Night Journeys In Ufology

Review Of Connors Aural
History 'Night Journeys
In Ufology'
...Unsung Heroes...

By Alfred Lehmberg

...Unsung Heroes... These could be defined as critically necessary persons better than yourself, persons about which one ordinarily remains ignorant. Am I right?

These could be people who use the personal stone of their singular drive and constructive initiative to plug away at pertinent but tediously detailed grunt works—toils of brave intellect—and who actually flesh out the bones of our aggregate cultural advancement, grease civilizations wheels, or put the "there" there when the clueless are standing around plaintively wailing "where... where." Could they be further defined as persons who take the long hard haul in the aggregate production of our meaningfully productive aggregate human consciousness? Could they take this arduous trek only as a result of selflessly honest conscience and earnest endeavor on their own?  ...Seems so.

One finds they can't be effusive enough about these people, forgetting they have the roughest row to hoe. These are folks, you see, who handily satisfy the requirements of the rare person who honorably endures the grueling "assembly strain" of an evidentiary audit trail, data base, or catalogue... and does so with discipline and an eye to the rules of evidence. Tough work and thankless.

Some of these persons can finally be defined as individuals braving unjust negative attentions from conflicted, biased, and contrary social *arbiters*...reflexive naysayers ...arbitrary cowards, as a final point, cowards with a mangy dog in the hunt... cowards who attack and degrade "unsung heroes" because their own very palsied intellectual investment is voided... and they are threatened by having to redo work they'd wrongly presumed abundantly done?  Yes.

An idle mind... is a tool.

I further define these People as persons who take the high hard road for little notice, less celebration, and the least possible (very likely in deficit! ) remuneration. There will be no money in it.  

The reader knows who these people are... they're the selfless men and women who efficaciously network, constructively frame, and creatively facilitate the very productive data-stream we all swim in... ...because it's correct thing to do.

These persons operate at all societal levels and stations in self-deprecating shadows as if they would seem to be more comfortable in them. They perform such, in this manner, at all of life's stations and at all walks of life... true, but, in an effort to focus attention on the variety of "Unsung Hero" discussed in this essay... at least those "life-walks" requiring the "amassing and compiling," the "tabbing and indexing," the "cross-referencing and hyper-linking" of critical evidentiary information bases already alluded to.

Consider. Superstar lawyers have their diligent legal assistant or that star quickly implodes. Brilliant research Doctors have their staffs or there is no data field they can productively mine. Police commissioners have their grunt-working line cops supplying all the "Sherlock" or the serial killer remains undetected and out of sight... Presidents—especially GWB—have their *secretary* (Lilly Tomlin in "The West Wing") managing the very air that President breathes or that President discovers he can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Hmmm... ...but I begin to digress.

The serious studies of Ufology have, of course, many unsung persons of this heroic caliber. Such a person would be typified by those resembling Robert Gribble.

Bob Gribble. A more anonymous collection of small mouth noises could hardly be deliberately considered.

John Smith? Jane Jones? Wendy Connors? Who is Robert Gribble?

Interested as far back as 1955, Robert Gribble began his first order, first of its type, and very seminal Phenomena Research Reporting Center (PRRC) in November, 1974. By the following year, and throwing caution to brave winds, he began to refer to his center as the UFO Reporting Center. Later, because good ideas do, the UFO Reporting Center evolved in scope to become known as the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). A productive *novelty* was enjoined, was decidedly off, and is still running!

Mr. Gribble would tirelessly man the helm of this report collection activity until 1994 when it would be taken over by the able Peter Davenport, another "UnSunger," ...when Gribble retired from the active grind.

From the humblest of beginnings in late 1974, Mr. Gribble would produce an organization of rare fidelity and trust, finally, providing a singularly non-judgmental "Joe Friday" no-nonsense and just-the-facts type of "place" or "nexus" in a society generally hostile to that concept?... ...but a place in which people might feel adequately comfortable... ...reporting their ubiquitous encounters with unidentified flying objects and the equally abundant and highly strange ancillaries of same.

In this new atmosphere? Reports quickly doubled those for previous years. Cue your most hopeful music, reader.

Perhaps because Gribble relieved a conflicted officialdom of its responsibility to do this universally necessary and ultimately required work, Gribble saw a heretofore unparalleled amount of cooperation with law enforcement, FAA radar, Sea-Tac Radar and even the military itself. This is one of the main reasons Gribble's organization was successful in accumulating over 30 years worth of hard data regarding UFOs, and what makes it credible, relevant, and important to us now.

A preponderance—all one needs is one—very likely happened, reader, you see?   It is happening now, and it will happen with greater and greater frequency as the future approaches, this writer suspects.

...But it was this assistance he received from the extant *authorities*—an ideal way, remember, to alleviate their own inherent official responsibilities regarding a phenomena being witnessed by thousands of quality people—that garnered the program its lasting success! A cowardly and disingenuous mechanism of Distance and Plausible Deniability once again for the *authorities*... still, the work got done!

