The interview of Jacques Vallée by Marie-Thérèse de Brosses Summarized By Gildas Bourdais- Part Two -

The interview of Jacques Vallée by Marie-Thérèse de Brosses On the radio " Ici et maintenant " in Paris, Tuesday February 14, 2006

By Gildas Bourdais
2-25-06

This is a summarization with some comments, along with an Annex on Ubatuba; first written in French, and then translated in English, by Gildas Bourdais. The interview was conducted by telephone, with Jacques Vallée at his home in San Francisco.

See Part One

Rumours of accidents and contacts

     MTB tackles the question of rumours of UfO crashes, and of secret contacts with extraterrestrials, by quoting the revelations of a former executive of Walt Disney, Ward Kimball. He revealed (note: in 1979 at the annual MUFON Congress) that the USAF had proposed to Disney, in 1955 or 1956, to make a documentary on UfOs, for which it would have provided authentic UfO films, but the project failed. MTB recalls then what happened next—another proposal, made through Colonel Coleman, former press representative of Blue Book, in 1972-73 was suggested to film producers Emenegger and Sandler; the idea was to include not only UfO shots, some of them by astronauts, but also on a UfO crash from 1949; this included a live alien who later died in 1952, and also an encounter with three aliens in Holloman AFB in 1971. This second project was also cancelled, the same as another proposal made in 1983 to Linda Howe. Then it was the turn of Hynek and Vallée, solicited in 1985 by the Air Force, to participate in a new, similar, film project that would have been produced by Emenegger. Their participation was a condition for the decision to make the film, but they refused.

MTP asks JV to tell what happened. He confirms those episodes, but he explains why, contrary to Linda Howe, Hynek and himself were very suspicious (as he said in his book Revelations). According to him, several visits to Norton AFB in California, where the USAF film archives are kept, had lead to nothing concrete. He was particularly suspicious of the risk of disinformation aiming at amplifying rumours in order to “make people believe that there are UfOs in the sky”. According to him, “it’s disinformation to hide something else”. The Russians do that very well, and he cites rumours of UfOs circulated to hide secret launchings of “illegal satellites”. There are “massive” programs of disinformation, sociological experiments…

MTB then questions JV about a very controversial observation, made in Russia at Voronej, about which he talked in a book written with French journalist Martine Castello (UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union, 1992). Children related that they had seen tall beings coming out briefly from a landed UfO. According to JV, the case is not clear that there were UfOs in the area, and they did not have the time and the means to learn more (Let’s mention here that this story has been put in doubt by Boris Shurinov in his book Les Ovnis en Russie).

These were not “Short Greys”, remarks MTB! In effect, answers JV, they came later, following the book Communion of W. Strieber. (We don’t need to recall here that JV has never ceased to put in doubt that big wave of abductions testimonies, appeared in the United States, and in other countries, particularly in during the 80’s).

Then, JV comes back, at length, on the “Pentacle memo”, repeating that it was a scandal: “One can have doubts about Roswell, and of the MJ-12 documents, but on the contrary it was an authentic document!” In fact, it is not the authenticity of the letter, which is questioned, but its interpretation by JV.

MTB then mentions the low opinion of JV about Ufologists, quoting to this effect an eloquent passage of his new book Stratagème: “that world of nuts, charlatans and loonies…” (“ce monde de fous, de charlatans et d’illuminés…”). She concurs about the existence of a « lunatic fringe », including in France. JV agrees, but adds that there are also Ufologists who do “admirable work”. He had anticipated in the 70’s the coming of UfO cults, such as “Heaven’s Gate”, but Ufologists did not take him seriously! To him, there is a phenomenon of extraordinary gullibility, a “need to believe in extraterrestrials”: it’s a phenomenon of belief… But we must enlarge the “extraterrestrial hypothesis”, it’s much more complex…

MTB abounds on the widening gap between the partisans of the “nuts and bolts” (“tôle et boulonesque”) and the others (we gather that they are the serious ones). JV insists that his book Passport to Magonia was very badly received in the United States. He and MTB mention the case of David Jacobs, who was at the beginning a good historian of UFOlogy, but who later “fell in the cooking pot of abductions, following Budd Hopkins”. JV explains that he cannot afford to be so naïve, considering his professional activity…

MTB then asks him to come back to his great theory of the manipulation of Mankind by a “control force” (or “control system”). JV explains again that there is “a deep interaction with human consciousness”, and that it is a phenomenon present since a long time. There are, however, physical aspects that are undeniable, and all this puts in question our ideas of reality, like today in fundamental physics.

MTB then asks him to tell what he had brought at the meeting of Pocantico in 1997, organized by Laurence Rockefeller and Peter Sturrock. JV answers that he had talked about estimates of luminosity, and about studies of materials alleged to come from UfOs. On this point he concludes this way: “The analyses that I know of show terrestrial things, in coherence with what the witnesses described”, for instance for the composition of metallic fragments. Let’s note here that JV has not mentioned a case that he presented briefly at Pocantico, the one of the debris from Ubatuba in Brazil, which had given rise to a very important debate. I refer the reader to the summary of that curious story, at the end of this account.

