UFOs and the solid light enigma
by Bill Chalker
(A version of this article appeared in the New Dawn Special issue Vol.13 No.1, February 2019)
Light. Light in all its extraordinary manifestations pervades modern society through a huge range of ways. Natural, man-made and truly exotic forms of light and their interactions with us, has always fascinated me.
The variety of UFO interaction with our forms of light and the deployment of what seems to be alien analogues of light or some much more unusual, are astonishing. This array of manifestations has been a world-wide and frequent feature of UFO encounters.
I have been focusing on how UFOs manipulate light or what seemed to be projections of their own “light beams.” These “light beams” have some intriguing characteristics. Unlike light beams as we know them many of UFO “light beams” are seemingly truncated – a “sawed-off” appearance. In other words they have a finite end. They often seemed to be projected in unusual ways, particularly demonstrating “slow progression”. Instead of immediate projection these beams often slowly project. They are often non-divergent, with many reports of what appear to be “solid light tubes.” They seem to be used in a variety of ways as transport or picking up things like people or UFO entities – an “alien variant” of the “tractor beam” – a staple of science fiction - but they seem light years beyond the limited achievement we have made in this area. They are often involved in vehicle immobilisation events, which in UFO parlance have been referred to as “EM car stop” events, the “EM” referring to the proposition of a possible electromagnetic mechanism. The so-called “solid light” cases represent a fascinating, but somewhat neglected body of international case data. Through the assistance of many researchers around the world I have been able to confirm my long held hypothesis that they represent a potent body of potentially remarkable data. I feel they can provide some fascinating breakthroughs in how we can ultimately manipulate and utilize light in ways that seem like science fiction. The “solid light” UFO cases suggest that the UFO reality is demonstrating that, whatever is behind them, UFOs have been doing many extraordinary things with light or its exotic analogues.
In a remarkable juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern consider the following possible linkage of “solid light” stretching out over centuries in China.
THE HIDDEN CHINESE BREAKTHROUGH “SOLID LIGHT” CONNECTION
One of Joseph Needham’s key historical sources for his monumental multi-volume series “Science and Civilisation in China” was Shen Kua, a Song (Sung) Dynasty scholar. In his fascinating example of the pi-chi form of Chinese literature – “Brush talks from Dream Brook” Shen Kua records “inside information” about a “strange occurrence” involving an extraordinary “pearl” that frequented the air above a number of lakes around Yangzhou in Jiangsu province in China. From this “impossible pearl” a bright fantastic light would emerge “like a single ray of golden thread” – “a golden ray of light.” Perhaps this was an early example of a UFO using “solid light”?
Accurate translations of Song (or Sung) dynasty “pre-‐scientist” Shen Kua’s story the flying “pearl” of Gaoyau support it may describe an 11thcentury account of a UFO projecting “solid light.”
Gaoyau or “West Lake” of Shen Kua’s account is more accurately referred to as “Slender West Lake” (aka Fanliang Lake) just north of Yangzhou. It should not be confused with the much better known tourist location to the south at Hangzhou, also known as West Lake, for which I have also established has its own more mythic sky dragon/elusive “pearl” folktale.
Two translations by esteemed US Chinese scholars describe “light shot out from the crack like a golden ray,” (James Hargett) and “a bright light emerged from its “shell”, like a single ray of golden thread” (Richard Bodman). Quoting Richard Bodman’s translation in Victor Mair’s “The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature.” Boldman titles the extract “On a UFO”:
“In the Chia-yu period, a pearl appeared in Yang-chou. It was very large and frequently appeared at night. At first it emerged from the swamps of T’ien-ch’ang county. Later it moved to Pi-she Lake; and finally it was at Hsin-k’ai Lake. For more than ten years, residents and travellers would constantly see it.
“My friend had a study by the lakeside and one night saw that the “pearl” was very near. At first it opened its door very slowly and light shot out from the crack, like a golden ray. After a moment, it opened wider to the space of half a mat; within there was a white light like silver. The “pearl” was as big as a fist and so bright you couldn’t look at it directly. For over ten tricents, the trees cast shadows, exactly as when the sun has just come up. In the distance you saw only a sky reddened as if by a forest fire. All of a sudden it went far off, moving as if in flight, floating over the waves, shining like the sun.
“In recent years, it hasn’t appeared again; no one knows where it has gone. Fan-liang-chen is where the “pearl” used to appear, and when travellers reach there, they usually tie up their boats for a few nights to watch for its appearance. The pavilion there is called “The Playful Pearl.”
