Wednesday, December 05, 2007

The UFOIC Thread – the ties that bind, past & present, East & West....




I recently revisited Nicolas Jose’s evocative fictional literary embrace with the Chinese classic “Six Chapters in a floating life”, namely his novel “The Red Thread.” I mused over the back cover description: “An intimate, lyrical story about the ties that bind people together, past and present, East and West, physical and spiritual.”

I reflected on my past and present journey with the UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC) – country member from the late 1960s, committee member from 1975, co-coordinator and director from 1976. I helped steer UFOIC through a group name change in 1977 which was in keeping with broader currents of change in the Australian UFO research community. By the early 1980s I steered the group through another more profound change – from a public group to a low profile networking group, again a change many researchers were adopting, which saw working in a looser networking format, with national networks was a very productive path to pursue. Through the 1980s this fundamental change allowed myself and other associates to pursue a number of major projects such as extensive research into the Australian government UFO files and deep research into the alien abduction controversy, which continued into the 1990s. In 1991 we readopted the UFOIC name.

Looking back at my post “The evolution of UFOIC” I noted by coincidence it had 6 ‘phases’ or ‘chapters.' In “Six Chapters (or records) of a floating life” of course there are two missing chapters. Jose’s novel “The Red Thread” utilises the idea of the missing chapters resurfacing.

Fragments of the UFOIC thread are missing as well, but not whole chapters – as I indicated UFOIC itself went missing, at least in name only, between 1977 and 1991, when it existed in both thought and deeds, reformed and re-imagined, under another name, UFO Research (NSW). Circumstances gathered in late 1991 and the group name UFOIC was readopted, embracing the “floating life” of a group thread. UFOIC was now re-envisioned as a continuation of the successful ‘low profile’ networking model embraced in the early 1980s, which itself had developed from the UFOIC of the 1970s.

The UFOIC thread has weaved its way from its formal beginnings in 1956 and earlier foundations, through the decades, going through changes of focus and format. Each of these changes contributed to the UFOIC thread, which for me provided the foundation fabric of my own involvement. UFOIC has been a backbone of my body of interest in the UFO subject and continues today.

Throughout all this “floating life” of UFOIC there were many ties that bound numerous people together, past and present, indeed even “East and West, physical and spiritual.”

I reflected on my own deep research into the Chinese UFO scene – my East West nexus. Given my current and past UFOIC connections I pondered this Chinese connection – a “Dragon Seed” – from its earliest manifestations through pioneer UFOIC researcher Andrew Tomas. Prior to his UFOIC association from 1955 to 1965 he was writing about strange aerial objects when he was in China in 1935! He would embrace a spiritual path somewhat anchored in the physical world. Here I am in 2007 researching physical dimensions of the Chinese and Asian UFO scene, occasionally embracing the spiritual depths of the oriental alien experience.

A strange, lyrical and fascinating UFOIC thread.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

7:33 am  

Post a Comment

<< Home