09_fm_tam4 handling of recovered ebe's

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMAZING MEETING 4 | 26 JANUARY 2006 | JAMES RANDI EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION 36

In Close Encounters We Mostly See Ourselves

Frederick V. Malmstrom Center for Character Development, 2360 Vandenberg Drive

U.S. Air Force Academy, CO 80840 USA [email protected]

Abstract

Self-claimed UFO abductees report a nearly universal UFO alien-type face. Such faces are nearly always recalled while the abductee is either under hypnotic regression or else in the half-asleep stage of hypnagogic dream arousal. The UFO alien face seems to resemble a prototype, inborn visual facial recognition template as might be seen by a newborn infant. Inborn visual recognition templates have long been widely reported in other species, such as newly hatched chicks. These recognition templates obviously have a significant survival value. Likewise, human infants also have an inborn recognition template for eyes, and especially for a young female “protoface.” I propose that the widely reported UFO alien face is largely the imaginal female protoface which is already present in the deep structures of the brain from birth. In this article I construct from the photographs of three young female volunteers what I propose is also the protoface of the UFO alien.

The Usual UFO Alien The astronomer Carl Sagan (1974) had dismissed the ubiquity of UFO aliens with the statement, “All UFO occupants look alike.” Indeed, UFO alien faces historically described by abductees are almost boringly uniform. Long before “close encounters” became a catchword in the ufologist’s vocabulary, self-proclaimed UFO abductees were describing their abductors as bulbous-headed humanoids equipped with oversized, wraparound eyes, vertical double-slit nostrils and gray skin. This common UFO alien face claimed by abductees is usually recalled while the victim is in a hypnagogic half-dream state or else undergoing hypnotic regression. Figure 1 shows a typical face drawn by a self-claimed UFO abductee interviewed by Robert A. Baker in 1993. Figure 2 shows a typical UFO alien face drawn by one of my self-claimed abductee clients. These UFO alien faces are interesting not so much for their validity but for their sameness.

Figure 1. A typical UFO alien face. Courtesy of Robert A. Baker.

Figure 2. UFO alien face drawn by one of my clients.

In 1979, my colleague Richard Coffman and I published a study of the bodily dimensions of reported UFO aliens. Taken from the Aerial Phenomenon Reporting Organization files compiled by the late Jim and Coral Lorenzen, our random sample of 30 reported UFO aliens revealed 100% of them as humanoid in shape (i.e. 2 arms, 2 legs, torso and head) and standing at a median height of 155 cm (60 inches). This median height compares favorably with a median height of 162 cm (62.5 inches) for U.S. adult females.


However, our most telling finding was that nearly all of our UFO close-encounter reports were later taken from subjects who admitted being in a hypnagogic state (that nether region between sleep and wakefulness) or else under hypnotic regression. For instance, the world-famous New Hampshire abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill -- Betty was once a neighbor of mine -- was described by this well-known couple several weeks after their abduction experience and was even then prompted only with the assistance of hypnotic regression (Fuller, 1965).

The Inborn Visual Recognition Template Many newborn animals are equipped with inborn visual survival-necessary recognition templates. It has been well over a half-century since Nobel laureate ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen (1951) published research that newly hatched chicks would automatically cower from shadow patterns resembling predators (such as hawks). These same chicks ignored shadow patterns matching nonpredators (such as geese). Figure 3 and 4 illustrate the shadow patterns chicks respond to differently to.

Figure 3. Hawk shadow pattern. Chicks flee (After Tinbergen, 1951).

Figure 4. Goose shadow pattern. Chicks ignore. (After Tinbergen, 1951).

Newborn Infant Visual Recognition Human facial recognition is a highly specialized ability, and it seems also to be prewired from birth in specific visual processing areas of the brain. However, the human newborn ability to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar faces does not develop in infants until about two months of age (Atkinson, 2000). Up to that time, an infant will respond favorably to nearly any face, familiar or unfamiliar, normal or bizarre, mother or Halloween mask. Of course, all these human-type faces seem to share those two quite generalized and nonspecific features, namely a pair of eyes and a nose (Bushnell, 1982).

The singular feature which seems to grab a baby’s attention is the presence of two large horizontally arranged spots or “eyes.” Infants seem to ignore one or three spots. The pioneer pupillometry researcher Eckhard Hess reported that infants paid especial attention to the size of the “pupils” within these eyes. Larger pupils attracted more infant attention than smaller ones. The visual presentation which gathered most infants’ attention was the dual large-pupil schematic like that shown in Figure 5.


