9.07.2021

Von unserem Redakteur

Armin Rößler

Täglich klingelt bei Hansjürgen Köhler in Lützelbach im Odenwald das Telefon oder es wenden sich Ratsuchende per E-Mail an ihn. Köhler betreibt mit dem „Centralen Erforschungsnetz außergewöhnlicher Himmelsphänomene“ (Cenap) den ungewöhnlichen Service einer Ufo-Meldestelle. Im Interview spricht er über seltsame Sichtungen, geheime Militärdokumente und die Hoffnung auf den Besuch Außerirdischer.

Herr Köhler, Hand aufs Herz: Gibt es Außerirdische? Und haben sie uns schon besucht?

Hansjürgen Köhler: Außerirdische gibt es wahrscheinlich. Aber sie waren noch nicht da.

2021 wurden Ihnen 895 Ufo-Sichtungen gemeldet, überdurchschnittlich viele. Was war los?

Köhler: Wenn neue Dinge am Himmel erscheinen, haben wir sofort einen Hype. Im November 2019 ist so ein neues Phänomen am Himmel aufgekreuzt: die Starlink-Satelliten von Elon Musk. Jede Rakete transportiert 60 Kleinsatelliten, die im Orbit getaktet abgestoßen werden. Dann fliegen die wie eine Perlenkette schön brav hintereinander her. Das sieht beeindruckend aus. Was viele Leute verblüfft: Die werden von der Sonne angestrahlt, kommen in den Erdschatten und sind plötzlich weg. Dann rufen die Leute hier an.

Und die nicht so leicht erklärbaren Phänomene?

Köhler: Wenn wir einen Fall für unseren Giftschrank kriegen, an dem wir uns erst einmal die Zähne ausbeißen, schicken wir dem Beobachter einen Fragebogen. Dann wird der Fall auseinander gebröselt und es werden alle möglichen Dinge hinterfragt. Wir brauchen Datum, Uhrzeit, Ort, Himmelsrichtung, vielleicht auch Fotos oder Skizzen. Wenn wir den Fall trotzdem nicht lösen können, sehen wir das aber nicht als Beweis für außerirdischen Besuch. Meist gibt es zumindest Hinweise auf einen astronomischen Hintergrund oder einen irdischen Flugkörper. Diese Fälle ruhen, bleiben aber griffbereit.

Der frühere US-Präsident Barack Obama hat im amerikanischen Fernsehen Ufo-Sichtungen des US-Militärs als echt bestätigt. Was sagen Sie dazu?

Köhler: Das sind Äußerungen, da rollen sich mir die Fußnägel hoch. Diese Aussage ist zwar eigentlich richtig, die Filme sind echt. Sie zeigen aber kein echtes außerirdisches Objekt. Auch wenn das Ufologen gerne glauben würden.

Das gilt dann sicher auch für den neuen Pentagon-Bericht über „unidentifizierte Luftphänomene“?

Köhler: Es sind ja in den letzten Jahrzehnten immer wieder Geheimdokumente von Luftwaffen aus Brasilien, Spanien, Dänemark oder England offengelegt worden. Darum wurde vorab immer ein riesiger Hype gemacht. Letztlich sind das dann aber die gleichen Beschreibungen, die wir auch kriegen. Das Militär hat nur nie große Nachforschungen gemacht. Dazu kommt die elektronische Kriegsführung, da ist vieles sehr leicht zu manipulieren.

Sie betreiben das „Centrale Erforschungsnetz außergewöhnlicher Himmelsphänomene“ seit 1976. Haben Sie das Thema damals ähnlich nüchtern gesehen? Oder steckte die Hoffnung dahinter, doch einem echten Ufo auf die Spur zu kommen?

Köhler: Es gab damals viele schöne Sachen zu lesen und man ließ sich auch von dem Totschlag-Argument leiten: Es gibt tausende von Beobachtungen, da muss doch etwas dran sein. So bin ich da schon reingerutscht. Wenn man dann aber den gesunden Menschenverstand einschaltet, kann man das ganz anders beurteilen.