Gribble made tape recordings of Americans, everyday and otherwise, who found themselves confronting something completely outside their experience... ...scared folks who needed to talk about it with someone... only someone who wasn't spring-loaded to thinking they were insane... or lying... or just stupid!

Let me digress a bit to remind the reader that one may BE legitimately skeptical of UFOs, boys and girls, but it REMAINS that diverse persons of education, experience, and quality from all life's stations continue, as they have for many, many years, to observe objects in the sky they can't explain or hardly even accept themselves...

Smoke that!

What Bob Gribble did was to let real people talk about real experiences in their own real words! What a concept! This is a concept for which I am profoundly thankful. The reader can be similarly effected.

See, it's another set of strong nails et al affixed to the coffin of our insentient ignorance in this matter regarding UFOs... ...UFO that are real, reader!

Forget the airy proclamations of intellectually constipated Brits via the "Condign Report." Ignore James Randi as he chuckles and snorts his reflexively derisive dismissive-ness. Dismiss the acolytes of a moldering Philip Klass as they smirk and preen their back-stepping CSICOPian cants. You see... and I quote Wendy Connors, "We have this record, a historical record of rare quality in our hands right now," to the stirring contrary! Thanks to the tireless Ms. Connors? You can have it in your hands, too... Be amazed.

Entirely convincing all by itself ... even if *merely anecdotal*... ...when it is inserted into an incendiary evidentiary equation with other factors... factors like ...vetted photographic evidence... documented historical evidence... serious artistic evidence... available physical evidence... and then compellingly buttressed by conclusive personal evidence...?... the fat lady has sung on klasskurtxian naysaying, reader!  A dissembling Elvis skulks embarrassed and humiliated from the building, verily!

"Proof" is just evidence accepted as proof, reader. There are those among us reluctant to admit that junkyard dog of consistent evidence biting down hard on their hindquarters at this startling denouement.

...And cheese Louise, fellow buckaroos and sky watchers... ...a listener can only be annoyingly astonished by the continued reluctance of some (a few actually!), given this wealth of evidentiary data, to face the highly strange music... ...music enduring despite being forever marginalized... and incompetently marginalized at that! Condign is the latest such example of the preceding.

...Does the aforementioned evidence available adequately justify attention by the *mainstream* to perform a more in depth investigation of UFOs? Absolutely"! Does Wendy Connors provide same in her ample Aural History Series extant? Without doubt.

To understate rather tediously: In Wendy Connors current disc compilation "Night Journeys in Ufology," and spanning the middle 70s... select case recordings from the National UFO Reporting Center are heard...

Now, with zero hyperbole, let me advise a reader that in these select recordings they can hear the stunned astonishment, perceive the abject fear, or feel the acute embarrassment of real people compelled, ANYWAY, to report something twitchy they've observed to somebody. Get ready to identify, reader, with the curious innocence of persons enthralled with the perceived presence of an inexplicable *other*. Prepare to see how real people deal, friends and neighbors, with their highly strange experience and come to grips with same.

But "for the grace of God go you...," besides... only one of these reports has to be true... not false. Never "false."

It's not one false case that debunks all cases... it's one true UFO (TRUFO) providing validation for the UFOs too reflexively denied! Think there isn't at least one true case? Another "think" is due you.

Moreover, these are people just like you... remember. They are "you" quite possibly... even if you have never made a report!

I've never reported, and I'm a proclaimed witness to same... I'm one of these people. Verily. I know of others. Maybe you?

Back to the Connors compilation...From almost two full 24 hour days in a seemingly endless steam of collected reports... ...some 252 incredible MP3 tracks... clear audio tracks ensuring the listener has an abundance of this inexplicable whispering in their ears... these strange echoes of the felt presence of an *other* just around the para-psychological corner from the prosaic... ...as they watch their busying night skies become busier... for years to come. 

...Good fare with which to be fairly apprised as the strange singularity of this unspoken *other* accelerates closer and closer to us while you read these words? This writer thinks so. But that's good news, I contend.

...Closing, Wendy Connors brings home the ufological bacon once again with her surreal compilation, thrills the listener as she informs, and provides for a more expansive and more robust reality for all... I am of the not so humble opinion. Also, forgetting for a moment that she is an unsung hero of sizable caliber herself, she is to be heartily commended and certainly celebrated for bringing yet another "unsung" ufological hero further into the appreciative light for a moment. It's her job.

Robert Gribble. Good SHOW, Sir!

If you're still with us on this chase, and you're feeling the breath of approaching concrescence on the back of the neck like those of us remaining? My heartfelt thanks, a snappy salute, and a very public celebration of your contribution, Mr. Gribble!

If not? Twenty-one guns, Sir! Twenty-one freaking Guns! Hell, you get those regardless!

Read on.

LISTEN HERE!