by D W Pasulka
a third time, Eli interprets it as a calling from God and tel s
Samuel to listen to it and to respond. Samuel’s experience
then becomes an important religious experience that confers
upon him the status of a prophet.
There is an important, although not absolute, distinc-
tion between the event and the subsequent interpretation
of it, and how the event becomes embedded within a tradi-
tion of meaning. Ann Taves has proposed a building- block
approach to understanding how events become religious
events. A variety of disciplines that include cognitive science,
sociology, and history can help explain the processes by
which people identify their experiences as religious, or as
being related to UFOs. These reveal that human percep-
tion is informed by a wide range of things, including what
82 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
we think we know or should see. From childhood, we are
trained on how to see, as well as on what not to see. One ex-
ample in the book The Invisible Goril a and Other Ways Our
Intuitions Deceive Us il ustrates this point quite humorously.
The authors, Christopher Chabris of Harvard University and
Daniel Simons from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, showed a group of subjects two videos of people
passing a basketbal . They were asked to count the number
of passes. In one of the videos a person wearing a goril a
suit makes an entrance and walks slowly through the bas-
ketball players as they pass the ball to one another. Chabris
and Simons found that half of the subjects did not notice
that an enormous goril a had passed through the scene. How
could this be? How could someone miss seeing a huge goril a
walk slowly through a basketball game, or anywhere for that
matter?
The cognitive science of media suggests findings that are
even more disturbing than missing a goril a in one’s midst
(although if the goril a were real, maybe not). What one sees
on a screen, if it conforms to certain criteria, is interpreted
as real, even if it is not real and even if one knows it is not
real. Screen images embed themselves in one’s brain and
memories; they can determine how one views one’s past and
even determine one’s future behaviors. This research has dis-
turbing implications with respect to belief. What we see, we
tend to believe. The conventional means by which truth is
established— that is, by evidence, credible sources, and his-
torical y accurate corroborating testimony— is wiped off
the plate with one rich, visual y stimulating and emotional
image. The creation of a belief system is now much easier to
accomplish than it was two thousand years ago, when people
didn’t possess smartphones and were not exposed to the
J A M E S : M A S T E R O F T H E M U LT I V E R S E | 8 3
ubiquitous screens of a culture that now teach us how to see,
what to see, and how to interpret what we see.
Jacques Vallee once told me emphatical y, “Trust no one.
Do not even trust what you see.” Some years earlier, the well-
known scholar Donna Haraway had asked me to think about
what was happening in my brain and my mind when I looked
at images on film, or in the minds of people who witnessed
apparitions of the Virgin Mary. “What is happening in your
mind, or their minds, during these events?” I hadn’t a clue
then. But when Jacques told me not to trust what I was seeing,
I knew what he meant. From my own research, I knew that
digital media and media of all forms are manipulated to pro-
duce a specific response that is desired by the producers for
purely economic reasons. I was beginning to research the
ways in which virtual and digital media were being used for
political purposes under the auspices of information opera-
tions: how the military employed media, social media, and
all types of electronic media for purposes of national secu-
rity. All of these media have played major roles in the cre-
ation of global belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. It is in
the world of media that the myth is created, is sustained, and
proliferates.
✦
3
IN THE FIELD
The War Is Virtual, the Blood Is Real
Believe no one. Believe nothing.
— Jac q u e s Va l l e e , personal communication
Space might be the final frontier, but it’s made in a
Hol ywood basement.
— R e d H o t C h i l i P e p p e r s
“TALK TO ME FACE- TO- FACE, AND I will show you what
I think of debunkers!”
The threat, posted on social media, devolved from that
point into a series of very specific descriptions of bodily and
emotional harm. It was directed, by name, to Scott Browne.
Scott reacted with bemusement, as he had seen it all be-
fore. The crime? Scott had demonstrated that a photograph
that a poster had claimed was a real UFO was actual y a
Photoshopped object.
“Debunker” is not the worst name one can be called
in the field of ufology, but it is pretty close. It describes a
person who doesn’t believe in the phenomenon and ac-
tively discredits people who claim to have witnessed some-
thing anomalous in the air or in space, including some
trained observers, like pilots. Scott Browne has been called
a debunker— and far worse than that. In fact, the names
I N T H E F I E L D | 85
he has been called are not fit to be printed. Yet they have
been posted on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube, and in
internet forums. Scott Browne is a hated man, for all the
wrong reasons.
