Unsolicited E-Mail of the Week
Here's a little something I found in my inbox this morning:
Dear sir,
I read with interest your entry (in the discussion about
"assault on Mt.Umunhum") describing your recollections
of life around the mountain, around 1975-77. One of my
personal interests is researching unusual aerial
phenomena (my background is in astronomy, and I have
published several books about UFOs). One of my readers,
a lady who lives in Almaden Valley, recalls a series of
unexplained lights in and around her neighborhood, specifically
in the summer of 1975 and 1976. This lady, her husband (a
police officer) and their neighbors, saw repeated flashes of
light, and occasionally well-defined luminous objects moving
around the houses. The laser hypothesis fails to account
for these observations.
Given your knowledge of the region, can you think of any
natural explanation for these phenomena? When you lived
there, was the area known for any unusual lights or other
effects?
Any information you can provide would be greatly
appreciated.
With best regards,
Jacques Vallee
General Partner, EA-Capital
www.jacquesvallee.com
For something like the last 20 years or so, I've been privately conducting off-and-on research to try to find any other reports of what Mr. Vallee (who, as it turns out, is really a Ph.D.) so benignly refers to as "unusual lights" in the region of Mt. Umunhum.
I could tell him a story that would have him shitting his pants.
Since most of the people I lived with on Umunhum were military personnel who played with what was then state-of-the-art radar equipment for a living, I've halfway convinced myself that whatever it was I saw from my bedroom window circa 1975/1976 was some kind of elaborate test. This might explain the frustrating lack of any other reported sightings from what was a modestly populated housing area on an isolated Air Force Station (that being another factor).
The other factor here, and one which has made me hesitant about sharing my experience in any great detail with anyone other than close friends, is the, shall we say, highly turbulent emotional state that my family and I were experiencing at the time.
Additionally, the brief description Dr. Vallee offers in his e-mail of "flashes of light" doesn't really match my experience, though the tantalizing suggestion of "well-defined luminous objects" hits pretty close to home, assuming, that is, that these objects were as big as a fucking house.
I did a brief background check (read: Google search) of Dr. Vallee and come up with some interesting finds. Among other things, the character of Claude LaCombe (played by Francois Truffaut) in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of my favorite films (largely because of its parallels with my experience on Umunhum), was based on Vallee. Vallee has also worked with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, one of the most influential UFO researchers in the world.
There, I said it. UFO. Anyone coming across this blog will now assume I am a complete crackpot.
Anyway, I'm stumped. I don't know whether I should contact this guy or not. Curiousity about the other sightings he mentions compels me to drop him a line. But preserving my privacy and maintaining a credible academic standing also seem somewhat important. Being involved with the whole UFO community seems, on an academic level, even worse that appearing in a porn film (at least then one would have the potential excuse of researching gender roles or trends in popular culture).
But getting a message from this dude got me motivated to look for any new online postings regarding Umunhum, and I found a few of interest:
Here's a site that offers some great photos of the summit and some practical info on how to make the hike.
Here's a story about a climb up Mt. Umunhum where almost everything goes wrong. I was particularly disturbed by the account of one of the hikers trying to climb into a vent on one of the abandoned buildings and coming out with "white powder" all over his shirt. That's asbestos, dude!
Here's my previous post about Umunhum, in case you want to know more about the roots of my long obsession with the place. I'm sure one day I'll build a representation of the mountain in my living room.
Dear sir,
I read with interest your entry (in the discussion about
"assault on Mt.Umunhum") describing your recollections
of life around the mountain, around 1975-77. One of my
personal interests is researching unusual aerial
phenomena (my background is in astronomy, and I have
published several books about UFOs). One of my readers,
a lady who lives in Almaden Valley, recalls a series of
unexplained lights in and around her neighborhood, specifically
in the summer of 1975 and 1976. This lady, her husband (a
police officer) and their neighbors, saw repeated flashes of
light, and occasionally well-defined luminous objects moving
around the houses. The laser hypothesis fails to account
for these observations.
