Darkness, tunnels, and light are wondrous phenomena sometimes reported by the dying, as well as those recovering from near-death experiences (NDEs). These experiences have been reported since antiquity. Along with many others, I first learned of these experiences from a film I saw in 1990 called Flatliners. The film showed amazing and improbable medical apparati used in an equally improbable and dramatic location. Even so, I was stimulated to read more, and became fascinated by the possible physiology of all aspects of NDEs.

I am a physician specializing in anesthesiology, and have worked as a consultant anesthesiologist in Holland since 1980. An anesthesiologist is not someone who just knocks patients out, sits down, opens a newspaper, and waits for the surgeon to finish his work; instead, he or she keeps patients alive and insensible to pain during operations, and ensures that patients survive their operations in the best possible condition. This work requires me to view all bodily and mental phenomena from a very basic physiological perspective. So in my practice, I ask myself, “How can the functioning of the body generate this phenomenon? What is the mechanism? How does it work?” My approach to the study of NDE phenomena is very similar, which is why this article is about the ways the functioning of the body can generate darkness, tunnel, and light experiences.

Darkness, tunnel, and light experiences are part of the so-called “core-NDE” described by Kenneth Ring, an eminent NDE researcher in the 1970s and 1980s. He described the core-NDE as having the following components (Roberts and Owen 1988): feeling blissful sensations; leaving the body; entering a tunnel or darkness; perceiving a bright light; and entering the light.

Wonderful, fantastical experiences . . . but what is the mechanism? How can they be explained? Many people offer explanations ranging from the preposterous to those worthy of serious consideration. Among them:

• Real experiences of a spiritual or immaterial realm. The immaterial is unseen, unheard, and unable to be sensed or measured empirically; it is unprovable.
• A dream arising from the collective unconscious. The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung proposed this idea. Indeed, inculcation of cultural identities and myths certainly occurs during the upbringing of each person. But the invocation of these aspects of each person’s unconscious to explain tunnel, darkness, and light experiences is to use an explanation that is just as unprovable as is any immaterial or spiritual explanation.
• Recollection of the birth experience; an explanation proposed by the late Carl Sagan. This is a curious and dubious explanation. After all, babies’ eyes are shut during birth, their brains and vision are undeveloped, and there is no way to know what a baby experiences. Furthermore, why should people undergo a repeated birth experience while dying?
• The effects of drugs and medicines. Most people undergoing these experiences are not under the effects of any drugs or medicines.
• Carbon dioxide intoxication or oxygen starvation. Many people undergoing these experiences are not suffering from carbon dioxide overload or oxygen starvation.
• A flood of endorphins (morphine-like substances in the brain), released by the dying brain. This is a compelling idea, but an inadequate explanation, and at best very difficult to prove.
• Susan Blackmore’s neural-noise theory. In 1989, Tom Troscianko and Susan Blackmore reasoned that there were more nerve cells within the visual cortex representing the central parts of the retina than there were representing its peripheral parts. A computer simulation of increasing neural noise in the visual cortex induced by drugs or disease revealed a blob of white light gradually increasing in size, which, when viewed on a screen, gave viewers the sensation of moving down a tunnel toward a bright light and finally being enveloped by the light (Blackmore 1991). An elegant idea, but it neglects basic facts, such as the relative oxygen consumptions of retina and brain, as well as the fact that people can “see the light” while at the same time seeing things around them. These facts render the neural-noise theory an inadequate explanation of tunnel and light experiences, except perhaps for situations where there is epileptic nerve activity within the visual cortex.

What is another explanation for these experiences? After all, they are real experiences. People who have undergone them are neither mad nor hysterical, and they really have undergone darkness, tunnel, and light experiences. But how? I began my study with the light experience, distilling its properties from the stories I heard and the many reports I read. These properties are: people see bright light; the light does not hurt the eyes; this light is seen not only during NDEs undergone by apparently unconscious people, but also reported by the conscious dying; and no one else can see this bright light.

