I accompanied my father to this excellent forum, and have a few notes of my own. I personally doubt that aliens have had significant interaction with earth as of yet; I simply haven't seen convincing evidence. However, it was interesting to notice which ideas I found at least reasonable and which I did not.

One person, for instance, cited that aliens were concerned that an international nuclear war would rip a hole in the space-time continuum -- thus their interest in the Earth. It is my understanding, however, that the amount of energy necessary to endanger the fabric are quite beyond that which nuclear technology provides (Michio Kaku, Hyperspace). It certainly makes intuitive sense to me that if the sun (which is an enormous, constantly-exploding nuclear reaction) doesn't do anything to the continuum, nuclear war couldn't either.

However, another woman described an engagement with aliens that sounded remarkably similar to the spirituality outlined in Quaker teachings: reach a mental clarity, free yourself of the chattering voice in your mind, and listen for something beyond. She calls it aliens, and perhaps this is precisely what the Quakers tap into -- who knows. Regardless, it transcends the limits of modern science; consequently, I had no trouble with it (although I personally interpreted it in terms of listening to natural intuition rather than paranormal advice).

Many of the people in the group were approaching the problem from a scientific viewpoint, which was in itself an interesting problem. It receives the disdain of mainstream science, which means that it isn't subject to true scientific method. To me, this demonstrated the problem with categorizing intellectual inquiry: by dividing into Biology, Psychology, History, English, Math, etc, a new science has to prove itself, AS A SCIENCE, before any results from the science can be taken seriously. Practically, this takes the form of publication divisions: paranormal research is typically published in dubious productions which accept a combination of sound research and crackpot stuff.

I recall one experiment which measured "the weight of life." A steak with mold and a steak without mold were each placed in airtight containers. The one with mold INCREASED IN WEIGHT over time. This challenges a very important assumption of modern science. However, I was unable to find any actual attempted replications of the study (and the bibliography for this study included only articles by the author!). If this study was published in a mainstream forum, many scientists would definitely try to replicate it. If it was replicated successfully, it would rock the scientific world, and otherwise it would be discredited and taken down.

This is a basic pillar of scientific inquiry: replication. Yet it is lacking in paranormal investigation, primarily because paranormal forums combine the credible and the dubious. But hey; it is the state of the art. I enjoyed the session immensely.

Hoy Loper (electronic mail, July 5, 2004)