In 1998 scientists and military personnel were gathered at a Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) missile base in the Badain Jaran desert in Lanzhou province. They were testing China’s first “supersonic” drone, based on a modified J-711 fighter. At the base a famous Chinese Defence scientist, Major General Zhao Xu, the “father” of China’s UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), witnessed a striking UFO encounter, with other scientists and military people. The incident was verified by radar and PLAAF F-6 pursuit aircraft pilots. The base commander General Li, focusing on the testimony of his own pilots (Captains Liuming and Wu Shao Hun), and addressing the projection of two beams of strange light from the UFO, stated, "Surprisingly these two light beams of light were not as we normally see light beams, as has been according to the distance and spread, but as two light-emitting entities, sticking out from the bottom of the UFO ending on a certain length. At least today we have not got control of this sort of light technology."
Did Chinese science, not limited by narrow mindedness and debunking, seize upon this event and achieve a possible scientific breakthrough?Chinese scientists have taken the first tentative steps to realize a dream of science fiction fans around the world a functioning “tractor beam” – utilizing in part the Bessel beam principle, to not only nudge a particle, but to apparently pick it up. Is this mankind’s first baby steps to a technology seemingly evident in UFO sightings for decades – what has for want of a better term been referred to as “solid light”?
Open science has been playing with Bose-Einstein condensates et.al to manipulate light in diverse ways - our crude opening gambit in a direction that might show us "solid light" effects that have been reported for decades in a diverse range of international UFO case material.
A remarkable encounter took place near Boyup Brook in Western Australia on 30 October 1967. A Western Australian Police Department report on the incident, describes what took place:
Report of: Leonard Johnson, Constable 2514
I have to report that at approximately 9.35pm on Monday the 30th October, 1967, Alexander Roy SPARGO, 37 years, shearing contractor of Great Southern Co…. called at this station and reported having sighted an unidentified flying object on the Kojonup-Mayanup Road, Kulikup approximately 10 miles from Mayanup at about 9.20pm 30th October 1967.
Spargo stated he was driving his 1967 Valiant Utility,… , towards Boyup Brook from Kojonup at approximately 60-65 mph with headlights on high beam.
When approximately 10 miles from Mayanup the car suddenly stopped - motor stopped - headlights went out - and became stationary without any sensation of braking or deceleration.
A tube of light descended close to the windscreen. The tube was about 2 feet in diameter. He looked up the tube and could not see anything but felt he was being observed.
The tube of light had descended from object shaped like a football, iridescent blue colour (lightning colour but stationary), with a pulsating glow appearance, and approximately 30 feet in diameter.
Spargo stated he just sat looking at the tube of light and object for approximately 5 minutes. He felt no personal effect other than surprise and not being able to believe his eyes. He heard no noise.
The object then moved off very quickly and disappeared in a 'flash.' When it had gone Spargo found his motor running, lights on, and again travelling at 60 to 65 mph (previous speed). He felt no sensation of acceleration.
He stopped the vehicle and got out and inspected same but could find nothing unusual. He then continued on to Boyup Brook and called at the Police Station and made his report.
He stated he employed 60 men shearers and if they learned of his report he would be ridiculed.
Prior to this sighting he had read of other people's sightings and he had regarded those people as 'cranks.'
He travelled to Boyup Brook and stayed overnight at Bill Inglis' farm where he had a team of shearers working and returned to Kojonup on the 31st October.
There had been a fairly severe electrical storm on Sunday evening the 29th with a great deal of lightning and thunder but little rain.
On Monday evening the 30th the sky had become overcast and some lighting seen around 7pm.
This primary source account of a striking example of a UFO deploying “solid light” and seemingly controlling a car, becomes all the more stranger, when one considers the location. Only a decade before area had become the focus of a sensational milieu of poltergeist events in the form of falling stones, strange Min Min like lights and other curious phenomena. Most interestingly for the matter of “solid light” on the same night as the 1967 Boyup Brook event, on a property in nearby Mayanup, Grayden Pascoe, a local farmer, experienced a bizarre encounter with what may have been another example of “solid light.” His story was recorded in Helen Hack’s book “The Mystery of the Mayanup Poltergeist.”