Heute erhalten Sie Anrufe und E-Mails aus ganz Deutschland. Wie läuft ein typischer Fall ab?

Köhler: Das Telefon klingelt, ich melde mich. Der Anrufer sagt: „Ich habe heute gegen 21 Uhr etwas ganz Komisches gesehen.“ Das lasse ich mir beschreiben. Es ist dann zum Beispiel ein Objekt, das in allen Farben blinkt, der Beobachter hat den Eindruck, dass es hüpft, sich dreht und Lichtstrahlen aussendet. Ich fahre dann auf meinem Laptop das Astro-Programm hoch. Mit der Himmelsrichtung kann ich in diesem Fall den Fixstern Sirius identifizieren, der ständig für falsche Interpretationen sorgt.

Geben sich Anrufer immer gleich mit der Erklärung zufrieden? Oder ernten Sie auch öfter mal Widerspruch, weil mancher mehr gesehen haben will, als er tatsächlich gesehen hat?

Köhler: Das haben wir natürlich auch. Aber 95 Prozent der Beobachter sind mit der Erklärung zufrieden. Weil sie einfach nur wissen wollen, was sie gesehen haben.

Sternschnuppen, Disco-Scheinwerfer oder die Venus am Nachthimmel – was sind die häufigsten natürlichen Erklärungen für Ufo-Sichtungen?

Köhler: Vor allem astronomische, also Fixsterne und Feuerkugeln, die großen Schwestern der Sternschnuppen. Da gibt es irre schöne Aufnahmen, da kann man verstehen, wenn die Leute verrückt spielen. Aus solchen Sachen wurden Legenden, darauf baut die ganze Ufologie auf.

Aktuell machen die Starlink-Satelliten den Löwenanteil Ihrer Arbeit aus. Die sind für Sie eher Fluch als Segen, oder?

Köhler: Ja, eigentlich schon mehr Fluch. Nachdem wir letztes Jahr so viele Fälle hatten, habe ich gedacht, das müsste sich irgendwann relativieren. Bei schlechtem Wetter war auch alles gut. Aber sobald man abends wieder draußen sitzen konnte, sind die Dinger wieder aufgetreten. Ich werde mich also wohl auch die nächsten Jahre noch mit ihnen beschäftigen müssen.

Welche Nuss war am härtesten zu knacken?

Köhler: In den Anfängen war mir nicht bewusst, dass ich mich gut in Astronomie und Meteorologie auskennen und mich ständig im Luft- und Raumfahrtwesen schlau machen muss. Auch im Eventbereich gibt es alle möglichen Spielarten, mit denen man die Leute belustigen kann und einen Kilometer weiter zum Rätseln bringt. Anfang der 2000er Jahre gab es diese Himmelslaternen. Da wurden jeden Tag orangerote Feuerbälle gesehen. Davor gab es einen Hype mit den Scheinwerfern auf den Discos. Und in den Siebzigern gab es diese Mini-Heißluftballons. Da haben wir uns jahrelang die Zähne dran ausgebissen.

Wie haben Sie den Fall gelöst?

Köhler: 1980 bekamen wir Fotos mit orangeroten, verwackelten Flugspuren. Die Leute haben erzählt, sie hätten etwas Flammenfeuriges gesehen, mindestens zehn Minuten lang. Es gab dann weitere Fälle. Bis wir das an Silvester 1980/81 in Mannheim selbst gesehen haben. Provozierend langsam ist das Ding von Feudenheim in Richtung Heidelberg geflogen. Am nächsten Tag fanden wir heraus, dass Piloten am Flugplatz gefeiert und diese kleinen Heißluftballons fliegen gelassen hatten. Wir haben für 20 Mark einen gekauft und ausprobiert. Am Montag danach stand im Mannheimer Morgen: Viernheimer beobachtet Ufo. Da haben wir uns also selbst Arbeit verpasst.

Skurriler geht es kaum, oder?

