• AP Magazine

    An alternative way to explore and explain the mysteries of our world. "Published since 1985, online since 2001."

  • 1
Alternate Perceptions Magazine, December 2019


The Interdimensional vs ET Hypothesis, Virtual Experiences and UFO Sightings as “thought forms”

by: J. Burkes, MD







John Alva Keel, (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009) was an influential American journalist and popular ufologist. He is the author of “Operation Trojan Horse” (1970) and “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975). This later book was the basis for a paranormal thriller of the same name released in 2002 staring Richard Gere and Laura Linney. I discovered the writings of John Keel 20 years ago when I started formulating what I now call the Virtual Experience Model or Hypothesis. This radical theory describes how UFO intelligences employ illusions, virtual reality and the implanting of false memories to create a diverse set of beliefs about who and what they are.

Both Keel and Dr. Jacques Vallee are known as champions of the interdimensional hypothesis (IDH) which stands in contrast to the more popular ET hypothesis (ETH) for UFOs. John Keel also linked flying saucers to supernatural concepts such as ghosts and demons. Among fans of the ETH, Keel is infamous for saying, that he did not consider himself a "ufologist" but a "demonologist." In my judgment the ETH is a likely partial explanation for UFOs and related phenomenon. I can excuse Keel’s extreme purest support of the IDH because most of his remarkable investigations into flying saucers occurred decades prior to the revelations starting in the 1980s about an alleged UFO crash in Roswell New Mexico. Subsequent testimony by a host of corporate and government witnesses have supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis. It should also be noted that the IDH and the ETH are not mutually exclusive. Flying saucer associated intelligences might come from other star systems while being able to traverse multiple dimensions or parallel universes. According to Dr. Vallee they also appear to be able to manipulate time-space in such ways that they are forever confounding both witnesses and researchers alike.

In the mid 1990s, while participating in Human Initiated Contact Experience (HICE) fieldwork popularly known as “CE-5s”, I had a series of encounters in which UFO intelligence demonstrated its apparent ability to create illusions. These included reported encounters with both anomalous aerial phenomena and in one instance a 3D image of a small non-human grey ET being. This creature was reportedly seen floating just below the ceiling in the apartment of a fellow contact worker while I was talking with him on the phone. Based in part on these contact events, I have created a theory that flying saucer associated intelligences use illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this “The Virtual Experience Model.” I have postulated that such visual displays are manufactured by using two possible mechanisms. In my opinion, one is analogous to our holographic technology in which an image can be seen by all witnesses present. The other mechanism is via an energetic stimulation of visual neural pathways that allow one individual to “see” the illusion, while others not targeted do not perceive the visual display. Holographic technology was first developed in the 1960s in both the USA and the former USSR. John Keel in his popular book “The Mothman Prophecies” speculated that a different mechanism might be employed. He suggested that extraordinary psychic capabilities are able to produce physical objects and beings that are more than just illusions. In “The Mothman Prophecies” John Keel writes, “The Tibetans believe that advanced human minds can manipulate these invisible energies into visible forms called tulpas, or thought projections.”

According to psychonautwiki.org, a tulpa “is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.”

The term “tulpa” was adapted by 20th century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa which means “emanation” or “manifestation." Thanks to hit TV series “The X Files”, the concept of Tibetan tulpas has entered briefly into popular culture. In an episode titled “A Civic-Minded Ghost...” as a fictional plot device a tulpa is portrayed as being able to commit murder.

If the Virtual Experience Model is valid then some, but certainly not all visual displays of flying saucers that we call “sightings” are illusory in nature. They might be produced by hologram like technology or direct stimulation of neural optic tracts. In the case of tulpas however, the proposition is that actual physical objects and beings are presumably being created by the tremendous psi capabilities of advanced intelligences.

In what I call a Virtual Experience of the First Kind, or a Virtual Sighting, what the witness perceives as an object or being is not physical but merely a visual display. If my Virtual Experience Model is valid, then it is a challenge to the long standing paradigm of “scientific ufology” groups like MUFON. The Mutual UFO Network for fifty years has conducted research into flying saucers, for the most part in my judgment as if they were some kind of engineering problem. I am suggesting that perhaps generations of dedicated volunteer investigators, at least some of the time, have not been charting the “flight characteristics” of physical objects, but instead may have been chasing phantoms.

In a similar fashion, many of my fellow contact activists imagine that every anomalous nocturnal light that interacts with CE5/HICE teams, are piloted by friendly aliens. Although some Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) in my judgment very likely are physical objects with the possibility of live alien crews inside them, if the VEM is accurate, many, perhaps even most are not piloted by living beings. Our society is now slowly moving towards more openness on the UAP controversy. For those of us that believe this issue is of vital importance we should have an accurate assessment the phenomenon. With a better understanding of the mechanisms of contact, we will be in a stronger position to explain to the larger society the importance of flying saucers.

In conclusion, I encourage all UFO fans, especially contact and disclosure activists to contemplate the Virtual Experience Model and to study the radical theories of John Keel whose books are informative, highly entertaining and are available as PDF files online.


Friday, March 29, 2024