cv16ins

INSTRUMENTATION

PART I - DISPLAYS

Their ideas are perpetually conversant in lines and figures.

Jonathan Swift
The Voyage to Laputa

I turned my attention to the graphs and charts that covered the walls for about three feet on either side of the door that I could not see, and which stretched from floor to ceiling. They were fascinating, entirely different from anything I had seen on Earth, and I tried to guess their purpose. There were no needles or dials, but flashes of changing colors and intensities. Some of these were like colored lines moving across the face of a particular chart. Some moved up and down, others criss-cross, while still others took the form of different geometric figures. The meanings and functions were not explained to me, and I doubt if I could have understood it all, but I noticed that all three of my companions were alert to the changes taking place. I received the impression that the instruments indicated, among other things, direction of travel, the approach of any other object, as well as atmospheric or space conditions. (A small scout craft.)

A space man, explaining a remote controlled craft:

The disks are now hovering above a certain inhabited spot on Earth and registering the sounds emanating from that spot. This is what you are seeing on the screen as shown by the lines, dots and dashes. The other machines are assembling this information and interpreting it by producing pictures of the meanings of the signals, together with the original sounds. (A large carrier ship.)

George Adamski
Inside the Space Ships

And there's next, over the stool and sort of in the middle of the room, there's a table, some kind of a table. It's not up very high. I'd say the height of the desk. So I lie down on the table, on my back, and he brings over this - oh, how can I describe it? They're like needles, a whole cluster of needles, and each needle has a wire going from it. I think it's something like a TV screen, you know. When the picture isn't on, you get all kinds of lines. Something like that. And so, he puts me down on the table, and they bring the needles over, and they don't stick them in me. No, not really like sticking a needle into a person, but they touch me with the needles. It doesn't hurt . . .

Betty Hill
under hypnosis, Interrupted Journey

David Jacobs provided reports from some of his abductee clients.

Now as you're sitting in the chair what are you looking at? What's on the other wall or whatever?

There's like a, it's weird, it's like outer space, stars, and . . .

Are you looking at a window?

Well, it's kind of a window, but I don't see the treetops or anything – they're not there. There are like stars and lines, images, geometric things.

Geometric images?

I guess. They're like lines and dots, things like that.

‘Patti Layne,' Secret Life, page 147

David Jacobs described a routine through which the abductees were guided. In this case ‘George Kenniston' was placed before a large console and instructed on how to navigate the interplanetary craft.

The role I play is navigator.

In other words, is he communicating about himself, or about you?

No, no, I'm saying this the feeling I get from him. It's in my mind; I'm a navigator. I can get to the place, whatever it is.

Okay.

I am a navigator. I can get there. It's a testing . . .

. . . I asked him if the alien stopped this procedure.

No, but it's like I'm turned over to someone to be tested, and another one leads me over to the panel. Let me see if I can describe it. I look at the panel. It's built in the wall, and it's obliquely down. At the end it's four inches thick, and it's probably maybe thirty-six inches across, maybe thirty inches high. It is covered with bright lights, and in that sense there are some buttons that are backlit. To my left there's some level of screen. There is some sort of visual line display I don't see clearly. . . . Some sort of ball built into the tabletop, or the panel, that I don't understand, but it can roll. To my right there's a series of controlling buttons in columns coming down. There are some sort of readouts, because I don't see them clearly, in the panel on the right side. I see two

columns, but I get the feeling of extensive definition both in the readouts and in the panel controls. There's a lot of definite ability here. They're . . . supposed to be able to manipulate the entire panel.

How do you know that?

Because I know. I'm supposed to be able to do this. Your left hand does one thing and your right hand does another thing, and you look at the panel with the readout to your left at one, and you're watching the panel to your right, guiding something over a long haul. We're talking hitting an object far in the distance and keeping track. This would be like driving a highway 200 miles along the dead straight, and just keep it between the lines – that kind of competence in steering.

Secret Life, page 152.

Here we have an illustration not only of a control panel, but of an abductee placed in the position of going through the motions of the operation which the craft operators normally would perform. In other words, he was placed in this mock operation to impress upon him the agility, complexity, and competence of the operators in guiding the craft through space.

As Adamski, said, two operators are required, and are always on duty while the craft is in motion.

