First comprehensive academic survey of alien contact experience. Please continue to ignore|308|

Greer is a joke imo. Which is why I dismissed the CE5 stuff or whatever it's called. I am interested in revisiting this "consciousness " based phenomenon based on your posts but I still think Greer is beyond the creep factor. Though it sounds like a great personal experiment for some, I'm not keen on doing the indoor stuff. I would like to know the best resources and protocol for doing this outside. From what I've seen though, don't you have to pay for this privileged information? Or go to a special ranch in the desert? Forgive me if I'm leery about something that seemed like a Warren Jeffs cult at first sight.


I agree that Greer is a really strange character and I'm not advocating him or dismissing him. I do appreciate his work with the disclosure project and documenting military whistle blowers, I find it interesting. As far a CE5, the thing that caught my attention was the fact that you could just do it by yourself, just read about it and try it. So I did... which is the story Im sharing. That doesn't mean I'm advocating for him, I just have what I got... Try A and you will get B and thats what happened. He just happens to be the guy I got it from. As far a him being a "cult"? I don't really think about it that way. I don't attach myself to him or hold him up in any other way than a normal man that said "here try this". I am definitely not trying to hold him up like he is some spiritual guru or whatever.

As as doing it on your own, you really don't need anything. There are somethings you can use, but it all comes down to meditation and intent basically. There is no "privileged information" (lol) nor do you need to go anywhere special. You can do it in the room you are sitting in right now.

If you would like I can share a good youtube channel a guy out of New York put together. He has made allot videos about the subject and a few instructional ones. I bet you could message him through the channel if you had any questions. I will be happy to share the link if you ask. I don't want to seem like I'm hijacking anything and promoting a "cult".

Also.. Let me say this about my experience with this whole thing... It is weird. Your going to read about the process and probably be like "WTF is this craziness!?" because thats exactly what I did. The main thing I did, is I decided I will suspend my bias and prejudice in order to give the process a fair shake. So I mustered up everything I had to just "pretend" and accept that I am trying to communicate with another intelligent being (WHAT EVER THAT MEANS) and treat it as such.
 
I understand and for the record I'm not calling you cuckoo. I appreciate your advocating for other people to try it for themselves and I'd like to suggest that if they do they may want to consider some of the suggestions from earlier.


Its all good :) I apologize if I made it seem like you were doing any name calling, that wasn't my intent. I appreciate your feedback and agree that your suggestions are completely valid.
 
Tater Tot, thank you for your interesting post - both the experiments and UFO sightings. I feel your fascination with the UFO topic and I think 7 years ago I might have gone in for performing a similar experiment myself. That said, I think there is a more parsimonious explanation for your experience though my explanation will be viewed by many as just as weird. First, let me say that UFOs were how I got into all this but you quickly find in all this stuff that it just goes deeper and into other related paranormal topics.

It is my opinion:
-If you look into this stuff long enough you accept the existence of a "spirit world" and you accept that certain "mediums" can gain information (or are given information) from this "spirit world".
-I have recently become convinced by a book called The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts that we should be very wary of all of this and also convinced that there are malicious / mischievous spirits over there too. For convenience sake I will call these "demons". This is a loaded word but I can't think of any better one. Most importantly, I am wondering if the vast majority of spirits contacted by mediums / channellers etc are, in fact, "demons"
-Most importantly, whether or not these "demons" can "hassle" you depends greatly on whether you invite them in. I think you may have invited them in. I also wonder if I have done the same at various times in my life (long story).

So, to me this makes much more sense than "CE5".

Of course, there are many profound unanswered questions:
-Is there some kind of relationship between "demons" and UFOs?
-How can you tell if a spirit really is grandma letting you know she is OK or is, instead, a "demon"?
-What can "demons" do and not do?

By the way, I don't think this is something to get too alarmed about. That said, I won't be repeating the "invitations" I made and I would be wary about continuing your experiments if I were you.
 
I actually think Alan has a point, especially when I'm confronted with creepy synchronicities such as the one I've just experienced - I happen to have just watched this new video by a band called 'Massive Attack' , just an hour after reading Tater Tot's description of his encounter with a strange "UFO balloon" (post #34 in this thread). Frankly it's sent shivers down my spine....

 
Tater Tot, thank you for your interesting post - both the experiments and UFO sightings. I feel your fascination with the UFO topic and I think 7 years ago I might have gone in for performing a similar experiment myself. That said, I think there is a more parsimonious explanation for your experience though my explanation will be viewed by many as just as weird. First, let me say that UFOs were how I got into all this but you quickly find in all this stuff that it just goes deeper and into other related paranormal topics.

It is my opinion:
-If you look into this stuff long enough you accept the existence of a "spirit world" and you accept that certain "mediums" can gain information (or are given information) from this "spirit world".
-I have recently become convinced by a book called The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts that we should be very wary of all of this and also convinced that there are malicious / mischievous spirits over there too. For convenience sake I will call these "demons". This is a loaded word but I can't think of any better one. Most importantly, I am wondering if the vast majority of spirits contacted by mediums / channellers etc are, in fact, "demons"
-Most importantly, whether or not these "demons" can "hassle" you depends greatly on whether you invite them in. I think you may have invited them in. I also wonder if I have done the same at various times in my life (long story).