‘The Lovely Brightness’

Any successful physiological theory about the light experience must be able to explain these properties. After my medical studies, I left Australia to specialize in anesthesiology in England. While there, I worked in the now defunct Hackney General Hospital, as well as the equally defunct Mothers’ Hospital. This latter was an obstetrics hospital in the impoverished district of Clapton in London’s East End. Because I’d practiced there, a report related by Sir William Barrett in the book Death-Bed Experiences attracted my attention (Barrett 1926). I knew the hospital, how the rooms appeared, and how they were lit, as well as the nature of the women who came there to have their babies delivered. In Barrett’s report, a dying woman first saw only darkness, and subsequently saw a “lovely brightness,” as well as “bright forms.” The obstetrician reported her observations. At one point she wrote: “But then she turned to her husband, who had come in, and said, ‘You won’t let the baby go to anyone who won’t love him, will you?’ Then she gently pushed him to one side, saying, ‘Let me see the lovely brightness.’”

A matron was also present, and reported: “Her husband was leaning over her and speaking to her, when pushing him aside she said, ‘Oh, don’t hide it; it’s so beautiful.’”

These two sentences reveal that this woman saw the “lovely brightness” because her medical condition caused her pupils to widen. The woman was dying of heart failure, and lethal heart failure causes oxygen starvation; severe oxygen starvation causes the pupils to widen. Furthermore, sympathetic nervous system activity is maximal during lethal heart failure, and this also causes the pupils to widen.

No one else in the room saw the bright and wonderful light, and nowhere does this report mention that the lighting in the room was increased. The size of the pupils of the other people in the room did not change because the level of illumination in the room did not change, so they did not see the bright light. This woman pushed her husband aside because he did indeed block the light. So she saw bright light because her pupils widened, admitting more light into her eyes. Light enters the eyes through the pupils, and the diameter of the human pupil varies from 1 millimeter to as much as 10 mill limeters. A small calculation reveals the magnitude of the effect of pupil widening: the area of the pupil through which light is admitted into the eye is a circle, and pupil area = pi (pupil radius)2. This means that the amount of light entering each eye can increase by as much as 100 times.

Pupil widening is indeed a likely reason she saw a “lovely brightness.” Another sentence in this same report also caught my eye: “She lived for another hour, and appeared to have retained to the last the double consciousness of the bright forms she saw, and also of those tending her at the bedside. . . .”

Fascinating—and also very revealing. As an amateur photographer, I realized this was also an effect of pupil widening. Pupil widening reduces the depth of field. A person whose pupils are widely dilated not only sees bright light, but only clearly sees people upon whom the eyes are focused, while all other people are seen as bright and blurry forms. So this unfortunate woman interpreted the bright and blurry images of out-of-focus people elsewhere in the room as “bright forms.”

The optical effects of pupil widening were very likely the cause of the “bright light” and “bright forms” seen by this woman. However, to her and her family, as well as to all observers, the experiences and observations she reported while dying were not just mental and optical manifestations of a mundane biological event. Instead, they were an intense and wondrous confirmation of deeply held socio-cultural beliefs in a life after death. This story beautifully illustrates how pupil widening due to a multitude of causes can arouse visions of “bright light” and “figures of light.”

Oxygen Deprivation

At the same time as I read this account, I was also studying the effects of oxygen poisoning and oxygen starvation, and learned that both tunnel and darkness experiences could be caused by oxygen starvation. Oxygen is an essential ingredient in complex chemical reactions within all cells of the body, generating vital, energy-rich chemicals. Oxygen starvation can occur when there is: too little oxygen in the air; abnormal lung function; abnormal heart function; too little blood; anemia; abnormal red blood cell function; obstructed or severed blood vessels; abnormal cell function; or any combination of one or more of these factors.

