UFOs and The Urantia Book
Bud Kagan
IC99
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Good afternoon, fellow Urantians, my name is Bud, I need not tell you my last name, although some of you know this … that is not important. My presentation today is UFOs and the Urantia Papers.
My partner here with me is Larry Johnson, and we wish to thank each of you who so generously contributed to The "Larry to Vancouver fund" which made it possible for him to attend his first Urantia Book International Conference.
We collected more than enough funds for Larry’s needs and shall return what is not used in equal amounts to the Urantia Foundation and The Urantia Book Fellowship.
I met Larry when we were both in the South Pacific, I was his squadron leader and as you can plainly see Larry did not fair to well on that mission. Recently, I have had a bout with major surgeries and serious health problems, but Larry and I decided that what is most important now, is staying alive!
You have been issued 3 X 5 cards and if you do not have a pen or pencil please indicates so now, so we may provide you with these. Please write your questions or comments on these cards that will allow us to complete this presentation in the allotted time.
Before I get into the meat of this subject I would like to bring your attention to the introduction to Paper 72 of the Urantia Papers which states among other things:
P.808 - §1
By permission of Lanaforge and with the approval of the Most Highs of Edentia, I am authorized to narrate something of the social, moral, and political life of the most advanced human race living on a not far-distant planet belonging to the Satania system.
This planet has experienced a history most like that of Urantia. The similarity of the two spheres undoubtedly explains why permission to make this extraordinary presentation was granted, for it is most unusual for the system rulers to consent to the narration on one planet of the affairs of another.
Like most statements such as this in the Blue Book, I tend to take them literally, especially numbers that have not been rounded off. I may repeat this quote several times.
I would like to define a UFO. An unidentified flying object is merely any object detected visually or by electronic means that can not be positively identified.
Now that we have that out of the way, I wonder how many here can spot any type of material craft and give a positive identification. For example if you look to the sky and see an airplane or rotorcraft or balloon, can you state this is a Boeing 737-100; 200; 300; 400; 500; 600; 700; or800? Or a B-747 five models of distinction. Or a B-757 (two distinctive models) or a B-767; (3 distinctive types) or a B-777, (2 distinctive types) or the many versions of Airbus Industries models, or the 3 engine types B-727, L-1011 or DC-10, MD-11. If you can not, these could be UFOs in the pure technical sense.
Any material device that can not be indified by make, model or type is really a UFO. Air Traffic Controllers in the 29 ATC Centers identify radar blips, which are enhanced by a transponder, they know the aircraft type and model from the filed flight plan. This is necessary as some aircraft are categorized as "heavy" as they leave longer wakes (disturbances in the air than affect following craft).
Now this year marks my 50th year to be involved somewhat in this Urantia movement. I met Bill Sadler in 1949. (show slide #1 Photo of Bill Sadler) Notice I said Bill Sadler, not Bill Sadler, Jr. There never was a Bill Sadler, Jr., as no one ever called his father Bill; He was only(#1) Doctor, or William. Why do I think I am qualified to give this talk? Well, I was a military pilot and subsequently an airline pilot, in my 55 years of flying I amassed almost 40,000 hours of flight time. I never once encountered a UFO. I was based at Roswell Army Air Field in July of 1947, returned there in 1951 when it was re-named (#2) Walker Air Force Base. By the way in case you may be interested all these names of Air Force Bases like Hickam, Travis, Kelly, and Walker (and many more) were dedicated to military pilots who connected with the earth at an acute angle resulting in rapid dismemberment of the vital components of the flying machine. I have no idea why they did this. I had at the time of my military career a Top Secret and "Q" clearance. At Roswell AAF, I was admitted to every restricted area on the base, this included the four hangers numbered 1 to 4 (there was never a hanger 84). And the Roswell Clinic (the hospital in the myths you have read about was yet to be constructed. I also have made infrequent flying trips in and out of Groom Dry Lake in Nevada, (named "area 51" by the Trekies) So for this reason I can at least question the stories about Roswell and the secret base in Nevada that have started in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s about these two installations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I was a member of the most destructive group of fighting men this world had ever known hitherto. I served on Airborne alert in the Strategic Air Command and carried those nasty nuclear bombs around.
