UFOs and the Paranormal in focus today VIDEO link & backgrounding - Part 1 of ?

Back on 30 November 2019 I gave a lecture:
"UFOs and the paranormal in focus today: Murmurations of the UFO phenomenon"
in North Sydney at the 2019 Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research (AIPR Inc) mini-symposium. The following link provides an edited version of the lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FINE6TFLN5Y&t=2515s and AIPR's You Tube channel will enable you to access the other symposium lectures which cover Port Arthur paranormal experiences, remote viewing and a presentation of the study results of haunted house clearings.
As my lecture was an attempt at delivering a lot of information in a short period of time I have provided the following backgrounding, over a few posts (the others to follow), to elaborate and clarify areas that I covered.  I suggest you read these posts as clarifying and expanding my rapid and dense lecture presentation, or have them in the background to popup when you require further information, while watching the video of my talk.

Here is part of my background that I thought was relevant to the topic of my lecture:

From 1971 to 1974 I completed a degree in Science majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics. During that time I was chairman of “the ghost and poltergeist subcommittee” of the University of New England (UNE) Psychic Phenomena Society 1972-1973, which allowed me to investigate and research a broad range of events that seemed to fall into the broad categories of UFO and paranormal phenomena. After relocating to Sydney in 1975, to begin working as an industrial chemist, I was asked to join the committee of the Sydney based UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC). I also began writing about UFOs and possible paranormal connections for the Australian magazine "Psychic Australian." My first article was a 2 part article - “UFOs – the psychic connection” (published in December 1976 and January 1977)
As further background:
Author of “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story” (1996) and “Hair of the Alien – DNA and other forensic evidence of alien abduction” (2005)

Australian author for the UFO History Group’s book “UFOs and Government” (2012)

Contributing editor for the J. Allen Hynek Centre for UFO Studies (CUFOS) publication IUR –  the International UFO Reporter ((1984 to 2012)

Coordinator of UFOIC – the UFO Investigation Centre (Sydney)

Spokesman/coordinator of APEG (Anomaly Physical Evidence Group)
I then described briefly my earlier talk - "UFOs, Alien Abduction & contact: the parapsychological connection", which I had made 3 varying presentations, including initially, to AIPR in late 2014 and the following videoed version to UFO Research (NSW) in 2015 
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYq0JtzXaJ4&t=885s
That lecture was an opportunity to address an area of UFO research that is often overlooked or often rationalised away. It gives an account of aspects of the UFO paranormal connection.  The video of that lecture doesn't bring up some of the Powerpoint slides very well.  The lecture kicks off around the 20 minute mark.  The first 20 minutes were taken up with my backgrounding of UFO books being culled (by way of duplicates) from my personal UFO library.  I used that opportunity to describe each book as part of a UFO book education journey - if you want that start at the beginning, otherwise  skip to the 20 minute mark - the books mentioned, from my personal collection, have largely taken flight to various destinations.  If you see something that interests you, contact me. There might be things still ready to take flight. 

Back to my late 2019 AIPR talk, by way of a coincidence, synchronicity or something even weirder - my wandering mind - I explored some odd connections with the theme of "murmurations" - From my review of Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science" Volume 4 - the 1990s:

In conjunction with the earlier volumes of “Forbidden Science” we can see important trends and the development of a central thread, namely that Vallee is often describing the ebb and flow of the UFO “invisible college” as it developed originally around Dr. Allen Hynek. Quite often it is a somewhat secretive evolution of the “invisible college”, in that those with the right connections, academic, military, intelligence and political, are made privy to the fuller complexity and nature of such interactions. Like birds flocking together, sometimes purposely and other times with a lack of cohesion, the concept of murmuration seems apt in describing the long evolution of such gatherings.  Coming together, flocking together, focusing and coming apart, often collapsing, then reforming for a purpose.  These can be elusive for outsiders to follow and sometimes erratic in their focus.