Walter Webb reported on the abduction of a pair of teenagers from Buff Ledge, a summer camp on the shores of Lake Champlain, just north of Malletts Bay in Vermont on August 7, 1968. The incident began about 8:05 in the evening, and ended shortly after 9:00. They were "beamed up" to a hovering disk craft, and from there carried to a huge cigar-shaped carrier. See Encounter At Buff Ledge: A UFO Case History, J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, Chicago, 1994.

The two witnesses repeatedly described panel displays. I quote some of the remarks.

Another figure faced a console, and there were ‘big screens'. Page 58.

Blank screens and switches ringed the interior. Page 65.

He seemed to be near his alien interpreter and facing a wall of television-like screens.

It was as if I was being trained on all these different screens. I don't remember where that happened. It was as if I was lying down . . . and I could see myself being given information and being spoken to on all these different screens. All the ‘me's' and all these conversations all at once. I don't remember the conversations . . . I remember being a detached observer and seeing a whole wall of screens. . . . And things happening.

The witness asserted that the same interpreter on board the UFO appeared with him on all the screens. The two of them, he said, were shown what ‘Michael' thought were different alien situations. He was unable to recall the specifics of these images."

Encounter At Buff Ledge, Page 66.

Compare this experience with that of ‘George Kenniston' above.

Using both hands to describe the UFO's interior, ‘Michael' proceeded to trace out his darkened surroundings. He and his alien guide . . . stood next to a large console on an upper deck and just under one edge of the dome (of the craft). Steps led down to a central lower level that was encircled by a protruding ring of consoles with blinking lights and switches." Page 99.

". . . It's like there's this huge board on one of the walls and it's feeding them back all these numbers and things, not numbers that we know, but figures and things. I could see a pulse beat like and lines on a graph.

Was this like a screen?

Yes. . . .It's big. . . . it had one of these things on it that was part graph, part lights . . . all these different curved lines on it moving ‘cross it, different graphs and light blinking.

Were they like wave patterns?

Well, some were waves, some were lights blinking in time. Secret Life, Page 103

In another report, ‘Grace Bernor,' 38 years old, was abducted from her home in Templeton, Massachussetts on February 27, 1968. Although this incident had no formal publication, Walter Webb included portions of the report in his book.

"It's like an instrument panel. . . . There a round gauge (screen) . . . but there seems to be wave-lengths going across it. . . . First there's a broad one and then there's a series of narrow ones across it. . . . One of the (other screens) has a pinpoint of light to the center. . . . and then it goes off into beams like, like radiating beams from it. . . . (Another screen) seems to have something that spins around causing a spiral line clockwise. . . . (Yet another displays) a cross, a line up and down, north and south, and one east and west." Secret Life, Page 197.

COMMENTS

Again we see the skill Swift uses in conveying an item of information. This remark occurs in a paragraph in which modern scholars believe Swift is poking fun at abstract mathematicians.

The knowledge I had in mathematics gave me great assistance in acquiring their phraseology, which depended much upon that science and music; and in the latter I was not unskilled.

The remark is true; it would require great knowledge in mathematics to acquire their phraseology. He then says:

Their ideas are perpetually conversant in lines and figures.

after which he continues:

If they would, for example, praise the beauty of a woman or any other animal, they describe it by rhombs, circles, parallelograms, ellipses, and other geometrical terms, or else by words of art drawn from music, needless here to repeat.

To grasp the similarity to Adamski all we need do is change the phrase "praise the beauty of a woman" to "portray the structure of a man." Note that Adamski mentions sounds; Swift says "music."

Through these simple, apparently satirical, statements Swift manages to describe items which cause Adamski to marvel. Betty Hill captures the concept succinctly in comparing the display against a TV screen where no picture shows, merely zigzag lines.

This is our first direct indication of the level of intelligence of the creatures on board the craft. We humans here upon earth use

instruments in our research laboratories and our aircraft with simple dials and pointers on one-dimensional scales, or with two-dimensional graph displays. The operators of the celestial craft use much more sophisticated displays that apparently require grasping of complex data, not only in the quantity, but also in the interrelationships.

We have some curios remarks in the Urantia Papers, not directly applicable, but which are instructive.

