The Case for the UFO - Varo Jessup Edition-pages

Page 25 of 165

Page 25 of 165
The Case for the UFO - Varo Jessup Edition-pages

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Next, we segregate paranormal experiences into groupings having some family likenesses. Only by so doing can we give them the merciless scrutiny necessary to determine their significance. If there is enlightenment to be had from the, we shall have it. (If this be nonconformity, let us make the most of it; our orthodox opponents may try to make the worst.) This segregation of “erratics" or "oddities" into groups having some similarity serves a two fold utility. First, it simplifies our problem of analysis, because it helps t bring order out of chaos-chaos which is the product of centuries of accumulated data with no co-relation, with no purpose other than that of cataloguing facts for posterity. We may now assume, and with great assurance, that we are the posterity for whom these data were recorded. The time has come when these isolated ? and lone facts, so long orphaned, must be brought into the light, marshaled, and made to serve our purpose. This heterogeneous mass of data has doubtless been preserved for some purpose, if life has any meaning at all, and the solution of the mystery of the UFO's may well be that purpose. The second utility of grouping is to establish emphasis and striking power, for any one of these innumerable events is too weak to stand alone in the face of scientific scoffing. It does not matter, evidently, that a thousand, or even ten thousand, people observe and report paranormal events. One self-confident, assertive and arrogant scientist, backed by the tacit support of his esoteric profession, can deny the occurrence, obfuscate its record, nullify its import, and come close to convincing the ten thousand people that they did not see what they plainly saw. This, of course, is not really science. It comes close to a kind of intellectual dictatorship, and imperialism of the intellect. Thus, by relating the previously unrelated, we can build a wall unscalable by such conformists. Such contempt for those badly frightened or Strictly Orthodox Namby-Pamby Scientists, The Shade of Galileo Walks again in the Name of Better Science. Will he arouse & Enlighten as before? But let us not be over ambitious. We can as easily overstep the bounds of our capabilities as we can shirk our responsibilities. Some of the unexplained phenomena do seem to lie in what, for lack of a better terminology, we must still call the paranormal or psychic fields. One must be on guard not to commit the prime fallacy of all analysis, that of evolving a theory and then proceeding to find facts by which to substantiate it. Therefore, we must sort our observations into two groups. One group will contain everything which can be attributed to physical action by intelligent beings or an undeified and nonspiritual status. The second group is the residue which, as far as one can judge after careful consideration, must remain associated with the psychic or spiritual realm. Even a cursory survey of the vast and scrambled field of strange events--oddities, we can call them--shows us at least three major areas. One of these relates to things which fall from the sky, some of which come from space and which may be roughly classified as organic and inorganic. We use "organic" in the sense of something which is part of, or associated with, a living, thinking entity, and "inorganic" as being merely the debris of space. An ordinary iron-nickel meteorite from space is inorganic within the sphere of our present definition; but if this meteorite arrives on earth shaped like a seven-headed Malayan goddess, or a compound microscope, it's organic. A second major category stands out in the bibliography of oddities. It is the great area of events which encompasses disappearing people, and ships; airplanes and airships crashing and disappearing without trace and without warning; instantaneous and mysterious transportations of people and things; inexplicable tracks and marks, such as the Devil's Footprints of Devonshire, and the "cup-marks" found in stone over much of the world; the organically shaped meteorites found in Tertiary rock and coal formations; evidences of levitation and flight from prehistoric antiquity; and many other phenomena which appear to us to be, or resemble, acts rather than things. 25 No, my twin, He Walks throo cloudsl