European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies

Abstracts for All Reviewed papers of the Launch Volume and Volume 1(1)

Project for a Database of Ball Lightning in Italy

Paolo Toselli & Renato Fedele

Ball lightning sightings by casual eyewitnesses are often neglected by researchers. Yet any theoretical model has to consider and account for those described features. The present difficulty is that such sightings are rarely reported by scientific researchers, An effort to build a catalogue of alleged ball lightning reports in Italy has recently been launched by a small group of BL researchers stimulated by the Italian Centre for UFO Studies, which offered to open its files to interested scientists to look for pertinent data. A first survey of more than 12,000 Italian reports of unusual aerial phenomena brought a sample of 40 possible ball lightning phenomena in the last 50 years. A more thorough search is presently being conducted, that will yield an expected total of 100 reports. A second important source is the impressive collection of ball lightning cases published by Ignazio Galli in the early years of this century. All such reports are presently being filed into an ‘Italian Ball Lightning Archive’ and a computer database is also being implemented containing space-time co-ordinates (date, time, latitude, longitude, altitude) as well as descriptive (colour, size, shape, behaviour) and environment (meteorological, topographical) data. Similar projects have already been attempted in Austria and Hungary, and some more national catalogues have been produced for countries (Russia, Japan) with very different ecology/geography/climate. A second planned step will thus be a comparison between the Italian database and those of others.

European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, Launch Volume, p.6-14.

Preliminary Identifications of Alien Contact / Abduction Experiences as Hallucinatory States Induced by Prolonged Exposures to Electromagnetic Pollution in the Environment

Albert Budden

Case studies of subjects reporting consistent accounts of apparent abduction by aliens have shown that such experiences have developed an environmental sensitivities syndrome (ESS) including electrical hypersensitivity (EH), induced by synergistic conditions in their environment, including major electrical event exposure (e.g. lightning strike proximity) and subsequent on-going electromagnetic hot spot irradiation. It is this sensitivity to environmental electromagnetic energies which produces as an acute end-state, hallucinatory / visionary perceptions on an on-going episode basis, such episodes previously identified as psychic experiences, and latterly, interactions with extraterrestrials. Furthermore, examples of minor physical trauma discovered after such apparent interactions have also been identified as the dermal reactions of the subjects who in effect have developed an ‘electrical allergy’. Note that previous studies using ELF milligauss magnetic fields specifically on the temporal lobes contributes to the electromagnetic pollution approach, but differs from it in that this latter approach identifies generalised bodily irradiation from multiple artificial sources, the identification of the clinical condition electrical hypersensitivity as being primarily instrumental in alien abduction experiences and its fundamental connections to the ethos of holistic medicine.

European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, Launch Volume, p.15-29

UFO Declassification The Spanish Model

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos

Since 1992 to 1999, all records held by the Spanish Air Force which were withheld from public consultation have been declassified. Now, documents formerly classified as secret are part of the public domain: 84 files containing near 2000 pages of text which describe 122 different UFO events occurred in the period 1962-1995. The author’s intervention proved instrumental in the generation of this historical declassification process. A collaboration offer from the author was accepted by the Intelligence unit in charge. It allowed the author to stay very close to the development of the process. From this unique position, the author was basically able to (a) confirm that full contents of the archives were totally released, (b) accelerate the speed of the file processing in various times, (c) manage the liberation of several confidential papers and protocols related to past military handling of UFO information, and (d) successfully achieve through timely proposals that the Air Force produced a search of missing UFO data, which took place in three different occasions, giving rise to an improvement in quantity and quality of files. After a background introduction, the most representative dates in the official UFO declassification process are reviewed, the major achievements from the civilian co-operation are exposed, and a basic statistical overview of released UFO sightings is presented.

European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, Launch Volume, p.30-41

Physics from UFO Data

Massimo Teodorani

A research project on the UFO phenomenon is proposed in which UFO targets are treated on par with astronomical objects having no fixed co-ordinates. Specifically oriented monitoring techniques and strategies involving small telescopes which are connected to CCD (charge coupled devices) detectors, spectographs and photon-counting photometers are presented. Expected exposure-times for acquiring a good S/N (signal to noise) ratio of the target using all the proposed instruments is also evaluated. Finally, physical information which are expected to come out from data analysis are presented and discussed in detail.

European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, Volume 1(1), p.2-25

United Kingdom UFO Organisations: What do they have knowledge of and what do they investigate?

Craig A. Roberts

There are many theoretical inputs into ufology ranging from the extraterrestrial approach, fabrications, conspiracy theories, psychological viewpoints, geological phenomena, astronomical anomalies and meteorological effects. The aim of the research piece was to survey United Kingdom UFO organisations as to their favoured theories and which theories they ‘test’ when a sighting is reported. A two-page questionnaire was sent to 97 such organisations. A response rate of 15% was achieved even though the questionnaire was sent out with a freepost return envelope provided. The most favoured theories for explaining UFO activity were the extraterrestrial approach, fabrications and the influence of the media. The psychological viewpoints (e.g. psychopathology, fantasy proneness and temporal lobe epilepsy) were the least favoured by some margin. When sightings are researched, the same three theories were examined as for the favoured theoretical approach. Again, psychological theories were poorly represented in terms of frequency of testing. Even though the response was low, the results show which theories are currently in favour in the United Kingdom. However, there were large inter-group differences in knowledge and investigative techniques in the returned sample.

The author would like to thank the respondents who kindly took part in this research and to TRUTH for financial support of this project.

European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, Volume 1(1), p.26-32

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