At his property on Whistler Road, Mr. Pascoe had been disturbed by terrible noise from farm animals. His enormous kangaroo dog cowered on the verandah. When Pascoe stepped onto the verandah he was blinded by an intense light. Instinctively putting up his hands to shield his shut eyes, Pascoe observed that the strange light was so intense it seemed to shine right through his hands and closed eyelids. Opening his eyes, Pascoe saw that his hand seemed to be transparent, with the veins showing up “in a blue network beneath the skin.” He stood for 5 or 6 minutes, trying unsuccessfully to determine where the light was coming from. During this period of time Pascoe indicated he was unable to move because of the blinding light. Then suddenly without any sound the light disappeared.
In the“UFOs and Government – A Historical Inquiry”by the UFO History Group, one the book’s primary authors - Dr. Michael Swords – highlighted a striking “solid light” example - the fascinating 1960 Red Bluff California case where official attitudes caused a UFO witness, a highway patrol officer, to not describe the “light beam projected by the object seemed like what would be described today, as a big, fat laser beam. That is, it did not spread out or diffuse “properly.” But worse than that, the beam seemed to have an “end" to it.”Here was a remarkable example of what many researchers have called “solid light” in action. Michael Swords touched upon a critical issue, that Dr. James McDonald did manage to draw out this remarkable detail, because he was actually interested in what the witnesses reported, rather than conducting a myopic debunking exercise. Genuine scientific skepticism, driven by a desire to question and carefully investigate an experience, can potentially yield much scientific breakthroughs. We now know that there are many such cases of “this peculiar sawed-off light.” Indeed Dr. Sword’s indicated in an end note in “UFOs and Government” that “sawed-off light” cases are “a peculiar feature of a smallish set of “high strangeness” UFO encounters. As these encounters are widely spread across the world, this feature is surprising and difficult to explain on sociological grounds.”He indicated he had some 44 cases in his own files.
In his blog “The Big Study” - thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com Mike Swords wrote a post entitled” “SLOW LIGHT & UFOs” in which he mentions: “Bill Chalker wrote the other day. He's contemplating making a review of so-called "solid light" UFO cases, and I welcome that. Bill's a hard-science-trained UFOlogist and might just be able to make some sense of a real puzzlement in this field. He asked me if I'd scour my files for such cases [since I'd foolishly admitted to having around 44 of such things], and so I did, making a list for him to pursue and build his analysis more robustly [Bill already had a bigger bunch than that].”
Mike further stated, “In my understanding the term "solid light" came from witness testimony--- the light beam seemed "solid"; it was as if the beam extended like a solid tube, etc. This phrase stuck but is probably a bad one. The light effects that we're witnessing in these cases behave not like solids but like "regular" light which is abnormally "contained" somehow. Things don't seem to be "impacted" by these beams, only illuminated by them. The things [generally] seem to be more like spatially-constrained lasers [admittedly of wide diameter] than anything solid, and might well be more like tubes [i.e. hollow] than "full" beams.
I have been studying this aspect of the UFO mystery for many years. In both of my books “The OZ Files” and “Hair of the Alien” I refer to solid light cases and describe an Australian case from Kiama, southern NSW from the early 1970s. I have been looking into the case since learning of it in the 1990s and recently conducted a very detailed site investigation to determine if the observations reported by the primary witness were possible and to see if further information could be found. The case is rather complicated and also has entity and abduction aspects. The primary witness has closely guarded his privacy and I have only had one face to face meeting with him, as well as many phone conversations, written statements and emails.
Having talked to Graham a number of times over the years I have found him to be a compelling witness, but one who has struggled mightily with the ontological status of the events. Indeed he was originally much more comfortable casting the event as a strange dream. While the recent investigations seem to caste the stranger aspects as being witnessed by Graham only with marginal supporting cast in the form of his ex wife and ex father and mother in law, as well as possibly some neighbours, who may have interpreted the event in different ways, this seems to be a strange "display" event, so frequently reported in many close encounter type cases, particularly those with high strangeness elements, such as this one. In many of these sorts of cases there often seems to be selective perceptions of the events, sometimes so acute that often people near to each other have a very different experience, as if a central witness is the only intended viewer?
My investigations have indicated that the most likely date of the Kiama beach “solid light” case is 22 November 1970.