Oxygen starvation causes failure of all the organs and tissues of the body, and the eyes and brain are most sensitive to its effects, failing before any other organs. Furthermore, the retina has a higher oxygen consumption than the brain, which is why oxygen starvation causes the functioning of the retina to fail before significantly affecting the functioning of the brain.

Oxygen starvation does not cause all parts of the brain to fail at the same time. The brain stem, which generates consciousness, is the part of the brain most resistant to oxygen starvation. Therefore, oxygen starvation will cause vision to fail before causing a loss of consciousness. And indeed, the experience of fainting proves this. Fainting is due to a sudden, fortunately temporary, failure of blood flow to the head, resulting in oxygen starvation of the brain and loss of consciousness. Just before losing consciousness, many people notice that everything suddenly “went gray,” “went dark,” or “went black.” Perception of grayness or darkness is a conscious experience, so these people are actually saying that their vision failed before they lost consciousness. Some people also report tunnel vision just before losing consciousness.

Oxygen starvation can cause both tunnel and darkness experiences. The reason for this lies in the structure and functioning of the blood supply of the retina. The macula is the optical center of the retina; it has the greatest blood supply, while the flow of blood to the retina decreases with distance from the macula according to the inverse square law. Yet the oxygen consumption of each part of the retina is much the same, so oxygen starvation will cause failure of peripheral vision before causing total visual failure. Indeed, experiments with oxygen starvation in human volunteers prove this fact. This is why tunnel experiences occur only in NDEs caused by oxygen starvation, while toxins and poisons cause a “pit experience” before causing failure of vision. So oxygen starvation explains why not everyone has a tunnel experience during an NDE. Oxygen starvation also explains why the tunnel experience is not a true component of the NDE, but is instead a manifestation of the cause of the NDE (Greyson 1983).

Somatic Sensations

Aha, say the critics, but during a “tunnel experience” people feel themselves moving, flying, or being drawn through a tunnel toward a light or entering the light. So they say oxygen starvation cannot be the cause of tunnel and light experiences. Yet oxygen starvation explains these sensations very well. Furthermore, a close study of the way oxygen starvation affects conscious perception of sensations explains all these things without the necessity of invoking a human soul, paranormal sensations, or immaterial spirit worlds.

The human brain is about one and a half kilos of jelly-like tissue contained within the protective confines of the hard bones of the skull. Mind is a product of brain function, and all sensations enter the brain as signals conducted into the brain along sensory nerves. The mind only knows what is happening within the body, to the body, and in the world around the body by interpreting the sensory nerve signals conveying sense data into the brain. So if these sensory nerves transmit signals into the brain indicating that the body is moving, falling, or flying, the conscious mind perceives the body to be moving, falling, or flying. Furthermore, if the brain malfunctions, even normal sensory signals transmitted into the brain may be interpreted incorrectly. And the malfunctioning brain may even misinterpret normal sensory signals as sensations of movement, falling, or flying. Oxygen starvation is a common cause of brain malfunction, as well as the cause of the terminal loss of consciousness of more than nine in ten dying persons (Murray 1997). And oxygen starvation causes malfunction of muscle spindles, the sense organs that provide the brain with most of its information about body position and movement. Muscle spindles are special muscle structures sandwiched between the fibers of every muscle. There is about one muscle spindle per 1,000 ordinary muscle fibers. Muscle spindles are both sense organs and muscle fibers, sensing and transmitting to the brain sensations of weight, of movement, of falling, of floating, and of flying. Moreover, the tensing and relaxing of muscle spindles relative to the surrounding muscle fibers also generates similar sensations.

Severe oxygen starvation causes convulsions. Muscle spindles sense these movements and transmit the sensations to the brain. Victims may also sense others attempting to aid them. The brain malfunctions during oxygen starvation, causing muscle spindle tension to differ from the tension of the surrounding muscle fibers. Body parts where muscle spindles are relaxed relative to surrounding muscle fibers feel heavier than normal, while body parts where muscle spindles are tenser than the surrounding muscle fibers feel lighter than normal. Again, all these phenomena have been well established experimentally.