Now, let us get to the gist of this presentation. And that is mythology. You may not be familiar with the concept of a "techno-myth". Professor Geller at Princeton developed it. The Basic thesis is that in modern days we have lost all the old myths. Perseus, Orpheus and Eurydice and Medusa. So we fill the gap with modern "techno-myths". Geller listed a dozen or so. One is that an alien is living in a hanger at Wright-Pattersen Air Force Base.
Another is that somebody invented an automobile carburetor, which will enable a car to achieve a hundred and fifty miles per gallon. (my friend Jim McCallon told me recently that this is the "Progue" carburetor) but I have heard of this in the late 1930’s. Story has it the automobile manufactures bought the patent and shelved it; other stories are the major oil companies were responsible for it's demise. Then there's the story that the Russians trained children in ESP at a secret installation in Siberia and these kids can kill people anywhere in the world with their thoughts. The story that the lines in Nazca Peru are an alien spaceport. (show slide #3) That the CIA released the AIDS virus to kill homosexuals. That Nicola Tesla discovered and incredible energy source but his notes were lost. And in Istanbul there’s a tenth century drawing that shows the earth from space. And of course the Shroud of Turin and other outrageous stories.
I can assure you there was no alien living in a hanger at Wright-Pattersen (at least not when I was there) and that the 150-mile/gallon carburetor is impossibility. One would be hard pressed to find a late model vehicle today that even has a carburetor and any engineer will tell you that a gas engine can only run at a very small window of fuel air ratio, too lean or too rich are a "no run" condition.
Now, let us travel to Roswell, New Mexico in the summer (#4) of 1947. I was a B-29 pilot in the 509th Bomb Group. This is not the same 509th Composite Wing, (ex Wendover UT) that dropped the two nuclear weapons on Japan. Even the (#5) B-29’s at Roswell were totally different. The Hiroshima Bombers were dubbed "silverplates" they were
Manufactured by the Martin Company in Marietta, GA under license from Boeing. The Roswell aircraft without extensive modification could not carry the standard "unit" the Atomic Bomb then being produced. If you look at the next slide (show slide #6) you can determine where Roswell is oriented in the center of NM. The base was at the southwestern end of the city and the commercial (#6) airport was located at the northeastern end of town. Roswell was a sleepy little town a ranching city and they rolled up the streets after 9:00P.M.
Also note the difference in aircraft. The Wendover B-29s had electric propellers, no turrets and had the Lancaster "hook" used in England during WW II for the "grand slam" bombs the British employed on submarine pens. (show slide #7)
When I was stationed at Roswell Army Air Field in July of 1947, I like my fellow flight crewmembers assembled at the Officers Open Mess (a club) in our copious free time.
At no time during this month of July or the next month (or the previous month) was there any scuttle but out of rumor control (the most accurate news available at the time) that a alien space craft (regardless of configuration) had crashed in the Roswell area. We would have known, the PIO and Commanders mingled with us, and despite our BBR clearances (Burn before reading) no one kept their mouths shut.
Nor was their any news in the civilian community of Roswell itself. This little town knew everything about everyone and a common flat tire was a much-talked about event … not to mention the young girls who were packed up and sent away for certain indiscretions.
I left Roswell in October of that year getting a new assignment to train for the up-coming B-50 Bomber, a new and improved B-29. But I returned in the early 1950’s upon rotation out of the Korean War and now the base had a new name and finally a hospital. It was Walker Air Force Base. In town however, there was still no scuttle but about a crashed alien space ship in the far reaches of the Roswell area. These trumped up stories began to appear around 1969-1970, and a cottage industry evolved over this alleged flying saucer story. To further prove that the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell Army Airfield was not nuclear ready (as the story goes) look at the next slide (#8) this is a view of laying face up on the hard stand and looking into the forward bomb bay of a Roswell B-29. Note that the bomb racks, standard electric triggered; could only carry a maximum of a one thousand pound bomb, I can assure you the Atom bombs at the time were many more times one thousand pounds. Also note the single bomb shackle, where the standard bomb rack used two shackles to hold the weapon. (Show slide of two Atom bombs #9).
