Episode 027 - Close Encounters Part 2 (Various Reports)

Seven tales of Close Encounters...

ADDENDUM:
I am not claiming the patterns one can find throughout UFO reports are proof of anything. I do, however, think these patterns may indicate something significant and should be examined more thoroughly. The whole subject is quite strange.

There are dozens of CE3’s and CE4’s stretching over decades with bizarrely similar details that I happened to notice when doing research for the previous video. The number easily tops a hundred if I include any CE2’s that have similar descriptions of an object.

Notably, pre 1980 reports are not likely to be contaminated by other claims, as international mass media was not as pervasive, the internet didn’t exist, and the subject was not viewed with wide interest…at least not to the degree where such similarities would crop up artificially.
Some thoughts on each case:

Colonel Shaw’s claims are certainly in keeping with typical tall-tales of the era and is only slightly more believable because of the unique descriptions of the visitors and their behavior. If anything, I find the story charming and strangely wholesome.

In Quarouble, France, the Commissioner that investigated the case was either named Grouchet, Gouchet, or Fouchet. I chose the first for no particular reason. Strangely, French news of that era seemed to play fast and loose with witness names, although to give credit where credit is due, a plurality of contemporary articles seemed to tell ‘just the facts’ and avoid speculation. Also, though many televised and print recreations of Dewilde’s claims seem a bit inconsistent (for example, the entities are sometimes depicted with arms with clearly human facial features), I am unaware of any inconsistent claims by Dewilde himself. He stuck to his story until his death in 1996.

In New Zealand, there were a number of lesser UFO reports within the month following Mrs. Moreland’s sighting, generally involving the observation of a bright green light at some distance. A man named Roy Holdaway, who’s farm was only about seven kilometers away, reported seeing an ‘odd’ bright light in the sky about a half-hour before the Moreland encounter. This ultimately means little, but it is intriguing.

I personally believe the Lakeland, Florida case is the most credible, as it includes multiple witnesses, environmental and animal interaction. The details given by the primary witness are not beyond what one could expect to see from the distances involved, yet they were elaborate enough to suggest something beyond pure imagination. Research indicates investigator Lee Butcher’s article in Fate Magazine is an accurate account of events (at least as stated by the McMullens). It’s strange how distorted the narrative becomes during successive retellings, much more so than many other UFO tales. I wonder why.

The case in British Columbia is also somewhat credible, as the sheer number of witnesses are hard to reconcile with a prosaic explanation, although only two of the nurses could actually have said to have gotten a ‘good look’. Also, after the initial encounter, Nurse Kendall claimed to Dr. P. M. H. Edwards of APRO (the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization) that for several days, an unexplained luminous object followed her car during her nightly commute. Although this would seem to be connected, the secondary observation was nowhere near as detailed and could be the result of obsessive contemplation on Nurse Kendall’s part, her mind ascribing otherworldly origin to any mundane air traffic because she was ‘expecting’ to see a UFO. Also, I mentioned a ‘Nurse Clarkson’ as a possible witness. One Canadian source states her name as ‘Clackson’.

Mr. Dawson’s experience is, to say the least, far-fetched. It is possible he had some hallucination inspired by some media he had seen. 1977 was the year of Star Wars and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as countless television and cinematic imitators. I don’t believe Thomas Dawson was outright lying, but I’m skeptical if anything he reported was objectively real and, therefore, I believe Mr. Dawson’s tale should be viewed as an outlier in the list of ‘Ririe Style’ cases. For completeness, I should note that one source states the message heard was a repetition of ‘I am Jimmy Hoffa’ followed by ‘and I am aboard this ship’. Needless to say, this hardly makes the claim more credible. It is also worth noting this encounter supposedly took place in broad daylight, which is a somewhat rare feature.

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More videos to come.