So, to me this makes much more sense than "CE5".

Of course, there are many profound unanswered questions:
-Is there some kind of relationship between "demons" and UFOs?
-How can you tell if a spirit really is grandma letting you know she is OK or is, instead, a "demon"?
-What can "demons" do and not do?

By the way, I don't think this is something to get too alarmed about. That said, I won't be repeating the "invitations" I made and I would be wary about continuing your experiments if I were you.


Thank you for your input. I definitely don't dismiss what you are saying. It makes sense to me that if there are other intelligent beings from some other type of realm we should expect a variety of characters. All I can say is that my experiences have basically been positive, aside from the social stigma. But that doesn't mean I don't dismiss the possibility. Although I'm personally not a fan of the word demon.

Its basically like this for me. I have no idea what so ever "who" or "what" it is. Nor is there any way for me to tell if its alien, demon, or anything. I metaphor I use to help myself understand is this... Its like standing on the edge a giant canyon at night and in the moonlight you can see there is a cavern. For whatever reason you decide to flash your flashlight 3 times and after you finish, you receive three flashes back. Its a safe bet that something is communicating back to you. Now what is that something??? No way to tell because its dark and across a vast canyon.

So I pretty much boil it down to this.

#1 There is some sort of technology that exists that operates beyond the means that we are currently capable of. Which could possibly mean that there is another type of energy source/advanced physics that we have yet to know about. Who is operating this technology? Who knows..

#2 Something flashed its light back at me from across the canyon. Again.. Its to dark to know who or what it is. ET is just a label

#3 Consciousness isn't just an illusion thats produced by the brain, it goes out "there" somehow, interacts with something else, and It somehow comes back and interacts with me. Which raises a TON of questions and indicates there is something more to this whole picture. Consciousness seems like it is universal and fundamental in some way.

Thats basically it.
I can't conclude anything but that.
 
I agree that Greer is a really strange character and I'm not advocating him or dismissing him. I do appreciate his work with the disclosure project and documenting military whistle blowers, I find it interesting. As far a CE5, the thing that caught my attention was the fact that you could just do it by yourself, just read about it and try it. So I did... which is the story Im sharing. That doesn't mean I'm advocating for him, I just have what I got... Try A and you will get B and thats what happened. He just happens to be the guy I got it from. As far a him being a "cult"? I don't really think about it that way. I don't attach myself to him or hold him up in any other way than a normal man that said "here try this". I am definitely not trying to hold him up like he is some spiritual guru or whatever.

As as doing it on your own, you really don't need anything. There are somethings you can use, but it all comes down to meditation and intent basically. There is no "privileged information" (lol) nor do you need to go anywhere special. You can do it in the room you are sitting in right now.

If you would like I can share a good youtube channel a guy out of New York put together. He has made allot videos about the subject and a few instructional ones. I bet you could message him through the channel if you had any questions. I will be happy to share the link if you ask. I don't want to seem like I'm hijacking anything and promoting a "cult".

Also.. Let me say this about my experience with this whole thing... It is weird. Your going to read about the process and probably be like "WTF is this craziness!?" because thats exactly what I did. The main thing I did, is I decided I will suspend my bias and prejudice in order to give the process a fair shake. So I mustered up everything I had to just "pretend" and accept that I am trying to communicate with another intelligent being (WHAT EVER THAT MEANS) and treat it as such.
No aside from Greer, I'm intrigued by your experiments. It just wasn't sitting right with me when I heard his guided meditation on your video.

My current interest is psychedelics and UFOS, as I had an LSD experience years ago related to a sighting and feel there's a connection. I was actually contemplating establishing my own protocols and working in different mediums such as float tanks (which I begin in just over a week), taking psilocybin, meditations, and maybe even try holotropic breathing- though all of these would be separated endeavors it would be for the purpose of initiating UFO sightings and/or contact. I'm the crackpot here. My current heroes are John Lilly and Robert Anton Wilson so go figure.

Side note:
I also recommend The Messengers by Mike Clelland. A bunch of synchronicities with owls and certain number sequences have emerged since exploring this. Crazy stuff....
 
I reported it to Mufon and I did a phone interview with an investigator. I described it exactly as I typed it above and specifically told him that it wasn’t a balloon, but he emailed me and insisted it was
wow... I know this is just a small detail, but it's so, so interesting. what does this mean!?
 
Section #3

Proposal

Hello all! I’ve been kicking around this idea in my head for a while and I just wanted to type it up and put it out there to see if it would generate any interest. If not then oh well :)

It was after listening to an episode of the CE5 Minneapolis podcast that I really started thinking of a possible solution (a component of the solution would probably be more accurate) to what I think is a major hurdle for the CE5 community. In the episode, Paul was preparing to give a presentation to his fellow college alumni and it was dedicated to how exactly he was going to convey this information effectively without turning people “off”. I think we all know this is EXTREMELY hard to do and sometimes impossible, especially when the current paradigm totes they’re model of consciousness as absolute fact, when there has been no definitive studies on the origins and complete nature of consciousness (neuroscientists themselves admit that they are far from knowing how “the water is turned to wine”). So how do you successfully engage the general public in a way that will make them realize there is something to this and why is so important that we do so?