Köhler: Doch. Eine Frau hat sich gemeldet. Sie sehe seit einem halben Jahr ein Objekt, habe es auf der Autobahn von Trier in Richtung Luxemburg verfolgt, aber nie erwischt. Es würde immer seine Form verändern. Sie hatte sogar Buch geführt. Ich habe mir das angeschaut – und es war eindeutig der Mond. Es kam raus, dass ihre Brille kaputt ist. Und sie hatte nur noch eine Kontaktlinse. So ist sie ein halbes Jahr über die Autobahn gedonnert und hat den Mond verfolgt.

Zurück zur ersten Frage: Wie reagieren Sie, wenn Sie eines Tages doch auf ein echtes Ufo stoßen?

Köhler: Endlich! Ich bin 65 und habe hoffentlich noch ein bisschen Zeit, dass dieser Fall eintritt. Aber ich bin sehr skeptisch.

Quelle: Heilbronner Stimme Online

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UFO conspiracies can be more dangerous than you think

Hardcore UFO enthusiasts share troubling elements with other conspiracy communities.

Ufology’s old guard came of age with relatively offline lives, gathering at conferences or local research meetings. They often dug the procedural nature of investigating specific UFO cases, or looked into the sociology of things—captured by the human side of the story—as opposed to simply the sightings themselves. Then, of course, there was the more passively interested public, who once had to dig more for information. 

“A joke I’ve heard is you’re talking to an old UFO-head who’s 40 or 50, and he says, ‘When I wanted to get conspiracy documentaries, I had to go find a weird guy in a trenchcoat in Times Square selling DVDs,’” says Chris Cogswell, co-host of the Mad Scientist Podcast, a show examining the science, philosophy, and history of weird claims. “Now I just go to the History Channel.” 

If you want slightly less conspiratorial UFO material, lately, you can also open the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and even, yes, Popular Science. The idea that “UFOs are real”—and that aliens have come to Earth, or at least that someone more down-to-Earth possesses mind-blowing tech—has gone fully normie. That’s thanks in part to governmental interest in “UAP,” or unidentified aerial phenomena. It’s also thanks to coverage of said governmental interest, and leaked military reports of reports, videos, and images, all of which often find themselves in the hands of UFO-minded media, only to bubble up into more mainstream publications. 

Most people’s interest remains casual. But underneath, there exists a harder-core segment, whose thoughts and actions around the topic include the troubling elements of other conspiracy communities. 

UFO belief may seem like the “fun” conspiracy. Who doesn’t, after all, like to contemplate aliens, or secret advanced technology? But knock-on effects nevertheless exist. “I think it’s very difficult to imagine that UFOs are a reality without also thinking there is a conspiracy to cover them up,” says Mick West, an author and skeptic who runs the forum Metabunk. “If you believe anything extreme that involves a government coverup, it makes it easy to believe the government stole the election or is covering up a vaccine.”

At the same time, though, UFOs represent a special sort of conspiracy, because most Americans grow up with a common narrative. If you haven’t seen the X-Files, you’ve seen E.T. If you haven’t seen E.T., you’ve listened to your friend’s story about that weird light she saw. “Lots of conspiracy theories, you get redpilled into. You’re waking up into a world you didn’t know existed,” says West, referring to the red pill in The Matrix that shows Neo the true nature of reality. “But everybody grows up knowing about UFOs and the ideas of flying saucers. The redpilling doesn’t require very much.” It’s more like a pink pill, he quips.

For a lot of people, that pink pill is a personal experience. “It’s them being on a dark country road and seeing a black triangle,” says West. That personal connection, West believes, is part of why UFO conspiracists can be so intense. Compared to even 9/11 truthers, UFO folks are “the most passionate people out there.”

That internet has fanned UFO passions, and connected new enthusiasts in ways different from the old guard’s previous experiences. When the New York Times published a shocker story in 2017—about a purported Pentagon UFO research program (which the Pentagon currently says wasn’t exactly a UFO research program)—many in the old guard continued about their business. 

But the revelations digitally riled the existing younger crowd and recruited more to its ranks.

