Notes on GPS app experiment to monitor CE4 Experiencer location

Ever since investigating and conducting hypnotic work on the "Flying Fisherman" close encounter case, I've been intrigued by the possibility of recording an experiencer's location during an abduction event. In this case, occurring in the late 1990s, the experiencer was in his fishing boat, which had a GPS tracker mounted on it. On several occasions, the tracker showed some anomalous readings - very anomalous - at the time the a missing time event occurred. (See case report at

http://www.explorewithhypnosis.com/FlyingFishermanCase.pdf). Unfortunately his GPS did not have an altitude measurement on it so it was never able to establish if or how the boat was taken from the lake surface. Regardless of the final result of this case, the concept of GPS tracking of a possible UFO abduction has intriguing possibilities. 

If experiencers could continuously run an active GPS device on their mobile phone, perhaps we could get similar results to the flying fisherman case but under more controlled conditions. In most phone GPS apps, the altitude is also recorded so we could establish whether an ascent and return took place. With such a tool, perhaps we could capture detailed data during an actual UFO abduction event. At the very least, this possibility now bears deeper exploration.  

Since a person's phone is usually in their proximity during most of their waking hours, it seems likely that it could record at least some unusual movement in the event. Thus I have been experimenting with various GPS tracking apps for the iPhone (and presumably Android). The goal is to determine feasibility of running an app on an experiencer's phone throughout the day.  

I would estimate the constraints on such an app to be as follows:

1) the app would have to run in the background reliably and without intervention. 

2) the app would need to have minimal battery drain on the phone, allowing the phone to run for an entire day without recharging. I would suggest less than 25% drain over a day of use on an iPhone 6s. 

3) the app would have to record latitude, longitude and altitude to tight precision. As a rough estimate it would be best to track the experiencer's location to within approximately 20 feet horizontally and approximately 20 feet altitude, with a measurement on the order of once every minute. 

These would likely be able to catch the events of a UFO abduction with sufficient precision to reliably catch any unexplained movements during the period of missing time. 

Previously, with my iPhone 4s, the battery capacity wasn't sufficient to run a precision GPS tracker app for an entire day. So I needed to wait until I had upgraded my iPhone. Now using the iPhone 6s, along with a battery reserve in the case I can run my phone in normal operation for most of the day with almost negligible effect on the battery. (Not including calls, GPS, music or extensive texting).

With this in mind I have tried several different GPS apps. For this experiment I chose the GPS Tracks app version 2.9.2. For the initial tests I set the app to track in high precision mode with all of the advanced features disabled. This included disabling sleep and auto-pause modes. 

I ran the app throughout the day for approximately 11 hours 45 minutes in the background. I found that after this test period the battery was drained down to below 25% over the test period. The Battery indicators on the iOS settings screen showed GPS Tracker took about 37% of the battery usage during that time. Thus these initial settings are probably still too much of a battery drain. (Note: I also spent considerable time using the music and messenger apps, which made up about 15% and 11% of the battery load throughout the day). 

The phone listed the measurement accuracy to within approximately +/-15 ft and altitude to within approximately +/-10 ft with a measurement every 10 seconds. The app user manual states that this should result in about 4 hours battery life (note: phone model and therefore battery capacity for this spec is not clear).  

My next objective will be to see how we can optimize the settings to provide less of a drain on the battery, yet still afford close enough tracking to catch any anomalous event. 

Medium precision takes a measurement once each 20 seconds, while low precision does so once per minute. In the case of a car traveling 60mph, this would result in  data point once each 1/3 mile and once per mile respectively. Either should be enough to capture the essential elements of an auto-stop UFO abduction.

I plan to update my blog with results of later tests. Stay tuned...

Balance

This is a draft of my March/April 2016 CE4 Corner article.

Please feel free to make any comments, or to sign up for my newsletter News from the Bridge. This article appears on my newsletter and in the Minnesota MUFON Journal. For details, checkout the MN MUFON website.