Lets start with why?

1. So we can help other people take the steps necessary to awaken to the reality of our consciousness and all of the good stuff that comes with it.
2. So we provide a the proverbial “key” to unlock the “door” to the outside of the “box” that most people are locked into. The current taboo mindset of this topic in general, let alone quadruple taboo on the consciousness aspect, is said “box” and is what prevents allot people from even considering this as a possibility. How can you possibly see the bigger picture if you won’t even walk into the room where it is being displayed?
  1. So we can help other people who have had experiences and have difficulty adjusting to said events. Having your sense of reality flipped over can be very emotional and hard to deal with for some people and could possibly create problems. Being able to see that they are not alone and there is legitimacy to they’re experiences could be a great help to them.
  2. So we can help further the purpose of contact, which in my mind is to help us grow into a more mature species so we can be of the greater community we find ourselves in.
  3. If we do not, our maturation as a species will maintain its course.


Now on to how?

The Scientific Method!! The best way we know how to acquire and test knowledge (let it be said that I am not a scientist, nor am I pretending to be, but I do think I/we are capable of engaging in the scientific process). I assume that most people know this already, but the basic way this works is that you create a sound experiment that has the proper controls put in place so we can be 100% sure we are not fooling ourselves. Once we do that, it needs to be replicated from multiple independent sources. Once multiple replications have occurred then reality of what is being tested becomes harder and harder to deny and easier to accept. This is pretty common knowledge.

Next...
How exactly do we engage in this scientifically and experimentally? What results do we hope to achieve? And how do we go about achieving them?



How do we engage?:
Not to long ago I posted a lengthy story about my first group of experiences and how I went about verifying its legitimacy. I set up an “experiment” to prove to myself I wasn’t being mistaken and forced myself to accept that reality of what I experienced. So far my “experiment” has had a very positive response from people and I propose using it as a model to move forward. I will post the link to my prior report in the comments so you can get a more detailed version of the process and the results. In the meantime here is the general layout (which there is always room for improvement)

Experimental group:

  1. Respectfully ask our friends to participate and explain the reasoning behind it. Make sure it is known that this is not a dog and pony show and we hope to use this as a tool to teach and awaken minds.
  2. Experiment must be done indoors. This will control for any and all astronomical events, planets, and conventional aircraft that might be mistaken as contact. This will add to the strength of the data.
  3. Point a camera at a bare wall with nothing reflective at all. No mirrors, no shiny objects, etc.
  4. Do it at night and turn out all lights. Except one small light in order to give a little illumination to the room, so you're not looking at just a black screen when reviewing the video. For example, in my videos I always kept a window in the shot and I kept the blinds down and completely closed, that way the blinds would be illuminated by the outside lights without letting anything in that could interfere.
  5. Make sure all electronics are out of the shot to control for any confusions with lights generated from them.
  6. Start recording with your camera and commence the CE5 protocols.
  7. Respectfully ask our friends to communicate with you via the camera so you can document they’re response. In all of my cases it has been via “flashbulbs” of all different shapes, sizes, and colors
  8. Review video in a dark room and on a big screen if possible, and keep you eyes peeled for they’re response. When I reviewed my videos they “jumped” out at me.
  9. Repeat with multiple cameras to control for a “faulty camera”
  10. Try and get multiple videos to establish that its not a one time thing. I did 10.
  11. Collect and report all successes and failures. We don’t want to “cook the books”

Control Group:
Repeat the same general process for the control group minus the CE5 protocols. Just set up the camera and record for 10 minutes or so while you step out the room to do something else. This way we can compare the two groups and show that the protocols indeed play a role. Provided that everything is successful.


Results I would hope to achieve:
To establish a strong database of scientifically gathered data that cannot be ignored in order to help the general public and scientific community accept there is a reality to this. That this is something that needs to be taken seriously. ( Let it be noted that I am not trying to establish “what it is” or “how it works” just “there is something going on” and “pull your heads out of the sand”)


How do we go about achieving the goal?:

I have laid out the process and successfully completed the “experiment” now we need to replicate it. This is what my fellow CE5’ers need to do. REPLICATE. Do this yourself or with your group, especially now that winter is about to set in for some of us, and help create a data base to use as a tool to educate.

My “experiment" alone has turned a few heads, but not enough. It grabs attention, but its not enough to make it something more than “some crazy thing that happened to my friend or relative” which then gets chalked up to just a ghost story or something of that nature. I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to be able to present not just my “experiment” but a whole series of replications people have done through out the world. Now that would be something that couldn’t just be brushed aside.

Now this might sound overly ambitious and idealistic, but just imagine if mainstream scientists actually acknowledged this enough to say “there is something going on here” and masses of people started to realize there is more to the big picture than meets the eye. That in my opinion would open the flood gates that would eventually destroy any taboo around this topic and lay the path for real advancement. I KNOW I KNOW I'm probably getting way ahead of myself, but its just a thought and a hope. I entertain the idea, but keep myself grounded.



Thank you all for taking the time to read. I would appreciate any and all feedback. I accept that my idea may not resonate with some people and may not work at all, but my intuition has been tugging at me and I need to at least put this out there. I feel this could be my small contribution to the next step.

