UFOs And The Young, Part 2: The Young Respond

So here's where I write from...A place of respect for those honest people who came before, so that I may learn from the past, believing this knowledge will help me in forging a understanding of the UFO experiencer and the UFO researcher, alike.
Joe Capp UFOMM

Quinn writes:
I saw my first UFO when I was nine years old. I was coming home from a Broadway show with my best friend and her family, and we were driving home on I-684 Northbound. There was a huge white light in the sky, stationary. It resembled a massive star, but it was far too large to even conceivably be one. After about ten minutes of the light just hovering in the skies above us, I watched as it split in two and began a slow descent toward the earth. What happened after that I don't remember, but I do recall my friend’s parents pointing at the same light and asking each other what it could be.

Since then, I have been fascinated by UFOs and the very real possibility of other intelligent life in our universe.

When I told this story to my 8th grade Earth Science class, my fellow students mocked me and told me I was crazy. Since then, I haven't told that story to anyone-- until today.

My fascination with UFOs was always a quiet one. I read Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings in high school, and was amazed to see that some of the pictures were taken by my neighbor, in my hometown.

But I never shared my findings with anyone. In that same science class, I used an FM radio and an oscilloscope to listen for objects entering our atmosphere. I told the science fair officials I was looking for meteorites, but I was really hoping to catch some sort of UFO. In high school I wanted to work for SETI, but was deterred by my parents…"It's not a real science". "That's hogwash – there's nothing out there". The internet proved to be my only resource and outlet. On the internet I could find hundreds of like-minded individuals where I would be taken seriously, and not ridiculed...There are people that I can go UFO 'hunting' with. I can be taken seriously, for the first time.

James writes:
I'm a 23 year-old extraterrestrial enthusiast. I've been really into making contact with extraterrestrials since I was a little kid. I would never miss an episode of “Sightings” and would check out every book from the library on supernatural, anything, no matter how much it was polluting my mind.

At this point it would be nice to extend what amateur research I have acquired in meditations on this subject with other like-minded people or not like-minded --those willing to listen and build a network of communication on the subject of extraterrestrials and establishing contact with them. Meditation may be a very practical means of communication…to extend yourself beyond this space into another, further, distant one...beyond our solar system, into worlds beyond our stars, bypassing all of our physical limits in the vessel of the imagination…

I know the very nature of the UFO phenomenon in all of its hyped commercialism has been attached undeservedly to New Age or esoteric interests, but this is only because the mind of the explorer and the spirit of wonder are akin, with the energy of creating dreams …the energy that fuels the research. I think if it were possible, any means....everything ...should be looked at closely…I think that it's important to attract young people to the subject of general extraterrestrial investigations. I believe shows like “Sightings” and “Unsolved Mysteries” worked like a portal, directing the mind to that tunnel, and the minds eager to learn more would do so. It could be possible to be open about the reason a function is happening, but maybe add a few elements that would attract younger people…
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So, where is the UFO community going? The future of any group has always been the young. The UFO community is close to becoming barren. If all the older UFO researchers and conferences attendees were to die tomorrow --God help us-- all the conferences would end and MUFON would close its doors. And that would also mean all good, detailed UFO reports would be left to the media to interpret…

Do you see where I’m going with this? How dangerous our failure to attract young people to Ufology really is? Not only do we need young people to keep us going, we need them because they think differently than we do.

James Carrion, MUFON Director, speaking at the 27th Society Of Scientific Exploration Conference, mentioned specifically the importance of the Skinwalker-type phenomenon. This is a breakthrough! In the early days of NICAP, this mention of apparent paranormal phenomena would have not been taken seriously.
And this breakthrough brings our old school ufologists’ generation closer to the same realization that many youth involved reading and researching more on the paranormal side have already made.

Anti-establishment thinkers have always been needed in our world, so many of them have been geniuses in disguise! And we need the young to bring in these new ideas.

But for someone going to college or with a first job, $500 or $200 hundred dollars can be impossibility. Yet most UFO conferences range in this amount.

As UFOMM reader Bob Koford commented about Part One of this series:
I have been invited to several UFO Conferences, but have never been able to make one. It is amazing to me how all of these other people can afford to travel around so much, and attend all of these events. When you add up the air fare, the hotel stay, the food, etc., it becomes exorbitant. I have a family to support, and have never had enough time, or capital on hand to attend, though I wish that I could. There's just no substitute for being in a one-on-one discussion, with those you respect, when the subject matter is so deep.
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Of course many of us are retired. Few can go to most conferences. Many attendees have had good careers, in the military, in big corporations and government. By the way, this is the big secret of UFO conferences: many attendees have sharp minds and never saw a tin foil hat.

Meanwhile, the UFO phenomenon is still out there defying anyone to explain it.

Vidoe Clip Dedicated Young UFO Researchers:



We have an obligation to the young to be honest about what information we have and what we speculate about. Young people can usually tell BS a mile away.

Another plus young people bring to our community: we don’t have to shy away from the ET controversy that obsesses old school ufologists. We can say that UFOs exhibit all the characteristic of a far advanced technology. We can say they seem to be piloted by beings which are not human. And we can show reports prepared by trained individuals and the photographic and digital imagery made by everyday people, the proof we have right here, right now: intelligent entities taking off and landing on our planet with technology that we haven’t dreamt of.

Young people may ask “But what chance do I have to prove they are real? What chance do I have if UFOs are so advanced?” We can tell young people that their best chances will come from the foundation of those meticulously researched cases put together by old school UFO researchers, world-wide. Why? Because these foundational reports prove over and over that whoever they are, the Entities associated with UFOs are not perfect, and no matter how advanced, they make profound mistakes. Those mistakes made by the Entities --along with the variety of phenomena-- leave plenty of room for every kind of question, and demand a bright, new generation of Ufologists!