Scott is a debunker and a true believer. He is a debunker
because he is a true believer. He is a talented graphic designer
and professional videographer, which means that he has the
skil s to determine whether the objects in photographs and
videos are truly anomalous, computer- generated imagery
(CGI), or lens flares. These skil s happen to be the skil s of
the new soldier, because today, wars are waged on several
fronts and virtual reality — a misleading term— bleeds into
the world of skin and bones. Physical and virtual worlds in-
tersect and permeate one another. Scott Browne has seen
the rise of the virtual UFO— and its profitable hoaxes— and
he has intuited the disturbing consequences of its develop-
ment: for all intents and purposes, the fabricated UFO is the
real UFO. Yet Scott resists and fights its existence because he
believes there is a real thing. He is a true believer. He and the
trained observers in his international group, In the Field, be-
lieve they have photographed the real thing. Significantly, he
has had anomalous experiences suggestive of UFO activity
from the time he was a toddler.
As a historian of religion, I know a vocation when
I see one. A vocation, from the Latin vocatio, means “to be
called” to perform a special task, usual y a sacred mission. It
has
traditional y been associated with religious orders, like
the priesthood or the call to become a nun or a monk; it is
also associated with the sense of being called to perform a
task or to become an artisan or craftsperson. Scott has been
gifted, or cursed, with a vocation, and like many vocations,
it is uncompensated— at least monetarily. The rewards of a
8 6 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
vocation are typical y spiritual, which may be hard to re-
member when one is on the front line of ufology, attempting
to bring common sense into an arena that is a true carnival
of hoaxes, consumerism, and misinformation. The weariness
of the fight, the threats, and the slights to his name and rep-
utation have made Scott want to quit. In the short two years
that I have known him, he has wanted to walk away from
this work innumerable times. But he keeps coming back. He
cannot stop his work, his sacred task. It won’t let him go.
Scott is the creator and moderator of In the Field,
an international study group of trained videographers,
photographers, and graphic designers who also study the
UFO phenomenon on a regular basis. The group is located
on Facebook. Its members use their skil s to try to iden-
tify anomalous aerial objects. By identifying CGI and the
common lens flares that are often mistaken for UFOs, they
also provide a public service. They rule these things out in
the effort to preserve an accurate record of truly anomalous
objects. They identify hoaxes and “out” hoaxer websites. If
any of the members are found to have hoaxed a photograph
or video, they are removed from the group. The members are
bound by a code of ethics and a methodology. If they deviate
just one bit from these codes, Scott deletes them. Several
times I’ve witnessed hoaxers removed from the group and
they always react with a whirlwind of vitriol and bitterness.
I learned of Scott’s group from friends who told me that
their videos were genuine— that is, they were recordings of
authentical y anomalous phenomena. I wanted to join these
skilled researchers to see what they had filmed. I wasn’t a
videographer or a photographer, so I wasn’t sure that Scott
would let me in, but one day I approached him on Facebook
and asked if I could join. He asked about my credentials.
I N T H E F I E L D | 8 7
I told him that I studied UFO phenomena, and then, on the
chance that he might respect Jacques Vallee’s work, I told him
that I was a fan of Jacques and that I worked with him. That
was credential enough; he immediately let me into the group,
for which I am grateful. The work being done by its members
and the issues that get raised demonstrate the processes in-
volved in the formation of a dogma. The members aren’t
dogmatists; in fact, they are just the opposite. Each of them is
trying to stop (or at least slow down) a huge, indiscriminate
tidal wave: the momentum of media coverage of UFO phe-
nomena. The movement of the wave begins with a witness
with a high- tech video camera who documents an anoma-
lous phenomenon. Then, it gains momentum on the internet
and social media. It becomes virtual, something dogmatic
and orthodox— something, it seems, in which everyone
believes, and something far removed from what it was, orig-
inal y. This is how media technologies inform UFO belief.
“What is your position on religion?”
I am sitting across from Scott at a trendy coffee shop
in Northampton, Massachusetts. Northampton reminds
me of my original home in Northern California. The rich
smell of good coffee permeates the air, and I am enjoying the
break from the sweltering humidity of the North Carolina
summer. Scott asks the question careful y. I can tell that he
doesn’t want to offend me, but he needs to know my answer.