What ever happens… happens :) Have a good day!!!
I think this is an awesome idea. Skeptiko hasn't been involved in these experiments/demonstrations for a while, but I'd definitely be open to exploring this further. gtg right now... more later.
 
No aside from Greer, I'm intrigued by your experiments. It just wasn't sitting right with me when I heard his guided meditation on your video.

My current interest is psychedelics and UFOS, as I had an LSD experience years ago related to a sighting and feel there's a connection. I was actually contemplating establishing my own protocols and working in different mediums such as float tanks (which I begin in just over a week), taking psilocybin, meditations, and maybe even try holotropic breathing- though all of these would be separated endeavors it would be for the purpose of initiating UFO sightings and/or contact. I'm the crackpot here. My current heroes are John Lilly and Robert Anton Wilson so go figure.

Side note:
I also recommend The Messengers by Mike Clelland. A bunch of synchronicities with owls and certain number sequences have emerged since exploring this. Crazy stuff....


I definitely don't think your a crack pot. I think the lsd/mushroom/dmt aspect should be 100% be considered. In my humble opinion, whatever I have experienced ties into the subject. Whatever it is, its all about consciousness, that means of communication, its the whole takeaway basically. If psychedelics "reduce the filter" in a way, it could enable people to tap into whatever it is thats being tapped.

Regardless of Greer, people have been reporting some sort of consciousness link with other beings for a long long time. He definitely isn't the originator of this idea. He just happened to be the means that I learned about this concept.

Love Mike Clelland. I listen to his podcast a bunch (although he hasn't done it in a while) but haven't read the book. It keeps popping up on my radar, so maybe I will have to give it a go.

Appreciate your feedback :)
 
wow... I know this is just a small detail, but it's so, so interesting. what does this mean!?


Man your guess is as good as mine. I was flabbergasted and pretty much lost confidence right away. Maybe because of a lack of an answer he decided to just throw one in there?? Who knows..
 
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Section #2


My first CE5 (Close Encounters of the 5th Kind) experience(s)/experiment.

The following is my first CE5 experience(s)/experiment. I grouped all of these little events into one big event because they all tie together. It took close to 6 or so months for my “experiment” to be completed.

It all started with the movie “Sirius”, I had recently had two ufo encounters with physical craft up close and personal, and I learned about this new ufo movie that was about to be released and streamed through an internet service called Yerka. I thought in my mind " Its staring the same man who organized the Disclosure Project so this has to be legit”, so I decided to pay the small fee to stream it online and watch it. I thought the movie was great and informative, but I was a bit skeptical about this “weird” part about contacting ET’s using your mind. " What the heck was that all about?”, "What kind of crazy stuff is this?” , “What are these crazy hippies thinking?”, “Why would anybody believe this stuff?”, these were all questions going through my mind. I’m not a believer of organized religion and at the time I felt like I was watching some weird religious cult type of thing, but for what ever reason it intrigued me, especially when I figured out that you can try this thing called CE5 on your own, for free (this made me take it a little more seriously, I don’t trust paranormal claims with a price tag).

After watching some example videos and researching the protocols on siriusdisclosure.com, I decided to give it a try (It took me some time to convince myself, because I felt like I was doing some cuckoo stuff that I needed to do in hiding so none of my friends and family would label me as crazy). Since I was living in Chicago I decided to try it out in the living room of my apartment away from the commotion of the city. For whatever reason the videos of the flashbulbs (a random flash of light, like a camera flash, that doesn’t have a source) were intriguing and I thought to myself “ I can get one on video”, so I decided to take a cellphone camera and point it at a plain non reflective wall, with nothing on it that could possibly produce a flash of any kind. I also did it at night time, closed all the blinds,turned off all the lights, and did it while no one else was in my apartment. I found a youtube video of one of Dr. Greer’s meditations and decided to use it, I started and unfortunately didn’t make it through because my iPad had ran out of batteries (face palm). I got a little frustrated and almost convinced myself that I should just stop this nonsense, but I decided to try again after a little charge. So I tried it again, I had the camera set up and recording and I made it through the whole meditation. I followed the protocols as best as I could, I suspended all disbelief and intended it to work, I “projected” a message/thought asking them to please communicate with me via my camera, I did CTS (coherent though sequencing. Envisioning your location on earth then rising up from that spot into space, like your operating google maps), and made sure they knew that my purpose was for educational reasons and to help me grow. Afterwords I grabbed the camera and walked into my kitchen, turned off all the lights, and watched the video not knowing what to expect. About a minute or so into it a I spotted the exact thing I was looking for, a flashbulb. It jumped out at me and right then and there was my “OH SH**” moment. I couldn’t believe it…it worked!!?? I just stared in disbelief, there was no way that anything in that room could have produced that flash of light, I made 100% sure of it, but yet it was the exact same thing I saw in Dr. Greer’s videos. My mind was spinning “what did I just see??” I quickly calmed down and reminded myself that it could just be a camera glitch and I can’t jump to any conclusions. Despite my skepticism I still needed to know, so I started to dig.