“The younger generation, at least a part of it, I think wanted to see action and wanted to do something,” says Cogswell, a consultant with a PhD in chemical engineering, in addition to a podcaster who’s been observing and participating in UFO research for years, through a skeptical lens. They took the initial Pentagon revelation as “almost a call to action.” 

They could agitate online for mainstream attention, political action, and the ever-elusive disclosure: the idea that the government will someday dump its knowledge onto the public. When Cogswell first got internet-interested, around the turn of this century, UFO talk was a message-board phenomenon. Today, the /r/UFOs subreddit has 437,000 followers. But chatter also spreads through other social media, where enthusiasts gather using hashtags like #UFOtwitter (around 2,500 tweets per day in June), and in group DMs, Discord servers, and Facebook groups. The most popular videos of a YouTuber formerly known as UFO Jesus, whose channel is now called “Post Disclosure World,” have been viewed between 100,000 and 200,000 times; the #1 is called “Aliens Warn Government: Disclose Truth About UFOs OR ELSE!”

Among some within that hyperconnected crowd, interest coalesced largely around this military program; its reported director, a man named Luis Elizondo; reports and videos from Navy servicemembers; and a private UFO-advocacy company called To the Stars Academy, founded by former blink-182 member Tom DeLonge and boasting employees like Elizondo himself. Elizondo has since left the organization, but has continued to spread the gospel as public and political interest in UFOs has grown. That interest culminated last month, in a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, analyzing 144 cases of military-sighted UAP. 

“UFOs have gone from being just a hobby or something you’re interested in to your entire identity,” says Cogswell of a slice of the ufology community. And it’s a group identity, in which they’re allied with those who see the world the same way: as a place regularly visited by amazing unidentified somethings, about which powerful people are hiding information. They believe they have the power to help bring the truth to light, in lockstep with a hero—like Elizondo—they can rally around. “They also, on top of that, have the idea of persecution,” says Cogswell. “Scientists are out to get them. The government is lying to you.” 

In this universe, you are, says Cogswell, “showered with love,” when you adhere to the right beliefs, “and then showered with hate when you go against the group,” reinforcing a common and conformist view of all-things-saucer. Nothing ever bonded anyone better than being covalently downtrodden.
For West, the unwillingness to truly consider other perspectives is troubling. “Any argument that you put forward, they see as either being wrong or misguided or a deliberate attempt for misinformation,” he says.

That dogmatism worries Cogswell. “The language has taken on a more active, more combative feel and role,” he says. “The rhetoric, it’s not so much militarization as it is activation. ‘These are operations, ‘you need to fight for disclosure,’ ‘we need to all act together.’” 

Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, often the recipient of the aforementioned leaked military footage and photos, touts the tagline “Weaponize your curiosity,” and recently said, quoting a song lyric, “I ain’t stopping on UFOs till the bodies hit the floor.” People took that (and UFO fans take him) with varying degrees of seriousness, and little literality, but still. 

And then there’s this statement from Elizondo himself, speaking about his efforts to extricate UFO information from government vaults. “The only way this is gonna stop is, like I said before, if someone puts a bullet in my head,” he said in a recent interview “…I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let a bunch of bureaucrats, you know, abscond with that responsibility to be fair and transparent with it with the American people. …Don’t sit back and wait around and let them tell us, ‘Oh, here’s what you can have.’ Bullshit, man. That’s not the way this works.” 

Soon after, Elizondo clarified, “In case, anybody misunderstands anything I’m saying here, at no time do I ever advocate violence.”

West says he doesn’t see such a significant linguistic shift amongst believers, but he does note the militaristic nature of today’s UAP interest—a threat narrative about how unidentified incursions into airspace are a national security issue, a potential danger to service members and to the country that must be understood and countered. You, on Twitter, are helping people stay safe. With those stakes, how could you not dedicate your time to the cause? “The ‘threat narrative’ is a deliberate way of framing UFOs so they will be taken seriously,” says West.

If you’re not in the in-group, you might wonder why you should care if some people are a little fanatic about UFOs. Let them have it, right? It’s just flying saucers, or, in this case, Tic Tacs.