Roswell has prospered over this myth and no doubt shall continue to do so as long as they can find individuals who want to believe the fiction of the "Crash at Roswell" (#10)
I never accepted this story as fact. Before I ever received the Urantia Book in print. Subsequently, I asked Bill Sadler about this and was told to read the introduction to Paper 72.
"……….. permission to make this extraordinary presentation was granted, for it is most unusual for the system rulers to consent to the narration on one planet of the affairs of another.
Don’t you think the super intelligent Bill Sadler, a member of the Contact Commission asked the cosmic minded intelligent revealtors about visitations of mortals from other spheres? You bet he did! And as it was told to me during this dispensation, no inhabitants (mortals) would be capable of traveling to other inhabited worlds. More on this later.
While we are debunking these "techno-myths" lets take a look at the secret installation at Groom Dry Lake in Nevada (show slide #11) this piece of government land as is about 60% of the area of the State of Nevada. Was originally leased to the Lockheed Aircraft Company. They named it "Paradise Ranch" up until 1972 Lockheed still had some operations located there. But during the war years (I am speaking of the wars that became numbered) Groom Dry Lake was a secret base. Our military has secrets and these are necessary by our Constitution to provide for the defense of the nation. There are "black projects" taking place on this base, but not space ships with alien intruders buried in some secret underground bunker. Many high performance aircraft were tested at this base as was our very first operational jet fighter the P-80 "Shooting Star" (that is when Lockheed Company had the lease on the lakebed and a few outbuildings.)
From our Urantia Book:
P.780 ¶3.
Modern society is in reverse. Slavery has nearly disappeared; domesticated animals are passing. Civilization is reaching back to fire--the inorganic world--for power. Man came up from savagery by way of fire, animals, and slavery; today he reaches back, discarding the help of slaves and the assistance of animals, while he seeks to wrest new secrets and sources of wealth and power from the elemental storehouse of nature. (show slide #12 of Hiroshima mushroom cloud)
Now let us get to the gist of this subject. I have a picture here of so called "aliens" from outer space. They are said to be 30 inches in height. But from our Urantia Book we know: (#13)
P. 562 ¶ 3:
The various planetary types of mortals vary in height, the average in Nebadon being a trifle under seven feet. Some of the larger worlds are peopled with beings who are only about two and one-half feet in height. Mortal stature ranges from here on up through the average heights on the average-sized planets to around ten feet on the smaller inhabited spheres. In Satania there is only one race under four feet in height. Twenty per cent of the Satania inhabited worlds are peopled with mortals of the modified gravity types occupying the larger and the smaller planets.
Now, tell me. Can you really believe in such beings as this?
Let us determine that for any protoplasmic life form to exist (on any world) a sodium chloride solution must flow in our veins. Sodium and Cloride will not mix except in the presence of water. A world with a mean temperature above Zero Celsius and below 100 Celsius would be necessary for such a similar life form as ours. Not a single planet in our solar system has such a mean temperature like our native world, Urantia.
At this time I will delve into the most controversial of subjects. Are mortals getting messages from our Celestial?
Friends? I submit they are not! The Teaching Mission which was originally called channeling, and then T/R and now TEAM, is a harmless group of people who wish to be in contact with what everyone calls our unseen friends.
Let make this perfectly clear. The superuniverse and local universe personalities engaged in the FER have long departed Urantia, they left in 1954 and said Aloha and other things. The resident planetary government was sworn to silence as to the Fifth Epochal Revelation. Furthermore, the protocol in the channeled messages does not jive at all of what I know about the mechanics of how the Urantia Papers and other apocryphal messages were transmitted to the Contact Commissioners. It just does not work that way.
Some may wonder with good reason, "Why hasn’t space flight developed as rapidly as aviation?" As the U.S. approaches the second century of air travel, there is much to be proud of. Each day, more than 1.5 million Americans wing their way around the country and the world for business or pleasure. But missing from the early 21st century are equivalent achievements in space flight. Yes, men have walked on the Moon. But where are the lunar bases and giant pinwheel space stations envisioned 30 years ago in the film "2001 A Space Odyssey"?
