WORLD UFO CONFERENCE IN CHINA

I will be going to China during September to lecture at the Dalian World UFO conference. Apart from covering my research, my new book "Hair of the Alien" and the Australian UFO experience, my key interest will be examining the UFO experience in China. In earlier posts (see May 2005 archive) I described some of the material sent to me by the active Beijing based UFO researcher Zhang Jingping and the translation project I had undertaken here in Australia with Chinese interpreters which focused on the most famous alien abduction case in China, that of Meng Zhao Guo. Over 12 hours of videoed translation material has been compiled. My thanks in particular go to Michelle and Christine for their excellent assistance. This has given me a much greater understanding of this controversial Harbin area abduction milieu, which to date has been described outside China in a very limited way. As one of the key researchers in the case will be present at the Dalian conference I look forward to further discussions on this intriguing affair.

The Dalian organising committe has released the following communication on the conference:

China, home of the world's biggest UFO organisation, has sensed the western urge for the enormous Chinese UFO information. Voice for closer ties with Chinese experts has escalated to new height. To enhance global UFO research, organisations around the world has entrusted the International Chinese UFO Association to host the World UFO conference in the beautiful city of Dalian in northeast China.

An ice-breaking meet of ufologists between the east and the west, the Dalian World UFO conference includes renowned UFO authorities sharing their most updated UFO topics and cases around the world in full video lectures. At least 30 Chinese national & regional UFO organisations will present their specialised subjects, including close encounter cases happened in China, the latest and the classic, mostly first time ever announced internationally.

Dalian - named by the U.N. the "beautiful garden seaside city", home of the famous Ice Crafting Contest, will be hosting International Clothing Festival in September. We will have a full day tour of this reformed old city on 11/9. An unforgettable life long memory is waiting! Don't miss this rare occasion for information exchange and networking a global UFO community. Dalian welcomes you.

* 27 provincial/city UFO organisations representation
* Chinese Academy of Science, Nanjing Observatory (led by famed astronomer Mr. Wang Shi-Chiao)
* Prof. Chen Gong-Fu - Harbin Technical University, researcher of Meng Jia-Guo abduction case
* Flying Saucers Exploration Magazine - top circulation science magazine in China

* INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS:

Canada: Mr. Stanton Friedman nuclear physicist
Turkey: Mr. Haktan Akdogan Istanbul UFO Museum founder
Israel: Mr. Peter Harmsen, Jutta Fli Israel UFO Society
Australia: Mr. Bill Chalker lecturer
Nigeria: Mr. Ganiyu Adebayo Alowonle
Japan: lecturer Japan UFO Society
Hong Kong: Dr. Samuel Lee HK Institute of Ufology, Institute of Biophysics - Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ms. Moon Fong Hong Kong UFO Club
Taiwan: Prof. Lu Ying-Jong, writer Taiwan Ufology Society founder, Mr. Wang Chia-Min Taiwan Ufology Society Chairman

* representative groups from: Japan, USA, Hong Kong, Taiwan & more not listed yet

To enroll, please contact us thru any of the contact.

Conference Date: September 8 - 10, 2005 (Tours on Sept. 11)
Registration Date: September 7, 2005
Location: WahGong Hotel, Dalian, China
Fee: A. US$500 4 star hotel
B. $ 300 3 star hotel
C. $ 200 no star hotel
The organising committe arranges the accomodation. Prices cover all expense in accomodation, registration, material, airport/local transportation, souvenirs.
Address: Rm 21-8, 2nd unit, 205 Yong Ping St, Dalian, China 116021
Tel: 0086-0411-84646365
Mobile: 0086-013889415759, 0086-013019466828
Email: infan41311@sina.com
Organiser: Mr. Jin Fan, Guo ZengMing

(Dalian "UFO" tower photo courtesy of Derrick Chang - "Mask of China" blog site)

Talking about the book "HAIR of the ALIEN"

Local fortean researcher Mike Williams did a video interview with me on August 13 at my home discussing my new book "Hair of the Alien". He has placed the interview at this web link:
http://link5.streamhoster.com/video_player.php?u=ozestrange&p=%2Fbill-1.wmv&

Some radio interviews I have done are available on the web or should appear shortly.