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Life is a tightrope. Some days are dominated by the right brain, as hypnotherapy clients sit in my studio and pour out their life story. They spend two hours in deep trance seeking the center of some problem in their life. Like a detective, or like a programmer debugging computer software, we track the problem down to the cause. Then we bring healing to that center. It is the ultimate combination of right brain - emotional healing and left brain problem solving, emotional debugging. In addition, other aspects of my life have been filled with mathematics, physics, computers and electronics as I experiment with new technology ideas. They form the balancing act of all balancing acts, a world of spirit and technology.

In the last few weeks, I have been putting together a class for my church on science and religion. How do two of the great pursuits that make us human interact. Do they conflict? Are they simply two ways of seeing the truth? Or do they even have anything to do with each-other. I was again struck by that delicate balance between two apparently-opposing forces.

  

At the last MUFON conference I was struck by just how much UFO studies - and their accompanying healing work - fits into that same balancing act. As I was sitting in a lecture on UFO physics, the speaker (Robert Schroeder) was describing how we could use the mathematics of Maxwell's equations along with Einstein's general relativity and a unifying concept called Kaluza Klein theory, to understand the physics behind UFOs. 

Some time later, I attended a talk on the spiritual aspects of UFO encounters. The dichotomy the between physics/engineering and spirituality continued to drive the question - is the phenomenon physical? Rather, are UFOs and close encounters in some way, spiritual and/or (para)psychological? Whatever the case may be (and they are probably at least a little of all of these), they have a powerful impact on the lives of anyone the phenomenon touches. And as I was sitting in that lecture, the stage was being set for me to once again see just how real that effect was. 

As I sat in that lecture on UFO physics, I got a text from an experiencer in MUFON, a woman who was at the same conference. She had begun to remember events that had apparently occurred the night before. (I described this encounter in the an earlier CE4 Corner, The Mystery Gets Real). I left the lecture hall and went up to the room of the experiencer. It turns out that she and her roommate were talking and both realized something extraordinary had occurred the previous night. She remembered being outside the hotel (on the roof, actually), then in a UFO, and then back in her room. At the same time, she recalled her roommate being “worked on” by - well, by whoever they are. Events escalated and the next few weeks turned out to be devastating to her as her life turned upside down. In that time, I would again see just how far down the rabbit hole the extraordinary encounter phenomenon can take us.

So many other experiencers have had similar turning points in life. As they begin to recall memories of events occurring in the phenomenal realm (aboard the UFO, or wherever they go when they go "there") the impact on their personal reality can be devastating. On a field visit I made to another state, their state director and I visited the remote farm home of one experiencer. He and his family had had a harrowing close encounter experience a few months before. We interviewed the entire family, and then conducted an in-depth hypnotic regression. 

This person was an excellent hypnotic subject and quickly went into deep trance. At one point, he found himself reliving a time when he was the subject of an alien "download" of telepathic visual imagery. As is so often the case in abduction events, this imagery was of disasters, suffering and chaos in the human and natural worlds. He suddenly burst into tears, yelling at the top of his lungs "we're screwed". He emerged abruptly from trance and I could feel the panic in his voice. He had just seen the apocalypse unfold in front of him. We had a lot of healing work to do.

Many experiencers have described being shown similar scenarios of tragedy and apocalypse. This has apparently been going on for many years. In many cases the predicted time has come and gone, We still appear to be here. In addition, the predictions of some experiencers are even mutually exclusive with the predictions of others – for example, one shows the world dying of drought and turning to lifeless desert versus another showing floods innundating everything. So whatever reason "They" have for this apocalyptic video fest, it does not appear to be a literal prediction of effects. Thus, any information on these should be treated with extreme discernment.

As this particular experiencer returned from a between-sessions bio break, I quickly re-induced trance and invited him to observe another time, a time in which he had been told something that was clearly not true. He had had a difficult life and had gained a lot of street wisdom in his years of rough and tumble experience. This included the ability to recognize BS when he saw it. So I invited him to use those same skills to observe the alien apocalypse predictions. He paused for a moment and then said "It's all bull @#$%". 