During NDEs caused by oxygen starvation, a combination of brain malfunction, abnormal muscle spindle function, random movements due to convulsions caused by oxygen starvation, and movements of the oxygen-starved person’s body made by people treating and helping the person all combine to generate sensations of movement. When this is combined with a total loss of vision, tunnel vision, or the effects of pupil widening, sensations of moving through darkness or a tunnel toward light can occur. Some people also say they felt themselves being “drawn to the light.” This is quite possibly a result of the initial restoration of central vision, followed by an increasing restoration of peripheral vision as oxygen supplies to the eyes increase. A person undergoing such an experience would first see a small spot of light at the end of a tunnel which would gradually increase in size to envelop the whole visual field. This would give the illusion of moving toward a light at the end of a tunnel, and even of entering the light as retinal function was restored.

All these things make it possible to explain and understand the sequence of events during NDEs caused by oxygen starvation. Consider a report in Return From Death (1986), written by Margot Grey. Grey reported the story of a woman who nearly died in childbirth. This woman reported that “I was moving very rapidly down a long, dark tunnel. I seemed to be floating. I saw faces which came and went and who looked at me kindly, but did not communicate. I did not recognize them. As I got nearer to the end of the tunnel I seemed to be surrounded by a wonderful warm glowing light.”

The terminal loss of consciousness while dying during childbirth is always due to oxygen starvation caused by convulsions that can occur in late pregnancy (due to a toxic condition called “pre-eclampsia”), massive blood loss, heart failure, amniotic fluid embolus, hyperventilation, etc. An explanation of the sequence of events related by this woman is that she lost consciousness and all memory of events. Her resuscitation restored consciousness and her memory, but the oxygen supply to her retina was still insufficient to restore vision and normal sensory function. All this caused sensations of moving in a dark tunnel. Further restoration of the oxygen supply to her body restored central vision, which together with widened pupils caused her to sense movement toward a bright light at the end of a tunnel. Her recovery progressed, and retinal function was fully restored, but not normal vision or brain function—so she felt herself moving out of the tunnel to be enveloped by the light. Finally, delivery rooms are kept warm so the newly born babies do not cool down after birth. This was the warmth she felt.

Darkness, tunnel, and light experiences are wondrous, seemingly paranormal experiences. Nonetheless, it is evident that they can be explained by the body’s responses to oxygen starvation. The combination of tunnel and light experiences can only be explained by oxygen starvation, and nothing else. Other associated experiences, such as darkness and out-of-body experiences, can also be generated by other changes in body function induced by a wide range of different conditions. This explanation of tunnel-and-light experiences does not constitute conclusive proof that this is the only mechanism by which these experiences can arise. After all, this explanation does not preclude paranormal or immaterial explanations. But it is an alternative, provable physical explanation that accounts for all aspects of these experiences, as well as making it possible to predict when these experiences are likely to occur.

References

• Barrett, W. [1926] 1986. Death-bed Visions: Psychical Experiences of the Dying. London: Aquarian Press.
• Blackmore, S. 1991. Near-death experiences: in or out of the body? Skeptical Inquirer 16: 34—45.
• Grey, M. 1986. Return from Death: An Exploration of the Near-death Experience. London: Arkana.
• Greyson, B. 1983. The near-death experience scale: construction, reliability, and validity. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 171: 369—375.
• Murray, C.J.L., and A.D. Lopez. 1997. Mortality by cause for eight regions of the world: Global burden of disease study. Lancet 349: 1269—76.
• Roberts, G., and J. Owen. 1988. The near-death experience. British Journal of Psychiatry 153: 607—617.

I was busy calibrating instrumentation for top-secret Project Mogul in the spring of 1947. In retrospect, I was totally unaware of the project’s actual identity. My security clearance was for the lower rating of confidential. I was unaware of the project title for another forty-eight years, until 1995.