First I searched for hours on the internet researching a variety of different camera glitches and watching videos, getting familiar with what they all looked like, and could not find anything that matched a single point of light, flashing like a camera flash, randomly one time within a 30 minute video. So next I showed it to some coworkers, who were openminded enough to chat about such subjects, and one of them suggested that I try and be “scientific” about it, see if I can keep replicating it. Being someone who likes and trusts in science I thought that was a great idea, so I decided to try it again. I set up “experiment #2” and I had success again, same process and same results (I got two different flashes, both with different colors and shapes). Astounded, I immediately set up “experiment #3” and again, same process and same results. Now I’m really starting to wonder whats is going on, could this all be real? “experiment #4” was unfortunately unsuccessful because I believe I treated it too much like a game. I had told my brother about what was going on and I think I was more concerned with impressing him, forgetting that If I was indeed communicating with something, I still needed to be respectful.

I was a little disappointed that #4 didn’t work and wondered if reality was about to kick in and I realize that I’m just fooling myself. Regardless I continued on with “experiment #5” and this one is a very import experience. It was more than successful, it made me realize that there this is way more “weird” than I anticipated. This was the first time I felt what I call “the energy”, which makes it sound kind of silly, but I don’t know how to exactly put it in words, so that will have to do. During meditation I felt the hairs stand straight up on my arm and my sense that something was there with me kicked in pretty heavily. Then a jolt of “energy” shot through me that was so intense that I can’t put it exactly put it into words. It hit me like a taser and had this weird combination of qualities, it was like something orgasmic along with the rush of doing a line of cocaine (yes I tried it once in college) but more intense. It started at my forehead and flowed straight down my neck, belly, and through my groin I have never experienced anything like that ever and It shook me down to my spirit (remember I’m non religious). It just left me sitting there in aw of this emotion and feeling that overtook me, I still can’t fully express what it felt like and I just feel goofy trying to. After coming back to reality from my energy burst, I checked the video and found another flashbulb, except this one was different. There were two lights side by side (my mother thought they looked like eyes) that were neon aqua blue and neon purple and I just had this sinking feeling in my gut that this wasn’t a camera glitch. My mind was skeptically asking questions, but my intuition knew what I just experienced was real, this wasn’t just a misfire of my brain or a camera glitch, I felt it and experienced it, this was no longer a cool little video phenomenon, it was something that effected me on a personal level.

I continued to talk to different people including a few of my adult students ( I was teaching private guitar lessons at the time), one whom was a phycologist and a very smart man. He was very intrigued by my story and suggested to me that I needed to start treating it like a science experiment (I am not a scientist and I don’t pretend to be) and try to get the flashbulb on multiple cameras. He also told me that I need to have a experiment group and a control group (hence why I labeled them experiments) and see what happens when I record a video with no meditation. So that is exactly what I did. I did a total of 10 “experiments” and 9 “controls” with 3 different cameras (two cell phone, one digital camera, and one camera per experiment/control), 9 of the 10 experiments were successful and were captured on all 3 cameras and the flashbulb showed up n 2 of the 9 controls (*side note* It showed up on the last couple control videos and It was near the end of this whole experience. So I was thinking of the “beings” a lot more and I feel,whatever it is, possibly knew I was thinking about them. (Maybe they were connected to me more than I thought?). They came in a variety of shapes and colors and just two of them had energy bursts associated with them.

I had a friend help me edit down all my videos and put them into one short video so I could share it. You can view it here:



Watching the video will give you a glimpse into the experience, but now I want to share what else I did to help validate to myself how strange these videos really where.

During my experience I consulted some people whom I thought would have some expertise in digital/cellphone videos to see if they could identify the “flashbulb” and explain what it really was.

First, I took my cellphone into a Verizon Wireless store and spoke with an employee. We were alone in the store and I felt like I could be honest with her, so I told her about CE5 and what I had gotten on my camera. I showed the videos to her and she could not explain it at all, she said she never had seen anything like that happen, didn’t have an explanation, and actually was a little freaked out by the whole thing.

Second, I took my phone to a cell phone repair shop and pretended like I had no idea what was wrong with my camera. I told the clerk “ I have these weird flashes of light appear on my screen, do you know whats causing it?” and showed him a few of the videos. He had no idea what was causing it and he had never seen anything like that before. He told me that I needed to download a new video app and see if that would fix it, that was all the advice he gave me. I didn’t really bother to tell him any more because I didn’t feel he was the type of person who would be open to this sort of thing and I wanted to just see if he easily recognized it as a camera glitch without any et influence.

Third, I called a second cellphone repair shop and described the random flashes of light that were appearing in my videos and wondered if they have ever hear of such a thing. The girl on the phone said she “never heard of anything like that” and I said “really?? In all of your experience and probably the hundreds of customer service calls you have received, you never ever heard of a glitch like this?” and she replied “No, never."
I found this rather strange.

Fourth, I met a woman during a rehearsal dinner for a family members wedding, and she ended up teaching digital photography and video at a university in Missouri. So naturally I asked her about my videos. I described them to her and showed her still pictures from a few of them ( I didn’t make the youtube video yet and I didn’t have the videos with me) and even she couldn’t explain what was going on. She was very intrigued by them. I asked her “how do you know that I didn’t fake this?” and she replied “trust me, I would know. I can tell that you didn’t”. I then asked about the possibility of it being a glitch. She then explained to me that the flashbulbs occurred in different quadrants of the frame from video to video, which didn’t match the characteristics of a normal glitch. She explained that usually glitches will remain in the exact same spot and continuously do the same thing, not happen randomly once or twice in different locations throughout multiple videos on 3 different cameras.