But real-world experience suggests that entrenchment in conspiracy theories is associated, in some cases, with violent or illegal behavior. Some research points the same direction. A 2020 study in Social Psychological and Personality Science, which suggested that embracing a conspiratorial worldview decreases reported intent to engage in “normative” political behaviors like signing petitions or organizing rallies, but increases reported intent to engage in “non-normative” political behaviors like attacking people or property.

The violence is obviously the eyecatcher there, but conspiratorial thinking has, IRL, also led people to avoid vaccines, stalk the parents of school-shooting victims, troll climate scientists, and spend hard-earned money buying equipment to prove Flat Earth theory right.

Scholars often study the individual factors that lead people down those rabbit holes. But West, whose book Escaping the Rabbit Hole discusses how to compassionately and effectively talk to the conspiracists in your life, thinks a red-pill moment—like seeing an odd blip in the sky, or watching a sensational YouTube video—outweighs any psychological predisposition. And Shruti Phadke, a researcher at the University of Washington, recently took a look at another understudied side of the issue, comparing the importance of the social factors that lead someone down the rabbit hole to the more-studied individual factors. How does someone start with “NASA could be corrupt” and end up at “the Moon landing was fake”? “So many things have to happen for a person to go from here to there,” Phadke says. 

Her team analyzed data from reddit, in conspiratorial communities ranging from those dedicated to chemtrails to climate skepticism to alien presence on Earth. “The most important factor is availability of conspiracists in their social circle,” says Phadke. The second most important factor was that the future conspiracists, prior to hopping down the rabbit hole, got moderated or downvoted in the non-conspiratorial subreddits. “When you are ostracized from somewhere you try to find a place where you’re accepted more,” she says. You find /r/conspiracy, or /r/reptiliandude.

Then, you are surrounded by others who accept and perhaps share your beliefs. “They’re consistently being exposed to one side of the coin. They’re consistently consuming only very propagandized information,” she says. “On top of that they’re being told that any other information they see is not valid.”

You can see this at work in real-time, embodied in the sleek surfaces of UFOs. Is there a way, though, to digest news on the topic, but remain outside the conspiratorial fray? Cogswell has one piece of advice: “If someone tells you they have a UFO secret,” he says, “they’re lying.”

Quelle: POPULAR SCIENCE

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WITH RELEASE OF PENTAGON REPORT, UFO NARRATIVE BELIEF SYSTEM IS SUDDENLY SUPPORTED BY MILITARY WITNESS TESTIMONIES

big problem with all this over the years is that pilots and others have seen things which just don’t add up, but have been afraid to share that information for fear that they would be laughed out of the barracks. And, you know, finally, we’ve gotten to the point where we can have a conversation about this without people, you know, wondering if people need to talk to a therapist or something. And so that’s a big deal.”

– Miles O’Brien, PBS NewsHour, June 27, 2021

On June 25, 2021 the U.S. government, under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, released a report of UAP sightings by pilots and military personnel. The report, according to journalists like O’Brien and others, creates a safe space within which to discuss matters related to the sightings of UFOs and UAPs (they also informed the public that the term UFO should be replaced with UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomenon). Ironically, this report reversed the multi-year—and quite successful—campaign to debunk all types of witness testimonies regarding UAP sightings. The campaign to debunk testimonies, called Project Bluebook, was also funded by the U.S. government and is outlined in the Robertson Panel Report of 1953. 

It’s not incidental that witness testimonies have been integral to the formation of many religious traditions. The plethora of new religions inspired by UAP sightings affirm the importance of witness testimonies to the ongoing unfolding mythology of the UAP. With the release of the Pentagon’s report, there’s not only a new emphasis on witness testimony, but there appears to be a complete shift in official policy regarding these testimonies. The policy, from one of debunking witness reports to one of encouraging them, seems confusing, especially to those who follow UAP lore. 

Placed within the context of the exponential growth of civilian-owned technologies, the change in policy isn’t quite as surprising. Social media, cell phones, video, and drone technologies make the sighting and the capture of images of UAPs ubiquitous and unregulated. If, as the report suggests, there’s an element of potential threat to national security concerning UAP sightings, it would be important for the military to regulate information regarding sightings. 