My ongoing Kiama investigations have continued to energise my interest in solid light cases. I welcome input of cases to my email billozfiles@tpg.com.au
I was approached by the reporting witness Graham about this bizarre episode on the south coast at Kiama. He and his family were staying with his parents in law at a house on a headland that overlooks a prominent beach in the Kiama area. During the night his sleep was disturbed by light coming into the room. On the second occasion he saw a flying craft which projected at an angle “a light beam (“like a perfect cylinder of solid light”, about 30 feet long and about 2 and a half feet diameter) white in colour with a blue fluorescent tinge evaporating from it” and detached moving in a downward axis impacting with a caravan. “Upon impact the light behaved like water, pouring over the caravan,… and like fluorescent paint from an electro, airless spray gun… the caravan illuminated completely for about three seconds then the light faded away.” The craft now slightly to the left of its original position projects another “beam of light” which moves again in an axis at a very slow pace (3 feet per second), this time impacting on an amenities block at the beach camping site, in the same way as the caravan impact.A third light beam much longer in length detaches from the unidentified flying craft and is projected at about a 45 degree axis towards the beach briefly illuminating an area of sand 40 feet at its widest. Four people are present on the beach in this area – 2 men standing motionless looking up at the craft, a young woman who jumps up from a small beach fire and joins the 2 men, and another young woman running backwards “trying to brush the light off her arms and body.” She then stood separately from the other 3 people staring up at the craft. The light goes out and the beach is then in darkness. The witness apparently falls asleep standing, then awakens again, this time seeing the unidentified craft now above the headland street very near to the house, overlooking the beach. The witness blacks out. When he comes to, the witness sees that the craft is still in close proximity to the house. The witness sees through a window shape on the side of the craft and also sees a man enter the room in view via the “window.” He is joined by another man. The witness is then suddenly frightened when he sees the 2 men inside the craft are looking directly at him and smiling. He drops to the floor calling out to the others in the house, and saying: "Everybody keep down. Stay out of the light."Pandemonium sets in with great noise and severe vibration of the fridge and washing machine. He calls out, "Quickly get under the doorways, the house is going to fall."For the witness it seems like “the craft overhead sucked the electricity out of the house, then took off.”
This strange affair has several defined stages, but the evident discontinuities in awareness, argue both for a surreal, dream like quality and also reflect the paradoxical reality of some of the stranger elements of the UFO phenomenon. The extraordinary behaviour of the "light beams" behaving as both "solid" and "liquid" has been reported elsewhere in Australia and overseas. The apparent surreal display quality to parts of this experience (such as the UFO and its occupants displaying themselves up close to the reporting witness in the house on the beach headland) is reflected in many cases. There seems to have been a number of gaps in the time sequence.
The main witness recontacted me a while ago. He confirmed an aspect I had long suspected as part of the experience, which he only original hinted at in the vaguest possible way. He has an abduction recollection that was consciously recollected at the time, but he was extremely reluctant to share these details during our original discussions years ago.
He recollects sitting in a curved hallway in a strange environment. He heard a voice and turned to fine a woman. She asked him, “Do you remember what happened in there?” “No,” he replied. “Do you?” he asked. “Put it this way, I won’t be telling my husband.”
He doesn’t recollect much more, or he volunteered little further detail about this aspect of the Kiama encounter. However he did say he started to frequent some UFO group meetings with the express purpose of seeing if he could fine the woman he had encountered in the Kiama experience. At one meeting he saw a woman who looked like the woman encountered in the “strange environment”, presumably onboard the UFO. When he started to talk to her he felt she was not the right person and did not persist with the conversation.
By way of homage to the venerable Shen Kua, who I view as a proto-scientist and even an early Fortean researcher (a collector and chronicler of strange anomalies like Charles Fort), I feel I’m at least providing some “brush strokes” or “brush talk” that may yet yield valuable insights into such things as breakthrough advances in our understanding, manipulation and use of light. The Chinese connection I’ve described here might suggest that. It does seem that there are efforts by various government intelligence and defence agencies to develop breakthrough technologies that are often encountered in the long and enduring history of UFO encounters that seem to display what seem disruptive technologies “light years” ahead of us. The recent revelations of a secret Pentagon UFO program – the AATIP programme and Robert Bigelow’s BAASS group were focusing on possible disruptive breakthrough technologies that may be involved with UFO or AAV (Advanced Aerial Vehicle) encounters. I encountered a possible linkage to these developments while trying to investigate whether a 2006 MUFON investigation of a classic style EM (“electromagnetic”) “car stop” case had an “solid light” aspect. Readers can read of the state of play on this strange story on my OZ Files blog:
It is clear that the investigation of UFOs and the curious “solid light” enigma have a lot to reveal. I hope to contribute further to document this fascinating mystery and I welcome reader’s comments and information about possible “solid light” UFO experiences. Please contact me via my email billozfiles@tpg.com.auor my postal address: Bill Chalker, P.O. Box 42, West Pennant Hills, NSW, 2125, Australia
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