From "Invisible College murmurations" to actual bird murmurations that could even look like a UFO or UAP:

To a "drone swarm" (Project Nemesis?), bird murmurations, UAPs or whatever over Washington DC in late November 2019:

Returning to Jacques Vallee's remarkable legacy, he had just turned 80, when I was describing his role in the following slide.  We see that he was highlighting "the psychic connection" back in 1975.  A potent expression of the "psychic" or "transpersonal" impact of the UFO experience is seen in "Witness of Another World" a documentary film by Alan Stivelman (2018, with a wider release in 2019 - a really wonderful film).

Jacques Vallee investigated this 1978 Argentine close encounter during 1980.  A "strange fog" features in this episode - rather than "the fog of war" it is "the fog of close encounters" to be penetrated here in the transformative journey of young Juan Perez to the man he has become today.

Earlier in 1978 I was trying to penetrate my own "fog of close encounters" so richly reflected in the Bakers Creek Falls encounter. In the slide below I have included the first page of my investigation report of the case and a montage of photos showing me pointing out the Falls and the witness drawing of the UFO he saw coming out of yet another "mysterious fog."  1978 was a memorable year for UFO activity in Australia. Activity had been building up all year. The year got off to a spectacular start with the vivid and prolonged close encounter at Bakers Creek Falls, near Armidale, NSW.

This is the strange experience of Gary P. on the Old Grafton Armidale road, during January, 1978, which I detailed in "Australian UFO Newsletter" (the page shown above).
During the early hours of January 10, 1978, Gary P. observed two UFOs about 10 miles out of Grafton, along the Old Armidale Road.  One of the objects approached and seemed to be slowly moving down the side of a mountain.  It seemed to periodically issue a "shower of sparks."  This sighting apparently lasted for about 20 minutes.
It is the interim journey, that follows, that is of interest here.  Gary P. found himself, in his Kombi, stopped on the road, at about 5a.m.  To his left, was an incredibly bright object, hovering some distance away, in the direction of Bakers Creek Falls.  
How did he come to find himself in this position?  I quote from my report: Mr P.'s perception of time from leaving Grafton, up until he finds himself at Bakers Creek Falls - a distance of about a hundred miles - is certainly not clear.  He thought the first sighting, out of Grafton, occurred a long time out of Grafton, but apparently, after retracing his route, he is certain that it occurred only about 10 miles out of the town.  He thought it was only a few minutes after leaving the first UFO sighting behind that he saw `a group of hunters' gathered around a fire beside the road, but his reconstruction, upon returning along that road, places these `hunters' a good three quarters of an hour in time after this.  Then he felt it was 10 or 15 minutes before he finds himself at Bakers Creek Falls.  His second trip along that road put it at about an hour and a half.  In fact, he cannot even recollect driving the distance between seeing the `hunters' and turning up at Bakers Creek Falls.  
Although it is common for people to drive long distances without recollection of the trip, this particular road would seemingly preclude it.  For much of its distance, it is dirt gravel surface, which winds its way up into plateau country.  The road twists and turns and, even when it finally gives way to a bitumen surface, it still requires complete attention to travel it safely.  Having driven up and down this road many times myself, I find it astonishing that someone, not having travelled it before, would not have a vivid memory of a fairly bad road.  In fact, without recall to total faculties, I would expect that a weary traveller would instead find himself parting company with the road in many places.
Mr P.'s recollection of the hunters and the surrounding locality may place it at Tyringham - a small community about half-way between Grafton and Armidale.  Here, in 1973, I investigated what appears to have been one of the most intensive UFO flaps ever experienced in Australia.  Mr P. did not stop and share his adventure with the 'hunters' as he felt he may have been ridiculed and the hour may not have been amenable to safe roadside meetings with strangers.  Shortly after this, he recollected seeing `the same thing again - these yellow objects out in a paddock,' but he was not certain.  He continued on without any recall of what happened until just outside Armidale, at Bakers Creek Falls.
My interview with Mr P. tells what happened: "What happens was - next recollection was that I'm stopped on the side of the road, and I'm looking out to the left this time, and what I'm looking at is an incredibly bright...what I thought was a chicken farm...and I'm looking at this thing and was watching it for a good 10 minutes and there was nothing happening...I just couldn't believe it, but how bright this thing was...and I was about to take off...I actually lined this the chicken coop - (this thing) what I actually saw, was that the chicken coop moved!"
After a lengthy diversion with an unco-operative "witness," (wherein he tried to flag down a car that drove past 3 times),  Gary P. set off into the paddock to get closer to the extraordinary object he was seeing.  However, as he got nearer, the object seemed to retreat into the extensive fog that surrounded it.  Gary P. eventually found his way to the Falls area and saw the fog retreating out of the ravine.  Suddenly, the fog stopped and Gary P. was shocked to then see that the fog was now returning along its original path towards him.  It quickly enveloped him, reducing visibility to less than 10 feet.  The return of the fog was accompanied by a sound similar to that of a vacuum cleaner.  A column through the mist could be made out above him where he could see the sky.  The fog then quickly dissipated, along with the sound, leaving Gary P. alone at the falls. 
He waited until morning then returned to the car.  Standing at the car, he noticed what he described as two "shockwaves," one minute apart, which were like the whole area being suddenly shaken. Then normality, 7.05 a.m. and morning.  Gary P. was profoundly affected by this experience.  I had no doubt about his veracity and was impressed with his account.
The powerful effects of UFO/UAP "close encounters is a rich source of material for the growing number of academics that are embracing this strange territory of UFO experience. 

