan mistakenly thought an
hour-and-a-half hypnosis session only took 15 minutes. Jennifer thought her
session also took 15 minutes, but it was actually two-and-a- half hours
long. Given such proven errors in their time sense, what credence can be
given to whatever self-estimates of the length of their several stops they
gave?
Add it all up and we get a sighting event which is interpretable in
entirely prosaic terms. To prefer this interpretation over the assumption
of alien involvement, a person does not even need to invoke Occam's Razor.
The absence of corroborative witnesses to this event which lasted up to
three hours and a UFO high up in a clear night sky argues against a hard
reality and for some kind of mistaken interpretation. The assumption of
alien intelligence falters with an obvious question: Why would they dawdle
around for so long? An intelligently guided operation would probably have
the aliens come straight down, do their stuff, and leave. Why would they
hesitate for over an hour? Why would they hang around afterwards?
Yet what of those hypnosis sessions and those 42 correlations? There indeed
is the paradox. The rest of the case looks so nicely handled, so exemplary.
How can Susan and Jennifer's accounts match so well if they are as illusory
as the sighting event which triggered them?
Carpenter points out both women deny any familiarity with the subject of
UFOs, never read books or saw films about them. He even points to certain
details like the entities being too tall and the abductees not being nude
as departing from publicized norms. This is admittedly a little bit "Heads
I win, tails you lose" -- such departures should argue against the reality
of the accounts. The point however remains. The numerous correlations are
puzzling if they are as ufologically virginal as they profess to be.
It is likely significant that the movie _Communion_ was scheduled to open
on November 10th, three days after the sighting event, but before the
hypnosis sessions that same month on the 12th and 24th. (MUFON UFO Journal
#259, November 1989, p. 27) There are usually publicity blitzes associated
with such openings and it would be expected there had been television and
radio spots about Strieber and other abductees, both nationally and
locally. Susan and Jennifer's account repeat a number of details seen in
Strieber's personal account.
The Gray in Susan's drawing seems basically the same as Strieber's. The
face is triangular. The eyes are large, tilted and completely black. The
body is thin. The 5 1/2 foot height is only slightly taller than Strieber's
Gray which he reported as 5 feet tall. Susan and Jennifer descend on
floating platforms which, though rarely seen in accounts generally, is
consistent with Strieber's transport on a magical palette (Communion,
p.14). Susan and Jennifer both describe an auditorium or operating theater
with tiers of seating which, again, is rare generally, but appears in
Strieber's account (Communion, p. 20). Other details in their accounts do
not point to Strieber specifically. Things like gliding movements by the
entities and nasal implanting and wraparound eyes are found in many
accounts, but do not speak well for the reality of the experience for they
have cultural origins (see my papers Curse of the Space Mummies, The Alien
Booger Menace, and The Eyes that Spoke in various issue of The REALL News).
Other correlations like the sparkly diamond/glass mushroom and the ankle
strap/stirrup are not so readily explained, but may potentially be
explicable if the two ladies both saw a program involving lesser known
abductees put together during the Communion run. Though this may be a
researchable avenue, it would probably require both resources and luck. I
prefer to leave this loose end dangle for I question the effort. Anyone
still undecided as to whether this case has enormous importance in the face
of the considerations already offered probably will be unswayed by
additional effort.
Carpenter would likely, in counterpoint to these evidences of influence,
reiterate his claim that the case also presents details which correlate
with details in other cases that had never had media exposure. In his
_Journal_ paper he speaks of the sucker fingers described by Jennifer as an
example. This claim deserves an article to itself and, indeed, it has
already been done: my paper Alien Suckers, The REALL News, vol. 2, #2
(February, 1994) pp. 1,3,10. I will simply say here, UFO virginity can
remain unsullied by this detail.
There doesn't seem to be any larger implications worth noting that are new.
It basically comes down to one more case with a prosaic ending. Nobody said
it was the case of the century. Carpenter's assessment was fairly tame and
suggested to me he felt he was adding one more board to building the case
for abductions as real. I, thus, will regard this as one more board in
building the case against.
{Editor's Note: The definition of "skybald" -- a worthless one, a "good for
nothing."}
[Martin Kottmeyer is a frequent contributor to The REALL News.]
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