|
Contactee
Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a cultural phenomenon, contactees perhaps had their greatest notoriety from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, but individuals continue to make similar claims in the present. Some have shared their messages with small groups of followers, and many contactees have written books, published magazine and newspaper articles, issued newsletters or spoken at UFO conventions. The contactee movement has seen serious attention from academics and mainstream scholars. Among the earliest was the 1956 study, ''When Prophecy Fails'' by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, which analyzed the phenomenon. There have been at least two university-level anthologies of scientific papers regarding the contactee movements. Contactee accounts are generally different from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Adamski
George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish-American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and 1950s that he said were of alien spacecraft, claimed to have met with friendly Nordic alien Space Brothers, and claimed to have taken flights with them to the Moon and other planets. Adamski was the first, and most famous, of several so-called UFO contactees who came to prominence during the 1950s. Adamski called himself a "philosopher, teacher, student and saucer researcher", although most investigators concluded his claims were an elaborate hoax, and that Adamski himself was a charlatan and a con artist. Adamski authored three books describing his meetings with Nordic aliens and his travels with them aboard their spaceships: ''Flying Saucers Have Landed'' (co-written with Desmond Leslie) in 1953, ''Inside the Space Ships'' in 1955, and ''Flying Saucers Farewell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Van Tassel
George Washington Van Tassel (March 12, 1910 – February 9, 1978) was an American contactee, ufologist and author. Early life Van Tassel was born in Jefferson, Ohio in 1910, and grew up in a fairly prosperous middle-class family. He finished high school in the 10th grade and held a job at a small municipal airport near Cleveland; he also acquired a private pilot license. At age 20, he moved to California, where at first he worked as an automobile mechanic at a garage owned by an uncle. While pumping gas at the garage, he met Frank Critzer, an eccentric loner who claimed to be working a mine somewhere near Giant Rock, a 7-story boulder near Landers, California in the Mojave Desert. Frank Critzer was claimed by others to be a German immigrant During World War II, however, he was born in the US. Critzer was under suspicion as a German spy and killed himself by a dynamite explosion during a police siege at the Rock in 1942. Upon receiving news of Critzer's death, Van Tassel applied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UFO Convention
A UFO convention is a convention about UFOs that usually take place annually at hotels or convention centers. Historically, many would mainly feature contactees giving presentations about their experiences. Other topics, like UFO conspiracy theories, general conspiracy theories, and other paranormal phenomena are often discussed. Roswell UFO Festival 4th of July Weekend (Roswell NM)Alien ConUFO CongressMutual UFO Network">The Mutual UFO Network "Who We Are" page/ref> * ''National UFO Conference">Mutual UFO Network "Who We Are" page">Mutual UFO Network">The Mutual UFO Network "Who We Are" page/ref> * ''National UFO Conference'' (1999-present) * ''Conspiracy Con'', produced by Brian William Hall from 2001-present UFO conventions have been featured in various pop culture: Television * The Lone Gunmen, from the 1994 ''X-Files'' episode '' E.B.E.'', originate from a UFO convention * ''Esteemsters'', 1997 ''Daria'' episode * ''The Convention'', 2000 '' Roswell'' episode * ''Attack of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When Prophecy Fails
''When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World'' is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members' coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members' beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book. Overview Festinger, Riecken and Schachter were already studying the effects of prophecy disconfirmation on groups of believers, when they read a story in a local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from Planet. Clarion Call to City: Flee That Flood. It'll Swamp us on Dec. 21" The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alien Abduction
Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting their experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychological experimentation. People claiming to have been abducted are usually called "abductees" or "experiencers". Most scientists and mental health professionals explain these experiences by factors such as suggestibility (e.g. false memory syndrome), sleep paralysis, deception, and psychopathology.Appelle, 1996 Skeptic Robert Sheaffer sees similarity between some of the aliens described by abductees and those depicted in science fiction films, in particular '' Invaders From Mars'' (1953). Typical claims involve forced medical examinations that emphasize the subject's reproductive systems.Miller, John G. "Medical Procedural Differences: Alien Versus Human." In: Pritchard, Andrea & Pritchard, David E. & Mack, John E. & Kasey, Pam & Yapp, Claudia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ufology
Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and fringe science investigations of UFOs, ufology is generally regarded by skeptics and science educators as a canonical example of pseudoscience. Etymology Ufology is a neologism derived from ''UFO'' (a term apparently coined by Edward J. Ruppelt), and is derived from appending the acronym UFO with the suffix ''-logy'' (from the Ancient Greek ''λογία'' (''logiā'')). Early uses of ufology include an article in ''Fantastic Universe'' (1957) and a 1958 presentation for the UFO "research organization" The Planetary Center. Historical background The roots of ufology include the " mystery airships" of the late 1890s, the "foo fighters" reported by Allied airmen during World War II, the "ghost fliers" of Europe and North America during th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Partridge
Christopher Hugh Partridge (born 1961) is an author, editor, professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ... at Lancaster University, and founding Co-director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Popular Culture. According to Gordon Lynch, Partridge is a leading scholar of topics in popular culture. Major works *''The Encyclopedia of New Religions: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities'' (Lion Hudson Plc, 2006) *''The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan & Western Demonology in Popular Culture'' (Equinox Publishing Ltd, SW11, 2008) *''The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture'', Vol I and Vol II, (T. & T. Clark Publishers, 2006)Jennifer Walters, "Review of ''THE RE-ENCHANTMENT OF T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah. The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin deserts, forms a larger North American Desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between . It supports a diversity of flora and fauna. The desert supports a number of human activities, including recreation, ranching, and military training. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortean Times
''Fortean Times'' is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing (from 1991 to 2001), I Feel Good Publishing (2001 to 2005), Dennis Publishing (2005 to 2021), and Exponent (2021), it is now published by Diamond Publishing, part of Metropolis International. In December 2018, its print circulation was just over 14,800 copies per month. This now appears to include digital sales. The magazine's tagline is "The World of Strange Phenomena". History Origin The roots of the magazine that was to become ''Fortean Times'' can be traced back to Bob Rickard's discovering the works of Charles Fort through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories: :" John Campbell, the editor of '' Astounding Science Fiction'' (as ''Analog'' was then titled), for example," writes Rickard "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories." In the mid-1960s, while Rick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraterrestrial Life
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about the possibility of inhabited "worlds" outside the planet Earth dates back to antiquity. Multiple early Christian writers discussed the idea of a "plurality of worlds" as proposed by earlier thinkers such as Democritus; Augustine references Epicurus's idea of innumerable worlds "throughout the boundless immensity of space" (originally expressed in his Letter to Herodotus) in ''The City of God''. In his first century p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and Skills, skill, north of Ancient Athens, Athens, Greece. Etymology The word comes from the ''Academy'' in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, ''Akademos''. Outside the city walls of Athens, the Gymnasium (ancient Greece), gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive Grove (nature), grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". In these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunatic Fringe
Lunatic fringe is a term used to characterize members of a political or social movement as extremists with eccentric or fanatical views. Theodore Roosevelt is widely credited with having popularized the term, which he used with gusto: "There is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement." "Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it — the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements." It may refer to: * "Lunatic Fringe" (song), a song by Red Rider from the 1981 album ''As Far as Siam'' * LFNG, a gene in the Notch pathway * "Lunatic Fringe", an episode of ''The Net'' (TV series) * a screensaver that is part of the '' After Dark'' screensaver pack * a nickname given to WWE wrestler Dean Ambrose * a slogan for radio station WEBN * a level in the video game Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