The explanation lies in the different development paths of civil aviation and civilian space. The Wright brothers were first to fly in 1903, acting as private individuals, pursuing their own vision and using their own money. Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927, trying to win the privately offered $25,000 Orteig Prize. By the late 1930s the first commercial viable aircraft, the Douglas DC-3, was flying. Much of civil aviation was funded privately. The government, of course, was interested in aircraft for defense. But often it simply offered a prize to whatever private provider could make a wing or fuselage to best meet its needs.
World War II and the Cold War saw the government pump billions of dollars into defense aircraft. But civil aviation remained in private hands. And since the airline industry was deregulated 20 years ago, the average cost of flying has dropped 30% in real terms and the number of trips in the skies Americans take annually has jumped from 275 million to 600 million.
The saga of space flight started much like civil aviation did. Dr. Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fuel rocket in 1926. In the 1930s, his funding, which Lindbergh helped secure, came principally from the private Guggenheim Foundation. But after World War II, it became a government effort entirely. The Pentagon brought Wernher von Braun and a team of scientists from Germany to the U.S. to develop more advanced designs of their V-2 rockets.
When the Soviets orbited Sputnik in October 1957, American spacepolicy went in two directions. The Pentagon sought intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads. And NASA was established to put satellites into orbit and men into space. Unlike the history of aviation, development of military and civilian space efforts were government-run.
The landings on the Moon were great human and technological achievements. But the Manhattan Project approach to lunar missions (throw lots of money at the task) was not sustainable. In the early 1970s NASA, like any government bureaucracy sought to maintain its staffs and budget. The partially reusable shuttle was meant to reduce the costs of putting payloads into orbit. Over the decades, the costs in fact, went up. Furthermore, NASA systematically stifled competing private space enterprises, turning down many offers of those providers to launch rockets and stations. A raft of government-to-government treaties hampered private space efforts as well.
But a series of small, hard-won reforms after the 1986 Challenger disaster has allowed the private sector to struggle for its place in space. For example the Atlas launch vehicle once a ICBM carrier now carries more private commercial satellites than government cargoes.
But what is really needed in the 21st century is a strategy to back the government out of civilian space activities and allow imaginative private sector ideas to flourish.
Of special significance, private firms are beginning to develop space tourism industry. For example the X Prize Foundation of St. Louis is raising $10 million to award to the first entrepreneur who sends a craft capable of carrying three persons to at least 100 km. into space and returning it to Earth twice in a two week period. The first contender to test a vehicle that could go for the gold is Burt Rutan. He designed and built the first airplane to fly around the world non-stop without refueling (privately funded) in 1986.
(Collect 3 X 5 cards to the podium)
But ultimately even if and when the space program is opened without restriction to the private sector, will there ever be enough specific impulse for a rocket to travel to another inhabited world. This writer submits not! As during this dispensation, travel from one inhabited world to another will be restricted by technology and the rulers of the Systems, Constellations and Local Universes.
Furthermore, with the present technology, and that proposed in the near future three insurmountable hurdles will challenge interplanetary space travel.
I conclude that interplanetary travel by mortals is beyond the limitations of mankind’s genius.
Travelers from one world to another will be only by seraphic transport for Morontia beings, or self sustaining means by true spirit personalities. Look at where aviation has come in less than 100 years. This was my office in a B-29, (slide #14) and this is a modern Boeing 777, it is any wonder pilots fall asleep at the controls? (slide #15). At the time of this presentation, there is only one commercial airliner being manufactured that has direct cable input from pilot to flight controls, and that is the Boeing 717 a derivative of the old DC-9. All other airliners have boosted or fly-by-wire flight controls!
One more thought before we adjourn. We shall sort these questions and comments in your 3 X 5 cards, eliminate the duplicates and discard the stupid. If I decide to incorporate any of these questions in this presentation and then obtain a copyright through the Library of Congress – copyright office, who would be the owner, the presenter?
Or the questioner? Academicians write textbooks each year with work from their students, they copyright the text and to my knowledge never give credit to the students!
Larry and I thank you for your attention. And thanks again to all who made it possible for him to attend this conference.