Interview of Jacques Vallée by Ovnis-Direct

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Jacques Fabrice Vallée (born September 24, 1939 in Pontoise, Val-d’Oise, France) is a venture capitalist, computer scientist, author, ufologist and former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California.

In mainstream science, Vallée is notable for co-developing the first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA and for his work at SRI International on the network information center for the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet. Vallée is also an important figure in the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), first noted for a defense of the scientific legitimacy of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and later for promoting the interdimensional hypothesis. Wikipedia

(Swiss ufologist writer, psychologist by training who deals especially with the relation between ufos and ecology and the psychological impact of apparitions on witnesses).

Q1 : How do you see ufology and ufological activity in 15-20 years ? What will fundamentally change — or won’t ?

We shouldn’t be surprised if we see an increase in these manifestations as humanity goes on to a new step of systematic exploration of space. But the question should be addressed to the phenomenon itself : It has shown that it was diverse, adaptable and unpredictable. It also showed that it was fundamentally interested in our technological progress and our technical prototypes.
 
Q2 : Who is the thinker, the intellectual or the researcher you admire the most and why ?

Maybe you have noticed it while reading Science Interdite: I found a great source of inspiration in Aimé Michel, a remarkable spirit by the strength of his vision and the deep humanity of his intellect. The fact that such a thinker has been ignored and even despised by the intellectual elite in France is not a compliment to our country. However, the limited number of people who have known him have had a great privilege. According to Aimé, Ufos were only a mystery among others. He was a universal thinker.

Q3 : What is the current scientific discipline which would be able to benefit ufology and its achievement ?

I can think of two disciplines whose application is urgent: computer science of course, with « data-mining », and medicine which has never been applied to a real study of long term effects on witnesses of close encounters. Beyond this, of course, physics must take the subject as an « existence theorem » to understand physical reality in a broader sense.

Q4 : How are consciousness and Ufos related ? What role does consciousness play in Ufo manifestations?

We have seen ufos as classical spaceships for a long time, in accordance with science fiction in the forties and fifties. This interpretation persists, especially in France where recent breakthrough of parapsychology are not well known and where psychic effects reported by witnesses are considered either as evidences of mental weakness or as electromagnetic side effects. Yet, as documentation improves, we find out that the physical aspects of the phenomenon are as negotiable as its psychic effects: it is as if it took control of a given area, including witnesses’ perceptions. It is that aspect that discouraged Aimé Michel.

Q5 : Do governments (and especially the USA) hide information about Ufos on the public (according to you and your experience) ? 

There are two levels to that question: (1) governments (and not only the USA) keep some information they think most sensitive, especially reports which come from the military. It seems that since 1947 this policy has been viewed as legitimate, in the interest of populations and in the hope of discovering technological breakthroughs. (2) The most difficult question is to know if breakthroughs have actually taken place. To my mind, the phenomenon has probably resisted all analysis, classified or not.  The issue of opening all the files is going to arise again but it’s not as simple to understand the Ufo phenomenon as to dismantle an MIG or to secretly copy the space shuttle.*

Q6 : What advice would you give to the ufology community ?

I don’t think I have personal advice to give. It is obvious that we won’t make real progress in an environment of petty squabbling. It would be best to avoid accusations that discourage researchers from working together. The phenomenon is accessible at a local level, so the possibility of field study and fast exchange of data is wide open. That would be more useful than speculating on inaccessible, hypothetical secrets in the drawers of governments.

Q7 : What are your biggest regrets in your ufological career?

I sometimes wonder whether things would have taken a different course if I had accompanied Allen Hynek to Detroit during the « swamp gas » case. It was the biggest opportunity to pose the question of the reality of the phenomenon before the American general public and the scientific community. Together with Bill Powers’ advice, we could have presented a realistic and urgent vision of the issue which would have been understood by the media.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge, as the Americans would say. If I look back, it is obvious that professionally speaking, I wasted my time when I came back in France in late 1967. Should I regret it? I wouldn’t have written Passport to Magonia anywhere else than in Paris. Moreover, I wouldn’t have experienced May 68 on the spot !

P389, answer of the author to Aimé Michel on the origin of Ufos (“Belmont Friday, June 25th 1976”) :

« Public opinion only has two possible positions toward Ufos: if you manage to take the idea away from people’s mind that there are hallucinations, these same minds are going to draw the conclusion that it is purely and simply about E.T ».
« Don’t you see that a technology which can create local deformation of space might not be limited to produce Ufos only, but any kinds of other phenomena which would seem miraculous? ».

Q1 : Apart from Ufos, could you tell us what phenomena result from such super technology?