So, my young friends, you have every chance to discover the most important news on Planet Earth --the news that we are not alone.
Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
Non-Commercial Blog

"The Call Of The Wild": UFOs And The Young Part One

By Joseph Capp
"But I was so much older than... I'm younger than than that now" Dylan
Tribute To James McDonald Video Clip below

Young people are interested in UFOs. At my NY UFO Meeting Group, it was mostly younger people who showed up.

Starting a meeting in NY was insane. Couldn’t get a private room, so we ended up meeting in a restaurant. Privacy was gone immediately. Even brash New Yorkers didn’t want to be subjected to ridicule discussing UFOs in public! We were lucky, however, to get a private room for just a couple of weeks, and that’s when the meeting took off.

Young people from all over attended, bringing video they took themselves. We found out New York City is definitely having sightings.

By the way, the people who stayed were knowledgeable about the subject, and very open to new ideas. There were genuine exchange of theories on what the UFO phenomenon could be, and some debate. It was good and refreshing to see. The group’s rules were simple: respect each other and no commercialism. Many of the people who attended can not afford to go to the conferences, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dedicated to getting to the ground truth of UFOs. In fact, two of them and I went to the MUFON training in NY. Since then, one that I know of has passed the test and is now an investigator for MUFON. She has now started a MUFON meeting in NYC.

That meeting gave me a great deal of hope for the future of UFO research. Because of illness and family tragedy I was unable to keep the meeting going in the winter. I intend to start the meeting up in March.

So what am I getting at here?

I read a post by Nick Redfern with a rather bleak “certainty” about the next 50 years of UFO research. Now, it seems Nick “knows for certain” what will happen in the next 50 years of UFO research and it’s the same old same old:
http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-files/an-alien-interview/

I like Nick. He is all that is right about the future of UFO research. But I’m a lot older than Nick, and I have this bit of advice from the long-view perspective: if you want to live a long time and help the future of UFOs… work at making the research right.

Before I go on about youth and UFOs, let me make an observation about these old-school UFO researchers, the ufologists.

In spite of a powerful, half-century long disinformation campaign by the US Government, in spite of ongoing ridicule of media, character attacks by debunkers and obsessed non believers and believers alike, they’re still standing. Add to this oppressive array of attackers and deniers the further attacks by often-politically controlled mainstream scientists. In spite of it all, the old school ufologists were still willing to continue to do the leg work. They suffered personally, professionally, and economically --but they’ve been busy keeping the UFO question alive and remaining respectful to the witnesses they talk into going public.

The honest, old-school UFO researcher has a lot to be proud of , and he/she represents a big part of UFO witness legacy. When the truth is known, I hope the old-school ufologists finally get the credit and public gratitude they deserve.

I am not certain about anything --like Nick. But I have much more optimism than Nick Redfern does. There are some very smart young people out there, some will become scientists, and I believe it won’t be as easy as in past years to keep these younger scientists inside the rationalist box.

We have to admit the next generation of scientists and ufologists has been exposed to more paranormal information and research than in any time in the history of the world. These young people are ready.

Look what happened in America … We had a damned peaceful revolution --through the ballot box. This revolution was inspired by and the energy and perseveranceof our young people. WOW!
Group of Young UFO investagators in Peru:


Out at an investigation:

Some fruits of their labor:

I have always believed that we have really failed the young. If there is lack of inspiration in the UFO field, whose fault is it? If we don’t inspire young people about the wonder and possibility of the greatest mysteries of all time, then we can’t inspire anyone. The way I see it, we don’t even try.

The younger established UFO researchers like Nick have a challenge if they want to take it. They are better equipped to do the legwork and communicate effectively with young people all the possibilities streaming from our growing body of UFO knowledge. And then the young people will imagine even more possibilities, themselves.

We can certainly tell our ufology successors about the dangers --like becoming too dogmatic about any idea, about filtering out witnesses because of preconceived notions, about discarding facts because of the ego of the presenter, or the personal economic or professional position of the witness.

I am not a blue skies kind of guy when it comes to the future of ufology. I see that the future presents great challenges… and many who want to evade the truth on all fronts.

But let us look at what is really happening now and put our prejudice aside. And remember, I believe non-commercial is a better way to go.

New evidence for hope: these recent UFO investigative TV shows are great, not perfect but great; for me they are also culture shock. Boy, did we need these a long time ago.

Think about the resources these TV shows use. Think about how many debunking theories has been shot down in one single show. UFO Hunters “Lost UFO Files” is prime example of what can be done to entertain AND challenge the public on the range of UFO issues.

Video: Tribute To "The Last Scientist" Dr. James McDonald

Of course, one TV series is not long-term investigation. But the young have a big mandate, so many facets of UFOs, so many investigations to carry out.

For starters, what about these actual places, physical locations where UFO and other phenomenon seem to congregate, even with multiple contacts? Very little scientific investigation has happened on this topic of UFO geo-hotspots that also manifest many different paranormal phenomena.

The young who want to do something in this field need people like you. Nick Redfern “do the right thing” in UFO research: walking into the future by becoming part of the future young UFO investigator. Look what one young person did for UFOs”
John Greenewald …. One young student… one idea… next thing you know “The Black Vault” and the release of thousands of government files.

I’ll always believe the way out is in.

Part Two: Call Of The Wild UFO And The Young
What Can A Future Of Hope Offer?

Joe Capp
UFO Media Matters
Non-Commercial Blog