Welcome to the arcane world of classified Skyhook programs and Cold War intrigue. In this review, I hope to reveal many of those once-classified programs, how they generated UFO mythology, and why that relationship has not been fully addressed.

I write from a thirty-five-year professional career as a Skyhook balloon specialist and direct experience with most of the programs in these revelations. I was also an investigator for a special Project Blue Office and years later worked on the Pentagon Roswell report.

A Skyhook balloon provides constant-level performance at a predetermined altitude. It is usually constructed of special plastics and can lift tons of payload for durations of days or longer. The latter capability was once highly classified. Skyhook balloons were huge. The average size of those discussed in this article was double the six million cubic feet of the Hindenberg. Their diameters were about 300 feet with a flaccid length of 430 feet. Primarily cruising in the stratosphere, the balloons change color at high altitudes during sunrises and sunsets, while the Earth below is almost dark. These characteristics equate to a superb UFO generator.

It is therefore more than a coincidence that the birth of this vehicle in 1947 coincided with the origin of the twentieth century UFO epidemic. That epidemic was highlighted by the Roswell incident, with Project Mogul the prime seed. That relationship has already been detailed in a number of Skeptical Inquirer articles (for example, Thomas 1995).

The Skyhook Program

The prime launch site for Project Mogul was Alamogordo Air Base in New Mexico, west and therefore upwind of Roswell. The 1947 launches were in June and July, but there were initial UFO reports around the East Coast prior to the summer (Brookesmith 1995). These were preliminary test launches from New Jersey and Long Island.

There were also sightings in the summer of 1947 in the western and northwestern United States. A 1949 Air Force investigation (Trakowski 1949) could not correlate those sightings with Project Mogul, but the Air Force was unaware of a Navy program launching cluster balloons in Colorado that same summer. Coordination between branches of the military was limited in the years just following World War II. Accordingly, the dilemma of that 1949 report added fuel to a developing UFO mythology.

Clusters of weather balloons launched from both New Mexico and Colorado triggered reports of flying saucers sighted in formations throughout the West. They briefly preceded plastic Skyhook balloons, but their performance as constant-level vehicles was marginal.

An initial government coverup for Project Mogul saw an assembled crew not associated with the project launching a similar configuration, but without the classified payload. Newspapers were invited to the launch again at Alamogordo Air Base. Years later, as the Roswell legend resurfaced, UFO proponents denounced Project Mogul as a cover-up for their alien event.

At Alamogordo AFB headquarters, Mogul was listed as a guided-missile program. That represented a further cover-up procedure. The actual purpose of the project was stratospheric detection of distant nuclear bomb tests. Unknown to Roswell enthusiasts were classified programs that operated for decades afterward, based on Project Mogul technology.

One unclassified derivative was Project Blue Book, the Air Force investigation of UFOs. An initial sponsor was the Air Material Command, headquarters for Project Mogul. Blue Book originated in January, 1948, under the title Project Sign. Project Mogul prompted the initial development of a USAF Skyhook facility at Alamogordo AFB (today Holloman AFB). It was eventually governed by the Cambridge Research Laboratories in Massachusetts and became the prime USAF Skyhook launch site, still active today. Project Blue Book had outlying reporting offices throughout the country. Their function was to gather UFO reports and send them to the Blue Book main office at Wright Field, Ohio.

At Holloman AFB, the Blue Book office was situated in our Skyhook Balloon building. That choice was biased by the significant percent of reports generated by our relatively new vehicle. This office was also unique in that it, like the Wright Field Center, analyzed reports. I joined the Holloman Skyhook group in 1951 for a thirty-year tour and immediately became involved with Project Blue Book.

