Forbidden Science

A car was on fire on the turnpike. Downtown Boston smelled of pollution. Traffic was bad, the Mystic tunnel clogged up like a sewer, so I missed my plane. When I finally landed in New York I collapsed, tired and frustrated, in the downtown bus. (16 Jul 1972)

The same night Terry and his wife woke up with bloody cuts on their thumbs; the horses stampeded, enhancing the atmosphere of primeval terror around the place. (22 Sep 1996)

But I do have Janine, warm Janine close to me, Janine who loves me, while the great tycoons and wealthy captains of industry I know have left little but a trail of broken families, divorces, and resentment. (25 Jul 1994)

The kind futility of France enfolds me once again. I am reconciled with it. I experience with delight this country that doesn't change, its amiable folks hopelessly dominated by an egotistical elite with an enormous ability to exploit those it should serve. (2 Oct 1969)

He also confirmed that the French military had been redoing Petit’s experiments without him, irradiating plants to simulate what happened at Trans-en-Provence, and researching microwaves. (23 Apr 1989)

Is it the sad spectacle of the streets of San Francisco, fat men in ugly shorts, stoned waifs lost, drifters in tattered clothes, and the debris of the failed New Age? Is it the old people who sit in doorsteps with nothing in their eyes but a stunned vacuum? (2 Oct 1980)

What is the feeling that comes with the rain, bypassing the conscious mind, when we have made love too long and too hard, when the brain has been dulled by great stunning waves of life? (17 Apr 1966)

I have just become a United States citizen. My two witnesses were Paul Rech and Mike Kudlick. Last night I attended a PRG meeting where Russell Targ, another SRI physicist, summarized current parapsychology research. (27 Sep 1972)

Roy came into my office and told me that I would be wrong to leave. “You may be in a cage here,” he said, “but the cage has no locked door. Why don't you stay? You won't be happy with the stress of day-to-day business on your shoulders.” (8 Mar 1975)

Ambroise Roux, president of CGE, a large utility firm, is interested in psychic research. When he wrote a brief memorandum about the subject the reaction of his business colleagues was closed-minded: “You are bringing dishonor to this house,” they said. (14 May 1979)

Walker replied he was impressed with Hal’s research on zero-point energy and relativistic models of anomalous phenomena, but he added, “You will learn very little from spending much time on what you call ‘some of the more bizarre claimed observations in the UFO field.’" (6 Jun 1991)

Timothy Leary told me he counted on the new wave of space enthusiasm among the public to bring him back to national prominence. He looked buoyant in a blue flight jacket. When I described computer conferencing he understood it right away. (22 Jan 1977)

I don't find myself here. I long for a smaller world, for a retreat. I want to get down from the merry-go-round for a while. I have had my fun, I have screamed and laughed with all the others. It may soon be time to leave the fireworks of America behind. (25 Jul 1965)

The high point of the day was the opportunity to spend some quiet, reflective time in the office of Yuri Gagarin, where Soviet cosmonauts come for spiritual retreat on the eve of a launch. Gagarin was flying his jet half-drunk when he crashed. (10 Jan 1990)

Bill Powers then said what he always says whenever someone raises the issue of a secret study of UFOs. "That can't be true. The story would leak out. We would meet their agents in the field. You shouldn't assume these guys are intelligent just because they work in Intelligence." (14 Sep 1969)

Delangle, a 61-year-old retired construction manager specialized in airport control towers and concrete facilities, was driving north through the hamlet of Haravilliers, followed by another car with two friends, when they saw a mass of lights rising above the trees ahead of them. (7 Feb 1999)

In reality I do know something about UFOs now: the phenomena operate in a space for which our every day spacetime continuum is only a subset. I also think the phenomenon is physical, but it integrates psychic functioning. Contact is possible but irreversible. (12 Apr 1981)

I am also concerned about the apparent change in Aimé, who five years ago was full of ideas for research, hypotheses to check, studies to conduct. Today he refuses to admit that we are dealing with a problem whose nature we simply do not understand. (13 Dec 1967)

We could see the top branches of drowning trees emerging from the gloom, the roofs of old estancias and even the white structure of a three-story hotel turned into an incongruous island. (27 Apr 1980)

In the minds of many conservative scientists, a phenomenon that was so disgustingly exploited by the media and by wild-eyed, uncritical zealots was automatically deemed unworthy of their time and attention. Hynek's words and mine were simply lost in the noise. (Epilogue, Vol. 1)

Aimé Michel has given me the address of Dr. Hynek, who is director of Dearborn Observatory at Northwestern University in Evanston, near Chicago. I have mailed my Mars correlation article to him, to de Vaucouleurs and also to Richard Hall, of the civilian research group NICAP. (7 Feb 1962)

I no longer find the calm retreat into myself or the concentration I need to write. Since our return from France I have gone through a period of dry, helpless disappointment, even though Chicago is as magnificent next to its big open lake as Paris is frustrating and bureaucratic. (10 Jul 1964)

“You can't imagine how many people believe they're from another planet,” she told me. “They get upset when I challenge them. I ask them which day they were born; they tell me something like, April 14th. That's stupid, on another planet there would be no such thing as April 14th.” (8 Sep 1972)

In one week we will be back in France, for a short stay on the way to Russia. It will be good to see Aimé Michel again. Should I tell him everything? He advises me to contact Professor Rocard, a physics expert from Ecole Normale Superieure who has access to De Gaulle. (23 Jul 1966)

Roger Corréard, a 63-year old erudite ladies' man, keeper of mysteries, and self-appointed Guardian of Forgotten Secrets, took us along steep slopes to another Roman Via that archaeologists have neglected to investigate. (23 Sep 1993)

Fred understands there is a threshold beyond which one is irreversibly changed by the phenomenon, and he isn't ready to go through it. What he relishes is the vicarious thrill of hearing witnesses tell their stories. (21 Oct 1972)

A demonstration against the extreme right turned ugly last night. Mad with hate, the cops charged the crowd, forcing it to retreat down the stairs of the subway station at Charonne. The iron gates had been drawn shut. (9 Feb 1962)

This morning I heard a manager make a little speech in which he thundered against those Frenchmen who refused to work below their level. "They demand an attractive job, as if jobs should be attractive!" (22 Feb 1968)

The ancient Egyptians, for example, knew of the magnetic properties of certain metals and their jewelry shows evidence of electroplating, yet they never developed an understanding of simple circuits. (Epilogue, Vol. 1)

In the current Air Force Physics Manual Janine and I are cited in a section about UFOs. Two of the illustrations are drawn from Challenge to Science. Uri Geller is in Germany, trying to sell a record of syrupy love songs. (21 Dec 1974)