He wants to know if my mind is closed, if I am dogmatic.
The question is a fair one, and one that I get often. Because
I am a professor of religious studies, many people natural y
assume that I am religious. People in my field study religion,
of course, but they are all over the map with respect to their
personal beliefs and practices. Most of the atheists I know are
also professors of religious studies. That is not me, however.
8 8 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
“I believe there is a truth, Scott, but I am open about what
it is. I go to a Catholic Church, but I started out as a born-
again Christian when I was eleven years old, to the surprise
of my parents. I believe in practicing those things associated
with the traditional religions, like honesty, charity, things like
that,” I answered.
This answer seemed to satisfy him. I realized that he
asked about my religion because he wanted to trust me but
knew he couldn’t if I was clinging to a dogma that wouldn’t
allow me to open my eyes and see what appeared right in
front of me. The study of the phenomenon requires an open-
minded, nondogmatic approach.
Scott almost apologized. “I seem to have this ethic,
this . . . UFO ethic,” he said.
He didn’t know how much I understood, and appreciated,
that ethic.
“I formed the group because I had been studying the
phenomenon, photographing it, taking videos, etc., of discs
and other aerial objects, and I knew there were a lot of other
people doing exactly what I was doing, who were from all
over the world. We would post our videos in forums and
groups on Facebook and in other places. The problem arose
because our videos of authentic stuff would get posted side
by side with videos that were obviously hoaxed. The owners
of those videos would say things like, ‘This is a UFO from
the Galactic Federation of Alpha Centauri’ or something like
that. I was so discouraged, because I was trying to proceed
to study the phenomenon in a way that was systematic, and,
wel , none of us were getting anywhere. My question to those
posters was, ‘How do you know where this is from? Did they
tell you? What evidence do you have?’
I N T H E F I E L D | 8 9
“I talked about this with researchers that I trusted,
like David Stinnett. They each also worked like I did: they
went out into the field and captured objects on photos or
on video that they then scrutinized. These were the people
I wanted to talk to. I established In the Field basical y so
I can meet these people, and I stipulated certain criteria for
membership.
“The group was formed for people who are actual y
pursuing and witnessing the phenomena on a regular basis
with video cameras and a variety of high- tech equipment. It
is also for serious researchers who are interested in the study
of what these observers are doing and capturing. There are
three requirements to join:
1. You must shoot your own footage/ stil s of anoma-
lous objects on a regular basis and be able to present
<
br /> them to the group (YouTube or other).
2. You must be familiar with the basics of the study of
this phenomenon.
3. You must keep an open mind with no precon-
ceived notions about the nature of the phenomenon
(angels, aliens, demons, galactic federation, etc.).
I made sure to state that the group is not intended for
those who wish to fuel the perpetual machinery of hoaxes
and disinformation that make our work much more dif-
ficult. We do three things: we observe and study; we
document and capture; we share. I don’t accept anything
that is CGI, false info, disinfo. We don’t want anything
that reeks of a bad sci- fi movie. We encourage common
sense.”1
9 0 | A M E R IC A N C O SM IC
S C O T T ’ S E A R LY E X P E R I E N C E S
When I asked Scott why he was interested in the phenom-
enon, he spoke of his childhood. He was careful to say
that the things that happened to him then may or may
not be connected to his obsession with UFO phenomena,
although he has an inkling that they could be. When he
was barely three years old, he somehow disappeared from
the family home. His father, a police officer, was frantic
when he and his wife couldn’t find their son. He imme-
diately issued a missing persons report, and a massive
search was mounted for the toddler, involving the police
department and the whole town. Scott was found, many
hours later, in a nearby field. When his mother frantically
scooped him up, he said that he had been talking with
the cows that lived in the pasture. His mother, writing
in her diary, said, “Scott gave everyone a scare at 5:30
this morning when he decided to take a walk on his own.
I was so worried! We are still not sure how he managed
to get out of the house but some friends ended up finding
him down the street coming from the field and he was so
excited that he talked to the cows even though they were
horses!”2
Scott’s brother, who was two years younger, recalled
experiencing recurring dreams about his older brother
throughout his childhood. In these dreams, he would see
Scott on a table, hooked up to machines, surrounded by
people with big heads who were examining him. Scott also
had recurring dreams, in one of which he saw a giant praying