There was a more discrete reason for this special Blue Book role. In 1951, we became the primary center for unclassified Project Moby Dick. In at least one pro-Roswell book that project was erroneously dated 1947 and classified as secret (Randle 1994). Such misinformation contributes to the mythology of government cover-ups.

Rumors and Cover-ups

Project Moby Dick’s stated purpose was to study stratosphere wind trajectories, as defined via three-day Skyhook flights. After training for over a year at our location, crews and equipment moved to three West Coast sites for the operational phase. Although the announced purpose did result in final reports containing those stratospheric trajectories, there was actually a secretive phase. Moby Dick was in fact a cover-up for top-secret project WS-119L.

Beside the alphanumeric title, secret projects have secret names that vary for different phases. This program was called Project Gopher at our Alamogordo AFB launch site. It later accumulated titles including Grayback, Moby Dick Hi, Gentrix, and Grandson.

Even the WS prefix was a cover-up, since it was not a weapon system. The actual project goal was balloon reconnaissance of the Soviet Union. The entire subject is extensively covered in an excellent book by historian Curtis Peebles (Peebles 1991). Project Moby Dick was actually gathering trajectory data for Project Gopher, although the information also generated unclassified data for meteorological applications.

We flew five Gopher (WS-119L) test flights in 1951 and 1952 from our Air Force Skyhook Center. The payload was kept in a hanger during flight preparation under continuous armed guard. Outsiders noticed this and ensuing rumors eventually generated tales including a secret Project Aquarius. In Randle’s UFO Casebook (Randle 1989) he notes, “a possible Project Aquarius; Headquarters may be in Alamogordo with an important Branch in Montana.” In fact, we did have an auxiliary training camp in Montana. The mythology of Project Aquarius is nebulous but has something to do with an MJ-12 committee maintaining communications with Roswell aliens.

All this intrigue came to a head when the CIA suddenly showed up at our office and at launches. UFO reports peaked in 1952, as our local Skyhook activity increased from ninety-two hours the previous year to 694 hours aloft. Moreover, launches from the Moby Dick West Coast sites were commencing. Eventually they, along with additional sites in Missouri and Georgia, contributed 640 flights.

The CIA requested that we not identify most of those sharply increasing Skyhook reports. The strategy was to generate a UFO outbreak over the USA extending to the USSR when our WS-119L Skyhooks arrived there. Ironically, the ploy initially worked, since the Soviet Air Force could not intercept the first wave. They allowed their public to play our UFO game. The strategy ended after a few leaking Skyhooks were shot down and the payloads were exhibited, along with protests, to President Eisenhower.

Thus, complex interplay of Moby Dick, WS-119L, and UFO reports defined the unique role of our Blue Book office in that era. Since top-secret WS-119L was not declassified until more than thirty years later, that intrigue can only now be addressed.

Although initial phases of WS-119L were launched from Europe and Turkey, a final phase, WS-461L, was launched from the Pacific. There was a direct parallel to Moby Dick, where unclassified Project White Cloud launched Pacific flights to obtain trajectory data for WS-461L. In the April 1994 issue of Omni magazine, a retired airman proclaimed solid proof of UFO activity. He had glimpsed logs from the European NATO Command Center for 1958. They reported UFOs coming out of the USSR at 100,000 foot altitudes. That nicely described WS-461L flights cruising in from the Pacific Ocean launches.

The entire Skyhook reconnaissance program produced marginal data, but its recovery techniques phased into satellite programs. Moreover, the Soviets were so impressed they actually developed several high-altitude aircraft dedicated to intercepting our Skyhooks! In the 1960s, Premier Khrushchev developed a habit of banging his shoe on the table in protest at the UN. In one such case, he exhibited a WS-119L payload, perhaps with some of our trainees’ initials on it.

Late in 1952, I spent a month at Edwards AFB, California, to forecast three-day trajectories for Moby Dick flights, as specified in my travel orders. Forty years later, I discovered from Peebles’s The Moby Dick Project (Peebles 1991) that I actually had been working on a top-secret program called Flying Cloud, WS-124A!