A fascinating example is that of religious scholar Diana Pasulka's dance with "the fog of the UFO close encounter." I found her book "American Cosmic - UFOs, Religion, Technology" from Oxford University Press fascinating and impressive in many ways.  I also found "American Cosmic" somewhat schizophrenic in its mining of the UFO/UAP experience as fodder for a new cosmic technological religion, and its wrestling with a dance with UFO reality in her blind-folded trip into the desert in search of "meta-material" - the cosmic meta-reglious "relic" of alien obsession.
Professor Pasulka's account of the properties of the "artefact" found in the desert - "Roswell X-Files" territory - are a long way from a scientific account of the provenance and nature of the find. I guess that comes with the territory of a religious scholar trying to convey the possible limitations of physical science.  She seems enamoured with Jacques Vallee's takes on the UFO/UAP phenomenon, but seems to have not entirely embraced his cautionary advice: "It is unwise to ignore the ontological aspects of the UFO." 
In my limited interactions with Professor Pasulka she seemed irritated with my questions about her dealings with key anonymous scientific players in her "American Cosmic" journey.  When I suggested that her own book "American Cosmic" seems to pretty much easily identify "James" and "Tyler" (the latter explicitly by a reference to one of her papers listed in the back of the book) she disagreed and contended she was interacting with many "Invisible College" style players.  
It is quite apparent with the rapid mainstreaming of the UFO/UAP debate, particularly since 2017, there are many mainstream scholars, technologists and scientists who are embracing the subject, some more openly than others. But as Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science" journals show, many have gone this way before.  Indeed the entire course of modern UFO history has had an abundance of scientific "invisible college" players who were trying to fight for a "UFO science." The only real difference now is that more of the effort is increasingly emerging into the mainstream and perhaps hopefully interacting with funding opportunities that are not always shrouded in clandestine caveats and rampant non-disclosure agreements. 
The march towards an open and more transparent "UFO/UAP science" is gaining pace. 
However, the idea that part of that evolution might feed religious tropes and rebirthings of religious transformations is both fascinating and troubling.  Military and intelligence based approaches to the UFO problem are often caught up in the "quicksand" of hidden programs driven by a lack of transparency and accessibility.  Paradoxically, obsession of a fundamentalist kind, within these ranks, seemed to have in part, inhibited, damaged or derailed various scientific efforts in this area (e.g. Nick Redfern's "Collins Elite", "J.L." DIA's ATTIP's early director and allegedly even Luis Elizondo; we even see such "toxic" taboos voiced in the military and intelligence efforts to progress "remote viewing").  So, while a wide based UFO/UAP scholarship, that embraces science, technology, religion and many other field of academic enquiry, is welcome, lets try to avoid the toxicity of "the hidden hand" approach.  

My backgrounding of "UFOs and the paranormal in focus today: Murmurations of the UFO phenomenon" will continue in posts to follow. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the "lightning video approach."