In his mind, he stared the alien in the face. "I know you. You guys are full of..."

(Note: the reader can use their imagination for the rest of the dialog. I endeavor to keep this column family friendly). He leered at the imaginary alien in front of him, asserting his right to his own life, his own path and his own discernment. While I believe we don't really know what the phenomenon is, in his mind, the aliens (for lack of a better word) now have somewhat less power over him. It was a moment of emotional and psychic healing of pain from a physical event - the spiritual and the concrete working in a delicate interplay. It was that same balancing act that I later came to realize as I sat in that audience hall at the MUFON conference.

This summer, as we hopefully get projects such as UFOTOG2 (a new UFO tracking, photography and analysis initiative by MUFON), and begin to improve our skills in field investigation of physical evidence cases, we will be focusing a lot on the physical aspects of the phenomenon. Similarly, in recent months as I sit at my computer I find myself absorbed in work on my own technology projects. Computer screens of equations, diagrams and code sit in front of me. Yet the next day might find an experiencer or other hypnotherapy client in my studio in deep trance, journeying to the core of his/her personal issue(s). Both are vital elements of healing work, delicately balanced ends of the teeter-totter. 

Right brained and left brained, spirit and science, mind and body, metaphysical and technological. We push the boundaries of knowledge and see that neither can completely provide the answers. Our endeavors are often a mixture of opposites - two ends of the teeter-totter. They form that delicate balance between sometimes-opposing forces in this realm we call life.

UFOs and Life

Life is full of changes, pitfalls and opportunities, and sudden shifts in direction. A door closes, a door opens, a door you thought was open doesn't remain open long enough to pass through. For a long time, an aspect of life may seem to be continuous, reliable and steady. Then all of a sudden everything changes. The last few months have been one of those times.

To begin with, my father passed away a month or two ago. Readers of my blog may recall my writing about him. Raymond Lang was probably the defining influence of my life. While we didn't see eye to eye on many things, more than anyone else in life, he made me the person I am today. His passing was a loss to our entire family. Yet one result of his illness and passing was that our family has come closer together. In all of my adventures with UFOs, close encounters, the phenomenal realm, etc., I realized how vital it was to take time out to enjoy the love of those around you. Life is fragile and temporary.

A few other milestones loom over this writer's life path - one of those being an upcoming 60th birthday. Just like seeing my father laying Ill and then dying, my upcoming entry into the golden years reminds me how temporary and fragile life really Is. As a few people I know have passed away, and as my business, UFO research endeavors and other possible aspects of life shift in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways, I realize again just how vital it is to put things like UFO research into the greater perspective. We need to ask what is truly important in life. 

I have watched peoples' lives change as a result of their interactions with "Them, out there". In many ways, the phenomenon takes you by the scruff of the neck, shakes you up side down, then dumps you into a world different from any you thought you knew before. If you had told me back in 1996 when I first began to get involved in MUFON work, how it would so totally change my life, I would never have believed you. Yet now, twenty years later it has transformed my life completely - for better or for worse.

In the words of a dear friend of mine, "It is what it is". I cannot change the past, nor would I want to. And I certainly could never see the future. My all-consuming interest in UFOs perhaps even derailed a career in corporate America, while sending me on a path of inquiry and adventure leading I know not where. Yet it has led me to launch my hypnosis practice and any number of other ventures. I suspect it has a few other big surprises in store for me down the road. In the end, they will all be positive, but probably with a lot of bumps along the way.

Where is all of this going? I don't know. But in one way or another, God is showing me how, in the midst of a life of dizzying change, we need to hold on to those things and people we hold dear, such as family, friends, beliefs and spirit. If you love someone, hold them and tell them. Whatever is on your bucket list - do it while you can. Don't put it off until tomorrow. In a few cases I've seen recently, life may not be there tomorrow.

The mysteries of UFO research can be all consuming. They turn life upside down and at times we can almost forget nearly every other aspect of life. Yet the events of the last few months have taught me one vital thing. In the midst of the vast unknown, we need to remember to live life. Be here now.