Skyhooks were to be evaluated as a balloon bomber in the event of an actual war. Proposed payloads included nuclear warheads, but the program was abandoned as intercontinental ballistic missiles became viable.

UFO Mythology

There were a number of peripheral events associated with these programs. At Alamogordo AFB in 1952, we dispatched F-86 jet aircraft to see if they could intercept our Skyhooks at various altitudes. The exercise was designed to evaluate what Soviet interceptors might experience when our reconnaissance balloons arrived. The event was described in Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret (Good 1988), published thirty-six years later. It represents a classic example of how portrayals of classified military testing can become transformed over decades into something out of this world. Date and aircraft type were correct but the latter were described as trying to intercept an evasive UFO that featured hovering and accelerations up to 700 mph.

Alamogordo Air Force Base was renamed Holloman AFB in 1953. On October 27 of that year, we launched an unclassified payload. It failed to terminate at the scheduled twelve-hour flight duration, and, six days later, it was detected by the Royal Air Force over the Atlantic headed for London! This of course generated UFO hysteria (Good 1988). Newspapers announced it could not be a Skyhook since there was presently no such activity in Europe, but altitude and performance reports agreed with our vehicle’s capabilities. Ironically, British intelligence officers also knew that but would not disclose the object’s identity. They too were involved with the WS-119L program, and test flights were to be launched from Scotland. Yet this incident is still highlighted in UFO literature as a classic case for their cause.

We flew a few classified programs in the late 1950s and 1960s which included special flares at night from twenty-mile altitudes. That was a predictable UFO generator.

Philip Corso’s book The Day after Roswell (Corso 1997) contained many significant errors including movements of some of Wernher von Braun’s German scientists, who shared our building at Holloman AFB. Sixty pages were dedicated to a once-secret U.S. Army project for a lunar base called Project Horizon. Plans were initiated in 1959 but were finally cancelled because Project Apollo had exhausted space funds. The story was suspiciously infused with hints of alien activity on the Moon. That was interesting because that same year my Skyhook Center was flying a classified Army project, code named . . . Project Horizon! It had nothing to do with lunar bases and involved photographic studies of the horizon. The purpose was to obtain calibration information for guided missiles.

In 1967 and 1969, we flew ever more advanced, classified reconnaissance cameras. These cameras were huge, weighing from 6,000 to 8,000 pounds, and encased in ten-foot cylinders. They were tracked by several helicopters carrying armed military police to surround the payload after landing. With Roswell often downwind, this very likely contributed to that UFO story line, and time compaction is a vital ingredient in creating such myths and legends.

Skyhook incidents near to or on the ground, like this previous case, provoked more UFO tales than balloons at an altitude. There was a cluster of this type of event in the 1960s (Peebles 1994), which evoked much media coverage. It persists today as a hallmark UFO case, and features the most detailed witness descriptions.

One of those events had serious overtones, involving sensitive military sites, with no obvious revelations to this date. It is noted in Good’s book, Above Top Secret (Good 1988). “A metallic disc-shaped UFO with bright flashing lights moving slowly over the site. It stopped and hovered at 500 feet then the UFO climbed vertically and disappeared at high speed” (this was in March, 1967). The location was a Minuteman missile site at Minot, North Dakota. I became suspicious after reading this, aware of a top-secret Skyhook program in that era, with one launch site in the Dakotas. There were other descriptions that rather precisely identified the program, despite scattered inclusions of media mythology.

The program was Project Grab Bag, also called Sky Dipper or Cold Ash. Again, there was a cover-up unclassified program, Program Ash Can. Both programs involved sampling radioactive fallout debris in the stratosphere. After a brief Navy test sequence, Grab Bag, now under the USAF, became operational in 1956, extending briefly into the 1970s. Its highly classified signature was due to the fact that a final product involved establishing details of Soviet plutonium production. Even our Project Ash Can attracted more than the usual Skyhook attention, since parachute and payload were snatched in midair by USAF cargo aircraft. That prompted stories of aircraft being attacked by a UFO while the mother ship (the Skyhook) hovered high above.