MTB questions JV on the cases of UfO accidents, reminding him that he once told her that he had invested himself into their study. JV answers that he keeps an open mind on that, but there are “many people who say many things…” He has gathered “a little collection of metallic elements” but he has “no answer yet”. In his view, if some elements were retrieved in 1947 or in 1949, perhaps it was not possible to draw much from them. On the other hand, if biological entities were found, that should have had consequences in biology, but “this did not happen”.

MTB then asks his advice on the book of Colonel Corso. JV had met him during two days at NIDS, and says that his manuscript has been very distorted. One episode, which was suppressed, is his encounter with a non-human entity, with telepathic contact… (I confirm that story which has been revealed since, notably by the journalist George Knapp, who had video-taped him well before the publication of the book, and who presented the video at the Laughlin congress in March 2000, to which I was invited).

Like in Varginha, asks MTB, alluding to the book of Dr Leir? I don’t know, replies JV, I have not studied that case (that’s too bad: a beautiful case of supposed UfO crash, recent, with credible testimonies on military cover-up. See for example the book of Dr Roger Leir (UfO Crash in Brazil, 2005, and in French under the title Des Extraterrestres Capturés à Varginha au Brésil, 2004).

MTB then asks him to talk about NIDS, and its reputation for secrecy. JV explains that NIDS still exists but that Robert Bigelow, its creator, has reoriented its activities toward aerospace, but JV himself is still associated to it. However, the biologist Colm Kelleher has left the scientific board.

MTB asks him if there is not a “black hole” on the results of analyses of the implants retrieved by Dr Leir. No, answers JV, there is just an agreement of confidentiality, “nothing sinister behind that…” We must wait to have results…

MTB: “so, there are no results yet?”

Yes, answers JV, there have been studies published on the NIDS web site, about cattle mutilations, and there is a book on the experiences in the ranch bought in Utah, where strange phenomena took place (it’s the book of Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, Hunt for the Skinwalker, published in 2005).

At the request of MTB, JV gives again his opinion on the Rendlesahm affair. It was, in his opinion, an “experiment in psychological war”. An indication is that some people had visited the radar operators and had told them to “watch for what was going to come from the sea”…

Although I have read several books on this complex affair, I don’t recall to have read that. I have just asked on the UFO Updates list, and Nick Pope has answered this (message of February 22): “I've neither seen any documents nor heard anything from official sources that would support this theory. My own view is that it's highly unlikely”.

MTB finally tackles the topic of the new book of JV, Stratagème, ten minutes before the end of the talk (she has explained to me that she expected to have more time but it was shortened because JV had to go to an important lunch). She points out that “a Ufologist has made a very hard critic of it”. JV answers that he has “a lot of respect for him” but that he has not understood that it is a novel, and that one must “read between the lines”… He comes back to the theme of the manipulation to make people believe in false stories, like in the Bennewitz case (abductions in the alien base of Dulce, etc).

MTB agrees, but raises the critical point of the repetition, in his novel, of the story of Nick Redfern published a few months ago (Body Snatchers in the Desert), explaining that Roswell was in fact a failed experiment of irradiation in flight of handicapped Chinese prisoners, who would have been brought from Manchuria at the end of the second world war, an experiment which would have been concealed by spreading the rumour of a UfO accident…

To that, JV answers, firstly that he has not copied Redfern, and secondly that it must not be taken too seriously because an old alcoholic doctor tells it, in his novel… But there would have been real experiments of irradiation of prisoners affected with progeria, and we must thank Redfern to have published documents, which put in doubt the Roswell crash.

What can we make of these revelations? Since I am the author of the article, I thank Vallée here, for his good opinion of me, but I still refer the reader to it (in French only) at: http://tinyurl.com/g6jfg

Let’s just say here that this story of handicapped Chinese prisoners, from a Japanese center of bacteriological war experiments in Harbin, Manchuria, is simply impossible: those prisoners had been all killed by the Japanese just before the arrival of the Russians in August 1945. Furthermore, they used prisoners in good health in order to achieve significant experiments! I also refer the reader to my critic of the book of Nick Redfern (in English and in French) at: http://tinyurl.com/k4wb5

As a final note, JV explains that a lot of time has been lost on Roswell. Something probably happened, but there is no proof that it was a UfO. It was a mistake of Laurance Rockefeller to suggest to the scientific adviser of President Clinton to study that case, in 1994. JV does not mention, however, that he had attempted to dissuade him, unbeknownst to Rockefeller.

MTB asks him to give at least one case worthy of study, but JV refuses, preferring a global, statistical approach. At the risk of surprising the reader, I think one can agree with that. A good example of such an approach remains the study of the Battelle Institute!

More . . .

See Also:Part One

See Also:Part Three