- ...Unsung Heroes... These could be defined
as critically necessary persons better than yourself. Am I right?
-
- These could be people who use
personal stone to plug away at pertinent but tediously detailed grunt works
of intellectual toil 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
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.
-
- 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 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. You know
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 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 the current one, 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 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 ominous 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.
-
- It all 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 and 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 CSICOPian naysaying,
reader! Elvis skulks embarrassed and humiliated from the building!
-
- "Proof" is just evidence accepted
as proof, reader. There are those among us reluctant to admit a junkyard
dog biting down hard on their hindquarters at this 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 trails, 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... 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... tracks ensuring the listener
has an abundance of the 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. Six years less some change, anyway...
-
- ...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 current 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
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! You get those regardless.
-
- Read on.
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- alienview@adelphia.net
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- www.AlienView.net
-
- AVG Blog -- http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/
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