I think you are missing Jules' point - which is that it is interesting to know the range of phenomena that are being claimed here. John Mack makes the same point in his book. He is open to the possibility that these phenomena are part mental (probably in the ψ sense) - just as NDE's are. Most people now accept that NDE's happen - whatever their explanation. You could argue that NDE's have not been 'established' by your criteria, but very few skeptics try to argue that NDE's are simply made up.
I am just starting John Mack's book, "Passport to the Cosmos", but it is clear already that many UFO/abduction reports come from native Americans and are part of the story's they tell of their past - which means they have not just picked these ideas out of modern ideas about space etc.
To my mind, one of the things that Skeptiko has repeatedly exposed, is that shedloads of anomalous evidence has been buried by an overly skeptical scientific approach. Not all that evidence is necessary real or useful, but until someone gives it an airing, and cross correlates it somewhat, we simply do not know what it may indicate.
David
David, thanks for your courteous and civil comments. I agree, with Carl Jung, that some paranormal events may occur in "the psychoid realm" - a veritable "twilight zone" between psyche and matter. Jung said that UFOs were deeply subjective and symbolic, as well as being "projection carriers" of the xollwctive unconscious. Ditto with certain purported cryptids - sometimes Nessie acts like an aquatic animal, but sometimes "she" acts like the classic
each uisge - the legendary water horse. There are apparently "solid" phenomena that sometimes behave as if they were spirit as well as matter.
Actually, NDE's have not been established according to my criteria, for the simple reason that the criterion that I bring to the abduction debate is that of hard, objective evidence. No doubt NDEs happen, but they are evidentially useless unless they contain an OBE. Research is just beginning in an organized sense to test for "the veridical OBE" - and
that is the kind of testing and evidence that meet my criterion.
I am not so sure that Native peoples have reported UFOs via their origin/spiritual narratives. Of course, modern Native use of Ayahuasca includes "UFO-like" visions, but it also includes visions of jungle cats and enormous snakes.
So, I am not convinced that a mythic UFO, passed along generations, over thousands of years (including "biblical UFOs"), corresponds closely enough to WW II - to - present-day UFOs. That is, do ancient/mythic UFOs have the aerodynamism, the metallic carapaces, including bolts and machine parts, that can only be the product of a modern (to us) or a futuristic (to them) technology?
That is, is the mythic UFO described as sufficiently technologically advanced to "pass" for the modern UFOs with which we are familiar?
Another consideration from myth, oral tradition and ancient texts is that
they must be understood on their own prescientific terms, and in order to do this, we must first understand their symbology before we try to turn it into a literally-read "nuts and bolts" report of UFOs. In this regard, much mess has been created by Von Daniken, Sitchin and plenty of others who anachronistically project modern notions back onto ancient cultures. An ancient writer reports "shields" in the sky, and right away we supposedly have a flying disk. But what if the shields referred to, in that time and culture, were not disks, but arrow/ or square/ or rectangle-shaped? What if the "shields" are purely metaphors for a divine "sign in the sky"? Then obviously, we've lost the Ancient Astronauts "piloting" the "shields". Etc.
"reports come from native Americans and are part of the story's they tell of their past - which means they have not just picked these ideas out of modern ideas about space"
Yes, they surely didn't pick out our ideas of the modern UFO (unless they were time-travelers into the future, heh heh). That's an important point.
Their "UFOs" are not necessarily
our UFOs. As Jung demonstrated, cross-culturally the Mandala Circle is a universal symbol of wholeness. Therefore, it would not be surprising that much Native myth and religion - as well as modern myth and religion - should be replete with Sacred Circles and Spheres, whether in the sky, on land, or in the sea.
Again, the criterion I bring to the subject: evidence. Reports and myths from ancient sources do not constitute evidence. The UFO as we know it has measurable effects - it throws back a radar echo, it leaves landing traces, it interferes with electronic/electrical function, it has been photographed/taped/filmed, it has left traces on human subjects (see Jacques Vallee's
Confrontations for a chilling account of the Colares, Brazil UFO invasion and the burning light beams associated with it).
But Native/biblical/ancient accounts are not subject to the above evidential standards. Moreover, when the ancients wrote or spoke about odd sky phenomena, we cannot be certain if they were speaking literally or mythologically/allegorically. What might look to us moderns as an ancient "UFO report" may not be a report at all, but rather a mythological statement, a holistic archetypal expression emerging not from sky and space, but from the inner space of the collective unconscious. The true UFO report is a strictly modern phenomenon, "modern" meaning at least from the French "Enlightenment", when myth started to be separated from observable and testable facts.
"Not all that evidence is necessary real or useful, but until someone gives it an airing, and cross correlates it somewhat, we simply do not know what it may indicate."
True. But what does the subjective, purely internal, "mystical" claim made earlier by Jules, actually indicate? Certainly it's wonderful material for psychologists, especially Jungians (of whose work Dr. Mack was very fond). But a purely psychological experience cannot be considered scientifically valid unless it is supported by physical evidence. How does such material "get an airing" - outside of books like Mack's, Striebers, and similar others?
So, yes, in a narrow sense, it does get "aired" - i.e., people buy the books. But how does purely subjective material get aired in the arena of science? The most you
usually get is a pile of materialist-reductionist "explanations" of "why the brain creates abduction scenarios". What you
never get is a scientific airing of the evidence for physical abduction - and this is to be expected, since none is ever put before reputable scientific bodies (the case of Dr. Leir and his implant removals, for example).
So a true airing out would be to bridge claimants' subjective narratives with external material supporting evidence. As far as I know, this has never been seriously attempted. Until it is, there is an unbridged gap between claimants' "I know I was abducted" and scientists' "Where's your evidence?"