P.289 - §1 5. The Intelligence Co-ordinators. These tertiary supernaphim, the children of the fifth Circuit Spirit, are always the wise and sympathetic promoters of fraternal association between the ascending and the descending pilgrims. They minister to all the inhabitants of Havona, and especially to the ascenders, by keeping them currently informed regarding the affairs of the universe of universes. By virtue of personal contacts with the broadcasters and the reflectors, these "living newspapers" of Havona are instantly conversant with all information passing over the vast news circuits of the central universe. They secure intelligence by the Havona graph method, which enables them automatically to assimilate as much information in one hour of Urantia time as would require a thousand years for your most rapid telegraphic technique to record.

P.303 - §2 These Paradise philosophers teach by every possible method of instruction, including the higher graph technique of Havona and certain Paradise methods of communicating information. All of these higher techniques of imparting knowledge and conveying ideas are utterly beyond the comprehension capacity of even the most highly developed human mind. One hour's instruction on Paradise would be the equivalent of ten thousand years of the word-memory methods of Urantia. You cannot grasp such communication techniques, and there is simply nothing in mortal experience with which they may be compared, nothing to which they can be likened.

PART II - OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
The place is stored with great variety of sextants, quadrants, telescopes, astrolabe, and other astronomical instruments. Jonathan Swift The Voyage to Laputa	Never had I see anything like this room, packed with the most amazing array of instruments imaginable. Here were rows upon rows of graphs and control panels. It seemed to me that every one of these strange instruments I was viewing for the first time was equipped with its own large control console. Six were already in action, and the six men who had accompanied us from the lounge immediately took their places at six more. There still remained a number untended. (The laboratory on a large carrier ship.) George Adamski Inside the Space Ships
COMMENTS
We must keep in mind the difference in relative technology between Swift's time and our own. Adamski had a far better vocabulary from which to draw parallels to portray the function and facility of that amazing space laboratory. Swift did not have that advantage; he was limited by the science of his day. Sextants are devices used to measure angular distances of celestial bodies. From tables of locations one can compute location of latitude and longitude on the surface of the earth. Quadrants are other instruments used in astronomy and navigation. The purpose of telescopes is evident. Astrolabes are instruments used for taking the altitude of the sun and stars, and for making other astronomical measurements.	Swift was attempting to describe the nature of the equipment, rather than provide a list; we should understand his remark in that light. The instruments observed by Adamski were inside the laboratory of a large interplanetary transport. It is possible Swift also was on board a large carrier, but he would have had difficulty describing such experience within the limits of his satire. Adamski tells us these instruments were used to monitor small remote controlled craft, as well as for other purposes. He admits that much was going on, and that he had little notion of the range of the activity.

Part III - Control Consoles
The pilot's instrument board was unlike anything I could have imagined. The best comparison I can think of is that it looked rather like an organ. But instead of keys and stops there were rows of buttons. Small lights shone directly on these, so placed that each illuminated five buttons at a time. As far as I can remember, there were six rows of these buttons, each row about six feet long. (A small disk craft.) . . . When we came into the room no seats had been visible, but as the six women took their places before the control panels small stool-like seats rose silently from the floor, possibly due to pressure on a foot pedal. (A laboratory inside a large carrier ship.) George Adamski Inside the Space Ships	The only furniture visible was an oddly shaped table that stood at one side of the (central control) room surrounded by several backless swivel chairs, something like bar stools. They were all made of the same white metal. The table as well as the stools were one-legged, narrowing toward the floor where they were either fixed to it or linked to a movable ring held fast by three hinges jutting out on each side and riveted to the floor so that those sitting on them could turn in every direction. Antonio Villas-Boas to Dr. Olavo Fontes
COMMENTS
I include these descriptions to show the functional manner in which activity is carried on, familiar to us and not too far removed from human concepts. The occupants of these strange craft are very nearly human in activity. They use tables and chairs and they have instrumentation. The attempt to describe the swivel chairs is characteristic of Villas-Boas, illustrated previously by the little square lamps. He felt a need to explain the phenomena he saw. This does not	mean he actually saw hinges on the stools, or riveting to the floor. The technology of the craft is far superior to such simple mechanical contrivances. An important element which stands out in these reports is the level of technology. While our space visitors are greatly superior to us, their modes of function can be comprehended by us. Modern human science and technology have given us insights which permit us to obtain some estimate of their operations.