But are journalists like O’Brien correct that the public sphere is now a safe space for the confession of UAP witness reports? An examination of the witness discourse in the media reveals that only certain types of witness testimonies should be considered credible. Additionally, new internet algorithms, released during the same week as the report, cast suspicion on user-generated witness testimonies and reports. 

The authoritative text of military witness testimonies is Leslie Kean’s UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record (2010), a New York Times bestseller featuring the testimonies of military personnel who report aggressive engagements with UAPs. The Foreword, written by former White House Chief of Staff and Presidential Counselor John Podesta, forms, perhaps unwittingly, a specific framework for interpreting witness testimonies. He writes: 

“I’m skeptical about many things, including the notion that government always knows best, and that the people can’t be trusted with the truth. We have statements from the most credible sources – those in a position to know – about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined.” 

Podesta’s statement simultaneously disparages members of the government who know about UAPs, yet states that government officials “in the know” will inform Americans of the truth. His statement is either ironic or incoherent. Additionally, posing the question of whether people are, or are not, “ready for the truth” suggests that extraterrestrials are indeed real, but that people just aren’t yet ready to know it. 

In the contemporary social climate this is exactly how military witness testimonies function—they suggest that the classified and unreleased version of the Pentagon report reveals that UAPs are indeed extraterrestrial. The unclassified public report is completely neutral on this point, but the public testimonies are not. What remains concealed within classified documents then, is revealed through witness testimonies. The testimonies are unequivocal: we are not alone in the universe.

Two days after the unveiling of the report, former NASA astronaut Bill Nelson volunteered his own testimony that humans are not alone in the universe. Media accounts of Nelson’s statements reveal that he had read the classified version of the report, giving him inside information that would influence the interpretations of any statements he would make about UAP phenomena. 

Scholars of religion are among those who understand the importance of witness testimonies in the formation of religions. Raelism and The Nation of Islam, for example, were formed from the UFO/UAP testimonies of their founders. A cursory review of UAP literature, both primary sources by witnesses, as well as secondary literature by academics, reveals overt religious and often apocalyptic themes in UAP witness reports. Extraterrestrials are believed to be technologically advanced and are often thought to be supportive of humans’ best interests. 

Harvard researcher Dr. John Mack’s bestselling book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens(1994) featured the testimonies of people whose encounters with alleged extraterrestrials are best characterized as beneficial and spiritual, if frightening. Current UAP military narratives counter the testimonies found in books like Mack’s. They’re replaced with the specter of the reality of extraterrestrials and their danger to humans. 

The UFO/UAP narrative is a belief system that suddenly, with the release of the Pentagon Report, is supported by military witness testimonies. A new development in the vetting of witness testimonies includes internet algorithms related to search engines like Google. After the report was released, though ostensibly unrelated, Google reported a new process of vetting the credibility of user content; that is, videos and photographs uploaded by users of the internet. Coincidentally the video documenting Google’s new algorithm uses UAPs as an example. 

According to coverage of the new algorithm, “Google will warn people when search results could be unreliable.” The example Google uses of unreliable information, shown as the result of a search on a phone, reads, “ufo filmed traveling 106 mph.” 

This new algorithm will allow regulation of user generated witness testimonies. We’ve had witness testimonies for a long time. Is it really suddenly okay to talk about UAPs? Closer examination of this question reveals that it is only okay to talk about certain sightings—those ensconced within a military framework, and new algorithms will make it easier for internet search providers to vet civilian generated UAP reports. 

The consolidation of knowledge of UAPs to military witness testimonies, and the use of internet algorithms to monitor non-military testimonies represents a new development in this new religiosity of the UAP, what Carl Jung has termed “a new mythology.” For scholars and students of religion, this provides a rich opportunity to examine the formation of new systems of belief and practice coalescing around powerful cosmological questions, otherwise known as religions. 

Quelle: RELIGION DISPATCHES

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Quelle: hr hessenschau