William J. Grabowski - Black Light: Perspectives on Mysterious Phenomena

BLACK LIGHT
Perspectives on Mysterious Phenomena

William J. Grabowski

KINDLE EDITION

Oblivion Press
2014

BLACK LIGHT: Perspectives on Mysterious Phenomena
Copyright 2014 by William J. Grabowski
Cover design 2014 by William J. Grabowski
This digital edition 2014 Oblivion Press
All rights reserved.
eISBN: 0-9749628-0-5
Broken Symmetry

Copyright 2014 by William J. Grabowski

Telegram from a Cold War Kid: An Interview with William J. Grabowski
Copyright 2014 by Lee Munro

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In memoriam:
John A. Keel
(1930-2009)

The universe does not exist as we think it exists. We do not exist as we think we exist.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book such as this, while written under solitary conditions, isn't researched that way. I did my best to leave others alone, much as I prefer, but no bookespecially nonfictionis conceived and written in perfect vacuum. I'm grateful for the help of a few whose work and integrity are to me unassailable. They are: Jack Brewer ( The Ufo Trail ), Doug Skinner ( John Keel: Not An Authority on Anything ), Lee Munro, ( Otherworld North East ), John Rimmer ( The Magonia Blog ), George P. Hansen ( The Trickster and the Paranormal ), Director Mark Pellington, George Knapp of KLAS-TV, Martin Kottmeyer, Andy Colvin, Jeff Wamsley, Aaron last-name-unknown of WCHS-TV, who interviewed me in Point Pleasant, WV, and apparently was subdued by the MIB (the interview was never broadcast!), Stan Gordon ( Stan Gordon's UFO Anomalies Zone ), Jacques Vallee ( Jacques F. Vallee ), the venerable Thornton M. Vaseltarpliterary agent (who claims to know more than I about John A. Keel), Tim and Beth Walker ( Damaged Soul ), Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, of Duluth band Low, Michael J. Nelson (he of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax), the inexplicable Tom Waits, that Bruce Campbell, Fortean Times , uni-ball Vision felt-tip pens, all hot pepper products, coffee, and Yuengling Beer.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
: COLD WAR KID
: BELIEF IS THE ENEMY
: MOTHMAN REDUX
: INVASION OF THE SAUCERMEN
: ROSWELL R.I.P.
: THE REAL KEEL DEAL
: THE GOBLIN BARRIER
: DRONE IN LOVE WITH YOU
: WHERE ART MEETS MYSTICISM
: BACK IN THE DAY
: BLACK-OPS AND ABDUCTION DECONSTRUCTION
: PERSONAL ANOMALIES
: THINKING CLEARLY ABOUT MIND CONTROL
: COLIN WILSON'S THE OUTSIDER AND POLTERGEIST!: A STUDY IN DESTRUCTIVE HAUNTING
: THE PENTACLE MEMORANDUM AND PROJECT STORK(UFO) GAME OVER?
: SO WHAT?
:
: Short Fiction

: An Interview with William J. Grabowski, by Lee Munro, B.Sc (Hons)

Any form of collective thought is subject to influence and suggestion, and blind on fundamentals. Free individual thought, the reflective work of a solitary researcher, is the best path to discovery. It is subject to mistakes but those are easier to correct, provided one stays close to key facts and seeks the advice of independent thinkers. That ingredientcritical thoughtis the most difficult one to find.

Jacques Vallee

Forbidden Science, Vol. Two

INTRODUCTION

I approached this project with more than a little trepidation. Does the world need yet another book about so-called paranormal phenomena? I asked myself. If so, am I qualified to write it? The great visionary poet William Blake wrote that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Let us hope. All pretense aside, what I mean by quoting Blake is that I have read hundreds of volumesancient to moderndevoted to events uncanny, anomalous, andoccasionallyterrifying. Many of these are ludicrous and poorly written. Some I flung against the nearest wall, cursing myself for wasting hard-won dollars. The Internet offers mountains of pages, many (but not all) as spurious as printed matter.

Nowhere, excepting politics, religion, and Wall Street, will one encounter as many charlatans, liars, hoaxers and outright loonies as prevail in affairs paranormal. A harsh truth, but there it is. The most important studiesout of hundredsnumber fewer than 50, many of these culled from one another.

Reading books does not make one an authority (or Authority!), whatever the topic. Scrutinizing 10,000 cookbooks, without hands-on experience, will not enable one to prepare a Thai delicacy.

During the final editing of this book, I gathered every scrap I had piled up since the mid-1980s, when my first paranormal articles were published (alongside those of Stan Gordon, he of Kecksburg UFO-crash infamy) in Beth Robbins' The Gate . A huge pile of crap (my notes, not Beth's magazine). I could not have known that, 13 years hence, I'd be residing in Pennsylvania several miles from Gordon and 25 minutes by car to Kecksburg, and on the wrong end of a telephone trying to convince Stan that sightings of black triangular UFOs were generated by terrestrial assets. For the record, we agreed to disagree. Stan remains one of the hardest-working investigators (meaning he mans a 24/7 hotline and ventures out under all conditionsno easy task in southwest Pennsylvania).

My unpublished, mostly beer-fueled scribbles, recorded once in a while after all-night observing sessions with friends and their various telescopes, remain shockingly crudea necessary passage through personal belief and fear. Because these ideas felt emotionally right, I was attracted to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, something now impossible for me to take seriously, though one I cannot rule out. In our current ever-credulous society, I'd sooner try and disprove the existence of God.

Attentive readers will realize Black Light has more in common with sociological studies of folklore than with ufology and parapsychologyI covet the wine, not the bottle. John Keel considered his investigations into folklore in the making as noteworthy; he was not, ultimately, alone in this assessment. I wish readers to consider the present book an artifact retrieved from the unknown by an explorer of existence. A reflection on the source of whatever hiddenintentionally or not; external or notmechanism or process triggers our capacity for perceiving anomalous (often shattering) experiences.

I have visited a scattering of haunted places; met the locals, broke their bread, and listened to accounts fascinating, comical, and ominous. We are a cynical, yet hopeful lot, with no idea what we are, where we came from, or why we're here. It's a universal fact that people are more haunted than any landscape, house, or patch of sky. No mystery: we share a world vibrant with wonder, horror, and uncertainty, where (as poignantly noted by author William Gibson) We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management...

Let's face it: nobody gets out of here alive. Except, apparently, on a few very rare occasions.

Like these lonely travelers, I have had several strange encounters that haunt me still. Frankly, I wish they didn't. These evoke unpleasant possibilities that might have nothing whatsoever to do with the paranormal. Sharper, braver souls than me have noted that sometimes the "explanation" for anomalous events can be weirder far than the events themselves.

I cannot claim final knowledge of what I did, or did not, experience. But the memoriesif genuinecharge me with an undeniable sense that something is here, something other than us. What that might be I cannot say, but am prepared to accept the high probability it is a projection of humanity's awful loneliness, and growing spiritual despair. The poet Arthur Rimbaud remarked that he desired to total the sum of the unknown. A lofty goal indeed, for the unknown takes many forms, strips away all defense and comfort; forces us to confront (as noted by Carl Jung) a psychically overwhelming Otherfor good or ill.