Figure 5. Dual “pupil” schematic which received the most attention from newborn infants (After Hess, 1975).

Figure 6. Female “protoface” which infants respond favorably to. (After Nelson 1994).

Bushnell improved on Hess’s schematic dual pupils and utilized a “prototype” young female face, one which the hair and ear outline of the face was covered in white bandages, such as the one shown in Figure 6. Newborn infants seemed not to discriminate between these prototype faces, although within weeks afterwards they quickly learned to discriminate between faces with the added cue of a hair outline. However, this prototype hairless and earless facial recognition ability is reportedly located in a noncortical area of the brain, the hippocampus (Nelson, 1994). So, apparently this generalized infant inborn facial recognition is evolutionarily quite primitive. According to this research, the infant begins with the prototype “protoface” female face prewired visually into the midbrain and then later adds additional visual recognition cues, such as the hairline and ears, into the cortical areas.

Newborns Have Quite Limited Visual Capabilities There is much disagreement in the literature debating whether a neonate is born severely myopic (nearsighted) or hypermetropic (farsighted). Regardless of the conflicting claims, it is generally reported that a neonate will pay attention to objects only 7-25 cm (3-10 in) in front of the eye, and it will generally ignore any activity outside this range. However, the infant’s range of attention increases rapidly and will expand to perhaps a range of 1 meter or greater in as little as 1-2 days after birth (McCarthy, 2000). The newborn infant’s vision is also reported to be substantially clouded, as if he or she is peering through fog . And, as regards infant color perception, neonates (as measured by the time they devote attention) are also unable to discriminate colors within the same display. Hence, their vision seems to be a world of tending to the gray scales. To the newborn, says Atkinson (2000), “colour discriminations are either weak or absent.”i Finally, Atkinson reports that newborn astigmatism is “very common.” Adults are quite aware that astigmatism is most annoying and gives the impression of visual “smearing” of the image. However, newborn astigmatism seems to be a perceived smearing only in the periphery of all images outside the central cylinder of focus

Seeing Faces That Are or Aren’t There Prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces, is both a well-documented and fascinating medical condition. It is frequently preceded by bilateral brain damage or insult to the areas surrounding the calcarine fissure, an area which overlaps both the parietal and visual cortex. Anatomically, the cortical fusiform gryi and the midbrain structures are also most certainly involved. Prosopagnosia involves not only the inability to see or recognize faces, but sometimes, and just as importantly, as neurologist Oliver


Sacks journals in his charming 1998 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, often involves the perception of faces that aren’t there.

Human facial recognition occurs at a surprisingly coarse level of visual processing, around a crude

contrast sensitivity range of 3 cycles/degree spatial frequency, precisely the region where the human visual system also has its highest contrast sensitivity. Harmon and Julesz (1973), both of Bell Labs, reported faces are remarkably recognizable under these so-called degraded or otherwise blurry, limited environments. Moderate blurring acts as a low-pass filter and often actually improves facial recognition.

So What Does a Newborn Infant See? Obviously, one of the first and recurring memorable scenes he or she sees is its mother’s face -- an item of considerable survival value. Therefore, in this article I have stepwise transformed a young female face (see Figure 7) into that face which may be presumed to be seen by the newborn. This face is “typical” insofar as it is reputedly perceived by an infant who is also at an intimately close distance. Secondly, I invite the reader to compare a “neonatally” perceived face to a “typical” UFO alien face such as shown in either Figure 1 or 2. In doing so, I demonstrate there may be an innate template face which approximates the typically reported face of the UFO alien.

Transforming a Mother’s Face into a UFO Alien I enlisted the volunteer assistance of a young healthy Caucasian female (Figure 7) about age 30, a representative age for a mother of a newborn. She was photographed with face-on lighting to reduce shadowing and also to minimize her hairline. Her digital photo (Figure 8) was then transformed in gray scales to a coarseness of about 150 pixels across a field of 50 degrees of visual angle. This operation simulated a 2-dimensional Fourier transform of about 3 cycles/degree of visual angle, the same region where the human visual system has its highest contrast sensitivity. Extremely shallow depth of focus and

Figure 7. Untransformed Caucasian female face.

Figure 8. Partially transformed Caucasian female face.


astigmatism was also simulated by smearing the periphery. Finally, (Figure 9) her partially processed face was then clouded and further smoothed by blurring to eliminate the high spatial frequencies introduced by the coarse pixellation process of step one.