"Australia: UFOs & Alien Evidence" (3 hours for subscribers)
on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory on July 28th 2005
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/07/28.html

"Alien Abductions & Seductions in Australia" (1 hour free access)
on the Hilly Rose Show on Fatemag.com Show FM040 on August 14, 2005
http://www.fatemag.com/radio.html

Interview by Whitley Strieber on his Dreamland internet radio show (1 hour free access, a further hour which goes into some material more deepily is available for subscribers)
due late August, 2005
http://www.unknowncountry.com/dreamland/

Clancy, of "The Overflow" - Harvard exorcising it's UFO demons?

Hearing that Susan Clancy of Harvard has a book - "Abducted: How People Come to believe they were kidnapped by Aliens" - coming out from Harvard University Press due on October 1st, I immediately had floating into my mind "in my wild erratic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy".


With sincere apologises to our wonderful iconic Australian "bush poet" "Banjo" Paterson for my abduction of fragments from his 1889 poem "Clancy of the Overflow", but they seem wonderfully insightful in a skewed kind of way:

"for want of better knowledge"
"And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected"

"I can hear the fiendish rattle"
"And the language uninviting"
"Comes fitfully and faintly"

"And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow; they have no time to waste."

I look forward to reading Susan Clancy's offering, and I hope it is more substantial than work that seems to be driving it.

In "Hair of the Alien" (pages 20-21) I wrote:

"During 2002 and 2003 research conducted at Harvard University reignited the idea of psychological mechanisms as a possible explanation of alien abduction reports. The key players in the debate were psychologists Susan Clancy and Richard McNally. "False memory creation was examined in people who reported having recovered memories of traumatic events that are unlikely to have occurred: abduction by space aliens," states the abstract of their paper, which was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. The researchers examined false recall and false recognition in three groups: "people reporting recovered memories of alien abduction, people who believe they were abducted by aliens but have no memories, and people who deny having been abducted by aliens." They concluded: "Those reporting recovered and repressed memories of alien abduction were more prone than control participants to exhibit false recall and recognition. The groups did not differ in correct recall or recognition. Hypnotic suggestibility, depressive symptoms, and schizotypic features were significant predictors of false recall and false recognition."
This research is interesting but has some severe limitations. The sample sizes used in each group were very small - 11, 9, and 13 respectively. Even more critically, the profile of the "recovered memory" group is flawed. The paper states, "None of the participants interviewed reported continuous memories of alien abduction (i.e., memories of alien abduction that were never forgotten) .... Memories were recovered both in therapy with the help of certain therapeutic techniques (e.g., hypnosis) and spontaneously, after reading books, watching movies, or seeing television shows depicting such episodes." In fact, there are a significant number of people reporting abductions who do not rely on hypnosis and other therapeutic techniques. Their memories are based on clearly recollected incidents for which they have no memory loss or delayed recalled."

I concluded:

"we must exercise caution against either the simplistic acceptance of alien causation or skeptical dismissal. Such uncertainties make it all the more important to concentrate on a broad forensic approach to abduction experiences, but physical evidence, whereever possible, needs to be at the heart of these investigations." - "Hair of the Alien" (page 21)

The Peter Khoury alien abduction milieu, which is presented as a detailed case study in my book "HAIR of the ALIEN", represents a potent example of what the Clancy/McNally research fails to address - abduction cases that are clearly and consciously recollected, with compelling physical evidence that appears to support their legitimacy.

Susan Clancy's forthcoming book on initial impressions seems to represent an "overflow" of flawed and limited research, albeit interesting, and perhaps spawned from Harvard's attempts to exorcise the UFO and alien demons, unleashed by the late John Mack (another Harvard icon) in his research into alien abductions. Harvard sought to censure John Mack, but instead seem to invoke misguided and failed attempts at martyrdom. Richard McNally sought to anchor a "mainstream" psychological response with his "bedrock" book "Remembering Trauma". Perhaps Susan Clancy is channelling "overflow", or maybe her book will be more substantial than "language uninviting (that) ... comes fitfully and faintly," and more robust than mere "foetid (hot) air" from some imagined "vision splendid."

There are suggestions that Susan Clancy's book hints "at a larger ambition, to explain the psychology of transformative experiences, whether supposed abductions, conversions or divine visitations." (Benedict Carey, New York Times, August 9, 2005) She will be walking in a rather large shadow if she embarks into that territory.