Fifth, I joined a Facebook group related to ufo topics and posted my youtube video. Right away one of the group administrators messaged me and very politely told me that he works with CGI and special effects. He wanted to review my video (probably to make sure Im not a hoaxer) and I told him please do, I would love to have your opinion. He messaged me saying that “experiment #5” was really strange. He explained that when you move a video screen shot to screen shot, that the pixels shift and move, which is called “noise”. He then said the flashbulb flashed in and out with in 3 frames and during those frames the pixels didn’t move, it did “something it wasn’t supposed to do.” He seemed perplexed by this and it was enough for me to realize that he couldn’t seem to explain it either. He then went on and commented on my initial post assuring people I wasn’t a hoaxer.

All this stuff in a nutshell was my first CE5 experience. It took a long time for me to go through all of this and come to grips with the reality of this situation. It forever changed me and started me on to the realization that our consciousness is more than our brain, the “I” that resides in you is the real you and you are them :) We are one, the creator and the created.

Finally, I wanted say that this whole “flashbulb” experience has been “officially" confirmed for me. I have now, on a few different recent occasions, have seen these things in person with my own eyes, one of them with other people seeing them too. Each time after meditation and an intentional attempted contact. So What it comes down to for me is this. Camera glitches don’t happen outside of the camera, and figments of the imagination don’t appear on cameras.

Hi Tater Tot (love the name :) welcome to the forum). I enjoyed reading your experiences. I definitely think SOMEthing is going on that is very interesting and that there are no mundane explanations for it.

However, having been pretty deep into digital photography in the past, I'm afraid I don't find the "flashbulbs" very exciting. They look to me like hot pixels or noise that momentarily escape the noise reduction software as it is filtering out the noise from the image. In a dark room, the camera boosts the signal (film equivalent to ISO) which greatly boosts the noise... Especially from the very tiny sensor on a cell phone camera. With a black image there is less for the noise reduction software to evaluate to see where to set the filter threshold. A hot pixel is one that gets temporarily or permanently stuck "on". Hot pixels can also be a sign of radiation hitting the sensor (but you're not looking at Uranium so that's unlikely!) As the camera sensor heats up, sometimes this adds to the problem of hot pixels. The camera software memorizes where these hot pixels are on the sensor and covers them up, but as I said, the software can have a hard time when there is zero contrast.

I have watched a handful of Greer's videos and I can't make it through any of them. The creep factor is very high. He seems to employ some...techniques...in his sermons/speeches that make me almost certain he is a disinformation agent. It's been a while so I can't recall many of them at the moment except for speaking a lot while saying very little.

Anyway, hope this is not too much criticism! I look forward to reading more posts from you. :)
 
Tater Tot, thank you for your interesting post - both the experiments and UFO sightings. I feel your fascination with the UFO topic and I think 7 years ago I might have gone in for performing a similar experiment myself. That said, I think there is a more parsimonious explanation for your experience though my explanation will be viewed by many as just as weird. First, let me say that UFOs were how I got into all this but you quickly find in all this stuff that it just goes deeper and into other related paranormal topics.

It is my opinion:
-If you look into this stuff long enough you accept the existence of a "spirit world" and you accept that certain "mediums" can gain information (or are given information) from this "spirit world".
-I have recently become convinced by a book called The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts that we should be very wary of all of this and also convinced that there are malicious / mischievous spirits over there too. For convenience sake I will call these "demons". This is a loaded word but I can't think of any better one. Most importantly, I am wondering if the vast majority of spirits contacted by mediums / channellers etc are, in fact, "demons"
-Most importantly, whether or not these "demons" can "hassle" you depends greatly on whether you invite them in. I think you may have invited them in. I also wonder if I have done the same at various times in my life (long story).

So, to me this makes much more sense than "CE5".

Of course, there are many profound unanswered questions:
-Is there some kind of relationship between "demons" and UFOs?
-How can you tell if a spirit really is grandma letting you know she is OK or is, instead, a "demon"?
-What can "demons" do and not do?

By the way, I don't think this is something to get too alarmed about. That said, I won't be repeating the "invitations" I made and I would be wary about continuing your experiments if I were you.
totally hear you on all of this, but what then are we to do. I mean, take the demon thing as it relates to Christianty, there are a lot of people that will go on and on about the devil, and demons, and come at it from a fear-based Biblical perspective. of course, there's no let up when you point of the known problems with the Bible, they just turn it around and say, "yeah, but look at all this evil." This seems like weak reasoning... it's just fear. And take this one step further -- what about after-death communication... demonic? telepathy... demonic? psychedelic experiences... demonic? or, let's get really scared of the demonic thing and jump over to the other side (as science does [and even many parapsychologists do]) and jam it all into a materialistic worldview.

and while I'm at it, I never quite got the "inviting in" thing. I mean, if I'm summon demons by name with ancient incantations that's one thing, but I'm not willing to believe that all contact with extended consciousness is an invitation to walk on the dark side.
 