Given your knowledge of the region, can you think of any
natural explanation for these phenomena? When you lived
there, was the area known for any unusual lights or other
effects?
Any information you can provide would be greatly
appreciated.
With best regards,
Jacques Vallee
General Partner, EA-Capital
www.jacquesvallee.com
For something like the last 20 years or so, I've been privately conducting off-and-on research to try to find any other reports of what Mr. Vallee (who, as it turns out, is really a Ph.D.) so benignly refers to as "unusual lights" in the region of Mt. Umunhum.
I could tell him a story that would have him shitting his pants.
Since most of the people I lived with on Umunhum were military personnel who played with what was then state-of-the-art radar equipment for a living, I've halfway convinced myself that whatever it was I saw from my bedroom window circa 1975/1976 was some kind of elaborate test. This might explain the frustrating lack of any other reported sightings from what was a modestly populated housing area on an isolated Air Force Station (that being another factor).
The other factor here, and one which has made me hesitant about sharing my experience in any great detail with anyone other than close friends, is the, shall we say, highly turbulent emotional state that my family and I were experiencing at the time.
Additionally, the brief description Dr. Vallee offers in his e-mail of "flashes of light" doesn't really match my experience, though the tantalizing suggestion of "well-defined luminous objects" hits pretty close to home, assuming, that is, that these objects were as big as a fucking house.
I did a brief background check (read: Google search) of Dr. Vallee and come up with some interesting finds. Among other things, the character of Claude LaCombe (played by Francois Truffaut) in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of my favorite films (largely because of its parallels with my experience on Umunhum), was based on Vallee. Vallee has also worked with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, one of the most influential UFO researchers in the world.
There, I said it. UFO. Anyone coming across this blog will now assume I am a complete crackpot.
Anyway, I'm stumped. I don't know whether I should contact this guy or not. Curiousity about the other sightings he mentions compels me to drop him a line. But preserving my privacy and maintaining a credible academic standing also seem somewhat important. Being involved with the whole UFO community seems, on an academic level, even worse that appearing in a porn film (at least then one would have the potential excuse of researching gender roles or trends in popular culture).
But getting a message from this dude got me motivated to look for any new online postings regarding Umunhum, and I found a few of interest:
Here's a site that offers some great photos of the summit and some practical info on how to make the hike.
Here's a story about a climb up Mt. Umunhum where almost everything goes wrong. I was particularly disturbed by the account of one of the hikers trying to climb into a vent on one of the abandoned buildings and coming out with "white powder" all over his shirt. That's asbestos, dude!
Here's my previous post about Umunhum, in case you want to know more about the roots of my long obsession with the place. I'm sure one day I'll build a representation of the mountain in my living room.
posted by Chazzbot at 10:48 AM
5 Comments:
Screw it! Assuming it really is him writing, send him a note!
The man has his own Wikipedia entry. I wish I did. Very cool! You must keep us readers updated.
I also saw something extremely strange around there in that same general vicinity at that same particular time in the '70's. Can you please possibly put me also in touch by e-mail with the good Dr. so that I can tell him my story also? I still live here in the Valley. thestarwatcher@yahoo.com
Jeeze, what a complete crackpot.
if u are talking about Mt. Umunhum in San Jose california i have seen some weird lights up there it all started around 3 am i am driving by safeway and am amazed by this light i dont quite remember the colors but they changed when i moved. i think it went from red to blue and then to blue with a pink circle around it then i parked to see it and it went back to red so i turned around and did the samething a # of times same thing... so i took out my fone to take a picture and the INSTANT i pressed take the light turned off. so later i dropped off my gf and i went back and it was on again so i snapped a quick picture and a couple minitues later it turned off again and i havent seen it since. this was on friday the 13th or possible the 14th but i think it was the 13th of 2006 when i told people they thought i was crazy until months later other people claimed they also saw the lights. so thats my story its been bugging me so i hope that helped if thats evan what u were talking about but i think that there are strange things happening in those hills that we arent supposed to know about.
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