Leo Sprinkle Has Died

 

Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle, known in the UFO community as a hardworking psychologist interested in UFOs, particularly alien abduction and who organized contactee conferences each year since 1980, has died at 91.

He was born on August 31, 1930, in Rocky Ford, Colorado. He earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Colorado and completed his doctorate at the University of Missouri. He then spent three years at the University of North Dakota before moving onto the University of Wyoming, where he stayed until he retired.

Sprinkle’s original interest in UFOs was sparked by his sighting of an unknown object in 1949. He, along with his wife, had sighting in 1956. His first scientific paper on the subject was based on a survey of members of NICAP conducted in 1961 and 1962. His paper was published in 1969. His real area of interest ran between abductees and contactees.

In 1968, he served as the psychological consultant to the University of Colorado, Air force sponsored investigation into UFOs, known as the Condon Committee. He conducted the hypnotic regression on former Ashland, Nebraska, police officer Herbert Schirmer when missing time was discovered in his police log.

In 1980, after years of correspondence with many people who believed they had been contacted by benevolent alien beings, he, along with the Institute for UFO Contactee Studies, began hosting the Rocky Mountain Conference on UFO Investigation. Contactees from around the world met at the University of Wyoming campus to share their experiences with other like-minded people.

He had an interest in the New Age studies, believed in reincarnation, and eventually identified himself as a contactee. In 1999, he published Soul Samples: Personal Exploration in Reincarnation and UFO Experiences. He encouraged his colleagues to study the psychological makeup of the contactees. This resulted in June Parnell’s research of the Rocky Mountain conference participants, which culminated in her Ph.D. dissertation in 1986.

I will note here that I met Leo on a couple of occasions. We chatted briefly and I found him to be a nice, warm individual, with a great sense of humor, who was interested in what others had to say. We disagreed on the contactee end of the spectrum, but I think we agreed on the cattle mutilations. He seemed to think that some, if not many of those experiences, might have a more terrestrial nature and might possibly have psychological roots. He had said that it really wasn’t an area that he had explored in depth.

He believed that the UFO activity was the result of an educational program that he thought of as “cosmic consciousness conditioning.” He said that the program was conducted by representatives of the extraterrestrial or ultraterrestrial beings to alert the human race about the reality of alien visitation.

Sprinkle published a number of scientific papers in science journals related to the UFO field, some relating to hypnosis and contact with alien beings.

Leo Sprinkle will be long remembered as an advocate for those whose experiences and beliefs are outside the mainstream. He died on November 15, 2021.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jerry Clark

This week I discussed the UFO Encyclopedia, 3^rd Edition, with the author, Jerome (Jerry) Clark. Before we began our discussion, I mentioned that it was the 50^th anniversary of my destroying a UH-1H helicopter by triggering a land mine in South Vietnam. Knowing full well that there are many people who claim Vietnam service who were never there, and knowing some might be not believe the story, you can read it in the unit history of the 187^th Assault Helicopter Company here:

http://www.187thahc.net/Incidents/incident_69.htm

Just scroll down to May 16, and you’ll find it… and yes, this has nothing to do with UFOs and I mentioned it only because it was fifty years ago today that it happened.

But on to the UFO stuff and Jerry Clark.

Naturally, given the timing of the show, we had to mention the passing of Stan Friedman a few days earlier. I thought it important to acknowledge his passing and

Jerry Clark

we devoted the first segment of the show to that.

We did get around to talking about his UFO Encyclopedia, which is a massive resource, that is a must for anyone who is serious about UFO research. To me, one of the most important aspects of the Encyclopedia, is the list of sources at the end of each of the articles. That allows the reader to find additional information, some of it providing an opposing view or giving an alternative solution. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17940170

Although I wanted to cover the questions that readers had sent, we did run out of time. I tried to ask at least one question from each of those who supplied them. One of them concerned the airship wave of 1897. I had thought that Jerry believed there was a core of good reports that began in late 1896, but that many of the sightings in 1897 were, shall we say, imaginative. Jerry quickly corrected me.

I did go back and look at the entry from the 2^nd Edition of his Encyclopedia so that I could compare it with the latest version. The entry had evolved, and covered sightings that began in other parts of the world some fifty years earlier. It seems that the sightings involve some sort real experiences but when we reach April, 1897, it is clear that the majority of those reports are faked. I asked specifically about the Aurora, Texas, crash, which, given what we know today, is laughable, when you read the original report. I am astonished that there are those who still believe this was a real event. You can find more information about it, and the Alexander Hamilton calf-napping here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/04/aurora-texas-again.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/09/ufo-crashes-fifty-years-before-roswell.html

Jerry tells me, "The point I was trying to make about airship reports was that they were real experiences, not "real events" as you have it.  I try to make clear that radars/visuals and CE2s exemplify event anomaliess, i.e., strange things that occur within the boundaries of consensus reality, and high-strange phenomena exemplify experience anomalies, which take place in liminal space between the real and the imagined, with characteristics of each mixed together."