Hi Tater Tot (love the name :) welcome to the forum). I enjoyed reading your experiences. I definitely think SOMEthing is going on that is very interesting and that there are no mundane explanations for it.

However, having been pretty deep into digital photography in the past, I'm afraid I don't find the "flashbulbs" very exciting. They look to me like hot pixels or noise that momentarily escape the noise reduction software as it is filtering out the noise from the image. In a dark room, the camera boosts the signal (film equivalent to ISO) which greatly boosts the noise... Especially from the very tiny sensor on a cell phone camera. With a black image there is less for the noise reduction software to evaluate to see where to set the filter threshold. A hot pixel is one that gets temporarily or permanently stuck "on". Hot pixels can also be a sign of radiation hitting the sensor (but you're not looking at Uranium so that's unlikely!) As the camera sensor heats up, sometimes this adds to the problem of hot pixels. The camera software memorizes where these hot pixels are on the sensor and covers them up, but as I said, the software can have a hard time when there is zero contrast.

I have watched a handful of Greer's videos and I can't make it through any of them. The creep factor is very high. He seems to employ some...techniques...in his sermons/speeches that make me almost certain he is a disinformation agent. It's been a while so I can't recall many of them at the moment except for speaking a lot while saying very little.

Anyway, hope this is not too much criticism! I look forward to reading more posts from you. :)



Its definitely not to much criticism. I appreciate your feedback.

I have looked at Hot Pixels before, and yes some images definitely look similar, but I don't know if that will quite explains it.
These things don't get stuck at all. They are literally a flash of light (at least it appears that way) that happen one or two times throughout a 30 minute video. They come in different shapes, some just little pinprick flashes, and others are what I call "the eyes" , (please check out experiment #5 in my video, this would be the strangest one, odd shape and color) and they come in different colors, white, blue, red, and even Neon Aqua Blue and Neon purple (I've never seen a picture of a hot pixel with the vibrant of a color). Plus the fact that they happen at different quadrants of the screen, but never repeat in the same spot. Plus they never occur when I used the cameras normally. (minus the two control videos). Of course I could be wrong, I'm open to that.

"
3) Hot Pixels
Unlike stuck pixels, hot pixels only show up when the camera sensor gets hot during long exposures or when the ISO is cranked up above 400-800. Hot pixels are very normal and they will show up even on brand new cameras, although manufacturers do their best to map hot pixels out during the QA process. Hot pixels will appear and disappear overtime and if your brand new camera does not have stuck pixels, you can rest assured that you will have them at some point in the future. Every single DSLR camera I have owned and/or used had hot pixels. My Nikon D3s had no visible hot pixels when it was new and now has plenty of hot pixels that are visible in longer exposure/high ISO images. Hot pixels do not occur in LCD screens.

How to spot hot pixels: while keeping the lens cap on, set your camera to Manual mode, turn off Auto ISO and set your ISO to 100 (base ISO). Set camera shutter speed to 5-10 seconds and aperture to a large value like f/16 (to decrease the amount of ambient light that could potentially enter the lens through small holes). Take a picture. Next, set your ISO to 800 and increase the shutter speed to something fast like 1/1000 while keeping the aperture the same. Take another picture. Analyze both images and see if you can spot colored pixels that look like very small crosses when zoomed in. You will probably see more hot pixels in the second photo at higher ISO than on the first one." - https://photographylife.com/dead-vs-stuck-vs-hot-pixels

It seems that the process to locate these things in images requires allot more effort than a meditation?

Here is another link http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/hot-pixels/index.htm
 
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Hi Tater Tot (love the name :) welcome to the forum). I enjoyed reading your experiences. I definitely think SOMEthing is going on that is very interesting and that there are no mundane explanations for it.

However, having been pretty deep into digital photography in the past, I'm afraid I don't find the "flashbulbs" very exciting. They look to me like hot pixels or noise that momentarily escape the noise reduction software as it is filtering out the noise from the image. In a dark room, the camera boosts the signal (film equivalent to ISO) which greatly boosts the noise... Especially from the very tiny sensor on a cell phone camera. With a black image there is less for the noise reduction software to evaluate to see where to set the filter threshold. A hot pixel is one that gets temporarily or permanently stuck "on". Hot pixels can also be a sign of radiation hitting the sensor (but you're not looking at Uranium so that's unlikely!) As the camera sensor heats up, sometimes this adds to the problem of hot pixels. The camera software memorizes where these hot pixels are on the sensor and covers them up, but as I said, the software can have a hard time when there is zero contrast.

I have watched a handful of Greer's videos and I can't make it through any of them. The creep factor is very high. He seems to employ some...techniques...in his sermons/speeches that make me almost certain he is a disinformation agent. It's been a while so I can't recall many of them at the moment except for speaking a lot while saying very little.

Anyway, hope this is not too much criticism! I look forward to reading more posts from you. :)



OH.. And also.. Thank you for the welcoming me to the group :)
 
I'm all ears :)
I think the first step is to move this to a new thread and invite some folks over to kick around some ideas. there are a lot of really smart people on this forum... many will have a better handle on this than I.