These phenomena are in the literature : reports of poltergeist are documented in the book by captain of gendarmerie Tizané, as well as the famous deformations of metal by psychic means reported by Soviets researchers or by Stanford Research Institute (or, in France, by the material expert Crussard). Nonlocality allows phenomena described by the French physicist Yves Rocard in his experiments at Ecole Normale Supérieure, as the relativist Olivier Costa de Beauregard had emphasized. It is a pity that this field has been ignored for ideological reasons. Maybe it was marginal in the 70s but it comes back at the center of multiple broad issues.

P406, Aleister Crowley on the Society for psychical research :

« All their work brings evidence that there are powers influencing humans. We have always known them: The universe is full of dark and subtle manifestations of energy. But nobody before me has ever managed to prove the outer intelligence to humankind whereas my compilation has. But it is impossible to doubt that there is someone there, someone who is able to organize events the same way Napoléon conceived his battle plans, with an extent of unthinkable powers through which he can control the actions of the people he has chosen to play a role in the implementation of his purposes. »

Q2 : The publications made by people who belong to the Esoteric Hermetic  Movement like Aleister Crowley, Facius Cardan, John Dee and others you name. Do they influence in any way your research leading to the hypothesis of the control system?

Definitely: before the development of science as we know it, many lonely researchers or members of small groups asked the same questions as we did. Facius Cardan’s father was a great mathematician, John Dee was a scholar who was instrumental to the science of navigation; others were chemists, alchemists or astronomers. They wondered whether there was a general balance of the world that will give meaning to human life and the phenomena which surround us. 

Q3 : According to you, what were the triggers of the spiritual revolution in the 70s in the USA ?

A new generation became aware of the limitations of western culture and they revolted against religious, social, political and artistic prohibitions in the world of their parents, who often emerged mentally exhausted and culturally impoverished from the Second World War. In that environment, it was normal that spiritual exploration went off in all directions and was used by certain sects. I observed this phenomenon in the USA but it existed in France and England as well, although it was less visible but quite powerful: look at the Solar Temple…

Q4 : We can see through your last book your reluctance before certain techniques such as meditation through substances. A serious ufologist who went to Amazonia spoke of the efficiency of methods used by shamans (using ayahuasca) to reach other plans of reality. They are even described as « technicians of consciousness ». What do you think about it ?

In terms of field of research, all these explorations are useful and valuable: current science asks the question of the nature of reality both on a physical basis (quanta, nonlocality etc) and physiological (information processing by the mind, discovery of  hidden mechanisms using « functional » MRI etc.)

When I met Terence McKenna I realized during our conversations that our hypotheses on a possible « control system » converged. But my own research involves a structured calibration of data with calibration of investigation tools, which is not possible when one is transported by the visions of drugs like ayahuasca or simply LSD.

Living in California since 1969, I have seen many experiments derived from these methods, whether they came from South American jungles or simply from drug companies. I understand their usefulness to force some parts of the brain to reveal their function in the construction of reality, but I haven’t learnt anything new or reliable for my own work.

P427 – The author’s quotation :

« The Ufo phenomenon looks like a kaleidoscope which has three separate levels: a physical and technologic level; a sociologic level; and finally a personal level, subliminal, which plays with subtle shades of human psyche.
The first aspects seem to show evidence of extraterrestrial origins; the second one would be within the competence of human mythology and anthropology, if we refer to the societal dimension only: this is the explanation which meets with the advanced skeptics’ approval, contrary to Menzel and Klass who are content with denying everything outright. The third aspect is the most disconcerting : it suggests clues of a darker manipulation from terrestrial and very material origins ».

Q5 : Have you achieved new discoveries on the third aspect of the Ufo phenomenon over the last years?

We are faced with this third aspect when we carry on case studies in the field. Everything is happening as if the phenomenon was able to manipulate its environment (including its human environment) in order to hide its real nature. To my mind, the camouflage uses terrestrial elements and it is not simply a bureaucratic « cover-up » as it has naively been believed for a long time.

Philippe Solal’s questions :

(Doctor and associate professor in Philosophy at INSA in Toulouse, teacher of expression-communication, social psychology, philosophy of sciences and author of several books in this field).

Q1 : Physics and cosmology of this early 21st century are in crisis and are looking for new patterns to represent the universe : multiverse, multidimensional, folded,  etc. Are you paying attention to this crisis and does it give food for thought about the origin of Ufos?

I have followed these works, first in astrophysics at the University of Texas which was a major cosmological research centers, then at Stanford and SRI. The result was my book « Autres Dimensions » where I wrote that Ufos give us the opportunity (among others) to ask questions about the structure of the universe. I have recently given a TED lecture on the physics of information  in the framework of a meeting in Brussels about the next 60 years, a period which I think will put these questions at the center of research. The conference is on Youtube, reference :