The final process (Figure 9) was accomplished by a inserting a smoothing function which serves as an additional second low-pass spatial frequency filter, passing only the 3 cycles/degree visual information. This transform makes the mouth features still more indistinguishable but paradoxically often improves facial recognition. In fact, this UFO face transformation effect becomes even more prominent if the observer squints at the picture. Squinting acts as an additional low-pass filter.

Figure 9. A fully transformed Caucasian female face becomes a UFO alien.

Race and Skin Color Don’t Matter Finally, I transformed the faces of two female volunteers, one Asian American (Figures 10 & 11) and one African American (Figures 12 & 13). I have not included their intermediate transformation process, but their original and final transformed faces are presented side by side. The results are strikingly similar to that of Figure 9.

Figure 10. Untransformed Asian American Face

Figure 11. An Asian American female face becomes a UFO alien.


Figure 12. Untransformed African American face. Figure 13. An African American female face becomes a UFO alien.

Do We See an Internally Produced Little Green Woman?

These transformation results could be used to support the claim that ubiquitous UFO alien faces are actually those of internally generated Little Green Women rather than Little Green Men. The power of visual imagery is often confused for visual reality. This confusion is understandable, as visual imagery frequently occupies and competes for the same regions of the both visual cortical and subcortical regions as visual perception itself. The competition between visual and mental images seems to be at its greatest during hypnagogic and dream states, precisely the awareness regions where these two processes merge (Baker, 1996). Hence, it would be expected that the UFO alien face which is perceived in hypnagogic and other dreamlike states is also produced from the same primitive facial recognition template.

Like the newly-hatched chick predator-recognition system reported by Tinbergen (1951), we should not be surprised

if the template female UFO-type face is also preprogrammed into our human brains. The infant’s immediate recognition of a prototype female face -- and especially that of its mother -- is arguably an important survival advantage.

References Atkinson, J. (2000). The developing visual brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baker, Robert A. (1996). Hidden memories: Voices and visions from within. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. Bushnell, I.W.R. (1982). “Discrimination of faces by young infants.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 33, 298-308. Fuller, J.G. (1965). The Interrupted Journey. New York: Dial Press. Harmon, L. and Bela Julesz (1973). “Masking in visual recognition: Effects of two-dimensional filtered noise.” Science, 180, 1194-1197. Hess, E. H.(1975). The tell-tale eye. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Malmstrom, F. & Richard Coffman (1979). “Humanoids reported in UFOs, religion, and folktales: Human bias towards human life forms?” In: Haines, R. (ed). UFO phenomena and the behavioral scientist. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 60-88. McCarthy, G. (2000). “Physiological studies of face processing in humans.” In: Gazzaniga, M. S. (ed.-in- chief). The New Cognitive Neuroscience, 2nd edition. Boston: The MIT Press. Nelson, C.A. (1994). “Neural correlates of recognition memory during the first potential year of life”. In: Dawson G., and K. Fisher (eds) Human behaviour and the developing brain, New York: Guilford Press, 269-313. Sacks, Oliver. (1998). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. New York: Touchstone Books. Sagan, Carl (1974). Personal communication. Tinbergen, N. (1951). The study of instinct. London: Oxford University Press.


Acknowledgments Thanks for assistance from the late Robert A. Baker, Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky, and Jennifer

Krischer, Clare Wang, Carla Sizer, Jess Leuschen, David Westmoreland, Geoff Andersen, and Jim West all of the U.S. Air Force Academy. A previous version of this article appeared in the Fall 2005 issue (vol. 11(4) ) of Skeptic.

Postscript

It’s an understatement that coupling mental imagery with a willingness to believe can be nothing short of terrifying. In the early morning hours of March 1965 I was a junior Air Force lieutenant traveling in a lone auto on the freeway enroute from Austin to Waco, Texas. Out of seemingly nowhere, I was surrounded by an eerie green glow which lasted, I recall, for perhaps 15 or 20 minutes. The air was sparkling, I had never seen anything like it before, and I had no ready explanation. At that moment I truly believed I was about to be spirited away by an extraterrestrial force, and I made up my mind I wouldn’t offer my would-be abductors any resistance. It was only the next day I read in the newspapers that U.S. Army helicopters from Ft. Hood had been dropping experimental flares through the overcast along the freeway. In the years following, scores of times I dodged both bullets and surface-to-air missiles while flying over North Vietnam. However, those mere combat experiences never came close to equaling the minutes of pure terror from my near-UFO abduction I dodged that night on the Texas freeways. As the old philosopher says, “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it.” [Quotation attributed to Yogi Berra}

09_fm_tam4 handling of recovered ebe's

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