During the symposium, I got into quite a public argument with PD Meyers, the skeptic who spoke there. One question I asked him when he offered his opinion on alien abduction (actually, I prefer the term close encounters) was "How many experiencers have you talked with?" His response was that he was familiar with David Jacobs work and that Jacobs had worked with thousands. My response was "Yes, but how many have YOU worked with?" His answer was "Two."
Meyers had apparently formed an opinion on a phenomenon based upon what I take to be a very cursory examination of the evidence. While I believe we don't know what the reality is behind close encounters, I do believe they are very real. Yet he largely appears to dismiss them as sleep paralysis, false memories impalnted by "evil hypnotists" and other such explain-away devices. To me, this whitewashes the whole phenomenon - there is something going on and we dare not overlook it.
Now let's look at another claimed phenomenon. That is "chemtrails." Are these real or are they simply an artifact of runaway belief, misidentification of an ordinary phenomenon and toxic memes. To me, the latter is most likely the case. Yet every argument I would make here is almost identical to the argument that PD meyers, Carl Sagan, Kevin Randle and other skeptics of alien abduction would make about close encounters. The structure and logic of the arguments are the same - you simply plug in different nouns. For one phenomenon I am an advocate (at least that it is unknown or non-understood) while for another I am quite a skeptic.
I have had a number of on-line go-rounds with chemtrail believers. I have challenged them at every turn to provide actual evidence showing a causal link of aircraft contrails to toxic chemical fallout - whatever that may be. So far, I have been pointed to a couple of YouTube videos on chemtrails, both advocacy films heavily laden with claims, and light on proof.
In addition, I have followed the whole "chemtrails" idea from its inception, some time in the mid 1990s. it arose at about the same time as Richard Brodie's book "Virus of the Mind." This book discusses the idea of memes, ideas and beliefs that propogate through a population like viruses. Brody develops the the idea that they can be treated in a nearly identical way to biological viruses. We can treat the propogation of toxic memes in a way nearly identical to any viral epidemic.
Early on, I heard the statement that the toxic-contrail meme - that persistent contrauils were the result of deliberate chemical spraying by a conspiratorial agency - can be thought of as an unintentional test of Brodie's ideas. At first the meme began as a small scale conspiracy theory, then took on a life of its own and spread rapidly over the internet. [For a site tracking history of the chemtrail meme, see http://contrailscience.com/a-brief-history-of-chemtrails/.] The idea is intriguing. It brings up the idea that the fabric of society forms a defacto laboratory for an experiment testing the "toxic meme" model.
What made me question the whole "chemtrail" meme even further was when I was talking with someone during the break at a Minnesota MUFON meeting, back in the spring of 1999. One person at this particular meeting (his actual residence was in Washington state, I think), got up and told the story of how his whole family had been sickened by toxic spraying from the heavily chemtrail-laden skies over his part of the country.
At that time, Minnesota MUFON was meeting at the Roseville community center, and on this nice day, we had stepped out into the parking lot. Suddenly, as I was talking with him, he looked up and said, "there's one spraying now." I looked up to see what looked like a commercial jet flying high overhead, leaving a short contrail behind. To me, it was indistinguishable from any other contrail. But to him, it was just one more example of how the "New World Order" is trying to - well, to do whatever they're doing - by spraying "something" in the atmosphere overhead.
I had just finished hypnotherapy certification training about six months prior, and had studied Brodie's work as part of my studies. This struck me as a powerful example of belief-driven illness - well, maybe...
In addition, I have been interested in meteorology most of my life, and have studied it as a hobby for many years. One thing I have noted is that how at the leading edge of warm fronts - about a day ahead of a weather change - a steadily thickening layer of cirrus clouds appears. During this time, contrails will be very prevalent as aircraft fly through the supercritical air of the high troposphere. It's part of the physics of the atmosphere and it's occurred ever since jet aircraft have been in our skies. Still, in our times, aircraft are much more prevalent and fly consitently at ciurrus-forming altitudes. Thus, we see more contrails. Many of the "absoute proof" pictures I've seen in recent months look to me like exactly this - contrails forming within the supercritical air high above a weather front.
I've watched as over the space of a half-day, cirrus clouds have formed, large volumes of persistent contrails have crossed the skies, cirrus clouds have thickened into cirro-stratus clouds, and eventually into the cloud banks of an approaching warm front. Where some would see toxic spraying, I see a weather change, the physics of condensation in supercritical air. Yet conversely, where I look at alien abduction cases and see an extraordinary phenomenon intruding in peoples' lives, others see merely awareness during sleep paralysis. The analogy between controversies is extensive and detailed. The parallels are thought-provoking.
To be fair, I certainly cannot say that there is NO toxic spraying, NO artificial geo-engineering by spraying something in the air overhead, NO New World Order, etc. It is impossible to prove a negative. What if any just one of these ideas turns out to be true true? The implications are astounding. Yet the whole chemtrail question periodically forces me to step back and look once again at the UFO question. On the chemtrail phenomeon, am I actually being one of those people that I most complain about in the UFO controversy? How can I be an advocate of one phenomenon (UFOs and close encounters), while being a skeptic on the other? (Note: I try to remain very conservative on what I actually believe about the UFO and close encounter phenomenon - merely advocating that it presents us with significant unexplained mysteries. For the most part I try to avoid explanatory beliefs.)
To me, the whole dynamic on controversial phenomena is interesting indeed - belief, skepticism, investigation, eveidence, advocacy and proof. And in both cases above, the different perspectives force me to be both more open minded and more discerning. It helps me understand each side a little better. It also reminds me of how rigorously researchers of any phenomenon need to conduct investigations, and how standards of proof need to apply across the board - distinguishing between conspirators, visitors and vapors?