The next step (as you did a nice job of identifying) is to establish a good baseline/control. I was a little surprised when you mentioned that you noticed flashes in your control group. I would think we'd want to create a situation where there are no (or virtually no) false positives.

once a good protocol is established we can re-run a few tests through you and see if we continue to get positive results. if so, we can do a skeptiko episode about it and invite others. I think it will roll down hill nicely if you're/we're about to show positive initial results. as far as attracting "serious researchers," forget it... I doubt it will ever happen. on the other hand, we could accomplish a lot by doing good work and sharing it in this way.
 
Its definitely not to much criticism. I appreciate your feedback.

I have looked at Hot Pixels before, and yes some images definitely look similar, but I don't know if that will quite explains it.
These things don't get stuck at all. They are literally a flash of light (at least it appears that way) that happen one or two times throughout a 30 minute video.

It is possible that the the hot pixel or stuck pixel is there the whole time but the noise cancelling and edge sharpening software covers it up through an algorithm that works on evaluating the values of the pixels around it. The camera software has to decide if the hot pixel is an image feature that needs sharpening (increasing local contrast) or whether it is noise that needs to be blurred and averaged out with the surrounding pixel values. That's why I say when there is no contrast (flat black) it has little comparisons to make so it might periodically play with the threshold value or other values trying to get the best noise cancelling / sharpening threshold for the picture. During that period when it is "re-evaluating" the standards it is using for noise cancelling or sharpening it might temporarily uncover the hot pixel and then cover it back up. I don't know for sure because I worked with still shots and Photoshop rather than movies, but a lot of the principles carry over, and yes the link you provided was an excellent explanation.

They come in different shapes, some just little pinprick flashes, and others are what I call "the eyes" , (please check out experiment #5 in my video, this would be the strangest one, odd shape and color) and they come in different colors, white, blue, red, and even Neon Aqua Blue and Neon purple (I've never seen a picture of a hot pixel with the vibrant of a color).

I have done some night photography before with long exposures of the sky on a Nikon D80. When looking at the raw image the noise and hot pixels were awful! The hot pixels were in all different colors. I could turn all the hot pixels white by turning up the color noise cancelling feature.

Another problem with my night shots was that the CCD sensor got really hot after being on for a few minutes causing whispy magenta discoloration in places... especially around the edges and corners.

Whether this is the actual explanation for the "eyes" in experiment 5, I can't say for sure, but I would still lean towards it being an artifact of the image processing. Digital cameras don't work very well in complete dark and the flat black background will make it very easy for any artifact in the image capture or processing to show up.

Plus the fact that they happen at different quadrants of the screen, but never repeat in the same spot.

There's probably dozens of hot pixels that the software is covering up most of the time. My Nikon D80 had dozens and got more as it got older. Photoshop has a feature that will memorize where the hot pixels and dust on the sensor are and then automatically cover that up. I'm sure cell cameras have this automated as well.

So it is probably just that a different hot pixel escaped the noise cancelling software on different occasions.

Plus they never occur when I used the cameras normally. (minus the two control videos).

If these are hot pixels being temporarily revealed, I would think they should occur at a random but fairly average rate (as long as the light conditions remain constant). You could record several hours of (control) video and count the hot pixels (very tedious!) and determine the rate at which they are appearing. Then do the experiments and see if the rate of occurrence is statistically significantly different (determine the average and standard deviation). This would take a lot of time especially if the rate is very low, but I think it would be the only reliable way in this case to tell if something interesting or mundane is happening here.

Also, you could gather as many screenshots of the flashes and overlay them on top of each other and see if any are in the exact same location. That to me would be solid proof it is a hot pixel... (why would aliens pick on just one pixel??? :) )
 
I think the first step is to move this to a new thread and invite some folks over to kick around some ideas. there are a lot of really smart people on this forum... many will have a better handle on this than I.

The next step (as you did a nice job of identifying) is to establish a good baseline/control. I was a little surprised when you mentioned that you noticed flashes in your control group. I would think we'd want to create a situation where there are no (or virtually no) false positives.

once a good protocol is established we can re-run a few tests through you and see if we continue to get positive results. if so, we can do a skeptiko episode about it and invite others. I think it will roll down hill nicely if you're/we're about to show positive initial results. as far as attracting "serious researchers," forget it... I doubt it will ever happen. on the other hand, we could accomplish a lot by doing good work and sharing it in this way.


Ok.. That sounds good to me. I'm about to have some company in tonight, but I will start another thread hopefully tomorrow.

As far as flashes in my control group, I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. I assume if we are dealing with another intelligence that we can't exactly predict how they will react or do. I remember "thinking" in my mind about "them" at the time I was rolling some of control footage, and maybe that had an effect? Maybe they are messing with me (haha)? or maybe just a glitch? I'm not sure. Something to be considered I guess.

I agree we wouldn't want any false positives, but I definitely can't guarantee anything. Like I said, if it is "they" we are dealing with, then who knows how or what they think about this. I imagine if they could "flash" when I ask them, they could do it whenever they want?
 
Psychosis is an interesting experience but I can’t say I recommend it.
I am sure that the standard view of mental illness - that the brain is mis-firing rather like a broken computer - is utterly wrong, and that the experiences people have are very relevant to understanding consciousness. Maybe you will decide to elaborate on your comment.

David
 
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