John Mack was a potent and articulate spokesman for some of the wider dimensions of human experience. With his 1994 book "Abduction - Human Encounters with Aliens", and more particularly his 1999 book "Passport to the Cosmos - Human Transformation and Alien Encounters", he signalled and mapped out his perspectives. In essence "Passport" represented a shamanic envisioning of the whole alien abduction mystery. The transformative aspects of the phenomenon held sway for John Mack, and examination of the physical dimensions seemed secondary or even unimportant. The kind of information I have focused on such as DNA, albeit not without ignoring the shamanic aspects, perhaps conflicted with the numinous dimensions of the hyper reality John Mack speculated may be at the heart of the abduction phenomenon. It seems that in alien abductions John Mack saw affirmations of important concerns and perspectives he had held for some time, and they sat well with the transpersonal and environmental issues he championed for some time, certainly long before the alien sirens beckoned him into their seductive embrace.

To do that requires one to disconnect from the classic physical dimensions of the abduction phenomenon, all of which seem to argue that at least part of the experience occurs in the real world and real world consequences occur. Physical evidence, both explicit and hidden, is becoming available. What has not been so much in evidence are appropriate methodologies to capture and assess this range of evidence. So far the record has been uninspiring, but a new paradigm is emerging, one that has been well represented in terms of potential and actual results by one small part of that paradigm, namely DNA. Other parts of that new paradigm have their anchor in science and its broad base of approaches to understanding the world around us, even when it is being intruded upon, perhaps by something out there. Thats the primary focus of my offering - "Hair of the Alien" - a journey through a scientific DNA forensic paradigm.

"HAIR of the ALIEN" & Whitley Strieber's Journal

"Hair of the Alien" - "the single most convincing fact ever found in support of the physical reality of aliens" - Whitley Strieber - in "Whitley's Journal", Sunday August 7th, 2005

See "Journal" at: www.unknowncountry.com/journal/

Whitley Strieber, author of the bestselling "Communion" and other books on the "visitor" phenomenon, discusses my book "Hair of the Alien" in his Journal on the Unknown Country web site. His interview with me should appear on his Dreamland radio show towards the end of August, which can be accessed via the Unknown Country web link. A further interview was also done for the subscriber section, which goes into issues more deeply.

My perspective is described in the book. For example: (pg. 246)

While the Peter Khoury case confirms the utility of the DNA forensic approach, the real challenge ahead for researchers is to determine if these anomalies are both valid and significant. To do this, abduction researchers should cooperate in a testing program focused on DNA profiling. Testing a significant number of legitimate samples would provide an opportunity for validation of the unusual anomalies found to date. Additional results would add to the database of biological evidence of alleged alien specimens. Such a strategy could help us determine whether the aliens are a biological reality and if indeed any of them are visiting our planet and abducting humans.

HAIR of the ALIEN - in Amazon.ca bestseller (top 100 books) list

Amazon in Canada listed "Hair of the Alien" in its "Hot 100 Books" Best seller list on August 7th at a sales ranking of 78th!

Thank you Canada.

Meanwhile with Amazon in the US determining a sales ranking is like "reading tea leaves", or perhaps its like Brownian motion where the ranking bounces around all over the place. I have noticed a sales rank as low as 8,140. "Hair of the Alien" seems to rank regularly under 30,000 which seems pretty good in a book population on Amazon US of more than two million titles!

Amazon US are now listing the book with a "Search inside" option revealing the front cover, table of contents, copyright page, Excerpt (the introduction) and the index.

INSIDE "HAIR OF THE ALIEN"

My new book "HAIR of the ALIEN" is now available.

You can get a copy through booksellers or outlets like Amazon.com.

Contents of the book:

Introduction
Introducing the "alien DNA paradigm".

Hair of the alien? This is no bizarre variant of a "hangover cure" for UFO obsessions. But it may provide a "cure" for the lack of physical evidence that has plagued alien abduction research for the past four decades. What we are dealing with here is a fundamental refocusing of our perceptions of alien reality.

("Hair of the Alien", page 2)

Chapter One Shattered World
Chapter Two Hair of the Alien
Chapter Three Seeking Help
Chapter Four Alien Impact
Chapter Five Alien DNA?
Chapter Six The Nobel Laureate
Chapter Seven Tape of Lost Memory
Chapter Eight More Hair
Chapter Nine An Early Abduction Odyssey
Chapter Ten Shaman Blues
Chapter Eleven Hidden Evidence
Chapter Twelve The Light Fantastic
Chapter Thirteen Strange Speculations
Epilogue
Appendix
Phase One: Hair Shaft Analysis - Strange Evidence
Phase Two: Hair Root Analysis - Very Strange Evidence
Notes
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index