We also talked, briefly about contactees and abductions. Time prevented us from going into depth about these topics. I think you get a feel for where Jerry is on the topics and I do mention that George Adamski’s tales of Venus failed to account for the surface temperature that is hot enough to melt lead… not the tropic environment that so many envisioned in the 1950s.

Next up is Dr. Dan Farcas and his theory about Hyper-civilization. It is an interesting take on a number of questions about UFOs and other topics. For those who have questions, as always, append them here in the comments section and I’ll try to get them asked.

I Retract My Original Billy Meier Comment

Several weeks ago, I made a suggestion that the speakers invited to the MUFON symposium sounded a little absurd because of the lack of corroboration for their time travel claims. I had also wondered why the Billy Meier supporters hadn’t been offered a similar invitation to support his claims. It seemed if the leadership of MUFON was interested in allowing the membership to come to their own conclusion about some of these absurd claims, then Billy Meier and his supporters should be afforded the same courtesy. But then in the comment section of the post, I had written, “This post was about some of those invited to speak at the next

Billy Meier

MUFON Symposium and not an avenue to promote a contactee [Billy Meier] case that I believe to be untrue.”

This was a fairly innocuous statement. Didn’t really say much other than I thought the claims to be untrue. I wasn’t calling Billy Meier a liar, I wasn’t saying the case was a hoax, only that I didn’t believe it, which I had thought was my right. I was immediately attacked. It was claimed that I had “defamed” Billy Meier, and that I should offer proof that Meier hadn’t been in communication with alien beings. I should either put up some evidence or retract the statement.

I did explain that I was familiar with the case and that the evidence offered to support it was weak at best… well, not in those words. I mentioned that I had read a couple of the books about Meier, but was attacked for being out of touch. I did think that it wasn’t really my responsibility to prove Meier hadn’t met with aliens and traveled around the galaxy, but theirs to prove he had.

Whatever…

So, now I would like to retract that initial and rather benign statement.

I have spent the last several weeks looking at all sorts of material about Billy Meier. I read his predictions, seen many of his photographs, looked at the analyses of the metal he said came from his space traveling pals. I looked at the “pro” sites and those that were “con.” I followed up on the predictions, and tried to learn more about the photographs. I have looked at both sides of the coin, listened to the promoters and detractors and realized that my statement was simply my belief based on what I had found in earlier research. It had been written as a polite and somewhat cordial way of letting the readers know that I didn’t believe the story which was not the same thing as saying it was a hoax.

Today, I’ll say this. The Billy Meier contact case is a hoax. The evidence offered in support is weak, often inaccurate, and those believing Meier will not listen to anything that suggests Meier has not flown around the galaxy in alien spacecraft. Dozens of his pictures have been proven to be fake, but that’s because the Men in Black substituted faked ones for the real ones, we’re told. Meier’s predictions that had seemed to be so accurate were not made before anyone on Earth was aware of the situations mentioned as claimed. When it was pointed out that the trouble with the ozone layer was known and published in a variety of sources before Meier said a word about it, the answer was he couldn’t have seen those sources. The supporters move the goalposts so that any evidence presented is never enough.

I say again, this case is a hoax. Meier has not traveled around the galaxy. He has faked pictures. His predictions are found to be wrong or based on information that is already in the public arena.

Here’s the irony. Had the supporters just ignored the statement of my opinion rather than attacking me personally, not many who visit here would have paid much attention to it. Now, however, I have published a number of articles showing that Meier was wrong, Meier faked photographs, and that he has offered no independent corroboration of his contact claims. Even his ex-wife has said it was all a hoax.

Believe him if you will, but don’t demand that I believe him with such shoddy evidence, faked photographs, and an analysis of metal that came from a man who was deep into the New Age (BTW, telling us of his expertise and credentials, which are quite impressive, is known as “appeal to authority” which isn’t evidence). No, I don’t believe Meier and believe that he had engaged in a decades long hoax that too many have accepted as real.

But in case you have somehow missed it. I retract that original statement as too benign and too cordial. It should have been much stronger. It should have been much more negative. Meier is not in contact with aliens. There is no independent evidence to support it. He has invented his tale and fooled thousands of people. It is all untrue.

Those are the facts. Get over it.