Grab Bag was a special UFO generator. After stratospheric sampling, lifting gas was partially released through a valve in the apex of the Skyhook. The entire ensemble was thus lowered to within a few thousand feet of the ground. Then it released a parachute with the payload while the under-loaded balloon rocketed upward to eventually shatter. Since most of these activities occurred at night, Grab Bag generated probably the most detailed UFO events in the literature. For instance, “A conical shaped object descended from the sky. It hovered at an estimated 3,000 feet. A smaller UFO landed within fifty feet” (Brookesmith 1995).

That is a precise description of the basic Grab Bag profile. The Minuteman case with a UFO climbing vertically to disappear at high speed sounds very much like the under-loaded balloon zooming skyward to disappear as it self-destructed.

Project tracking included three helicopters. If the winds were light, the entire ensemble would be valved to the surface. Again, UFO reports clearly identified the process. “Floating red lights which moved over a highway and into a field at night. It appeared like a two-story building, with other lights grouped around it. The latter sometimes hover around the central object” (Fawcett and Greenwood 1984).

The payload did indeed have red lights. The other hovering lights were the helicopters. Just before landing the sample would be transferred to another container via a powerful centrifugal blower. That noise amplified the mystery. Occasionally the tracking crew would transfer the sample into metal cylinders, engendering even more strange noises in the dark. Other activity was also reported: “Radiation fields and other forms of energy have appeared to be directly connected with a hovering or landed UFO” (Brookesmith 1995). The radioactivity, although slight, was from the sample being transferred by recovery personnel to another container.

Readers may wonder why, after recovery, Grab Bag personnel would not have notified local authorities without disclosing classification. The answer is that proceedings were so classified that they could not identify their mission under any circumstance. The program was a natural for engendering mystery and a treasury of lucrative narratives for UFO folklore.

Meanwhile, at our Holloman AFB Skyhook Center, we continued to launch a variety of classified reconnaissance cameras, now with loads up to five tons. Again, there were tracking helicopters with armed military police (MPs). People in southern New Mexico were used to seeing military helicopters on various missions. However, we flew a number of reconnaissance camera missions in 1975 in northeastern New Mexico where military helicopters were seldom seen. This created some suspicion. “Unidentified helicopters” had also helped to amplify Grab Bag as a UFO generator, triggering later myths involving military helicopters.

There was an outbreak of mutilated cattle stories in Colorado and northeastern New Mexico in 1975. Strange helicopters were part of the scenario. The Albuquerque Journal reported “ghost copters” buzzing ranches (Peebles 1994). The presence of armed MPs onboard added to the frenzy. The FAA Area Coordinator announced an investigation of this outbreak but never revealed what it had found. The FBI also became involved with similar results. Both agencies had quickly discovered it was our highly classified program. Their “case closed” reaction is still highlighted today in government cover-up tales.

Clearly, secret Skyhook balloon programs magnified government cover-ups and engendered numerous UFO stories, sightings, and myths. Classified aircraft also contributed to UFO folklore during the Cold War. The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft followed WS-119L operations over the USSR. It triggered similar UFO reports, even while training in the U.S. However, unlike supersonic aircraft, Skyhooks remained within sight for long durations, landing with strange payloads, far from their origin.

It is important that all this activity be revealed. Project Grab Bag generated the most detailed descriptions of UFOs in the literature. Even relatively skeptical individuals might have wondered about those sightings, believing them to be too complex to dismiss. I hope these revelations provide a vital insight into what was “behind the looking glass” of secret Cold War activities.

The Pentagon published the first two detailed reports in 1995 (Weaver and McAndrew 1995), demonstrating how top-secret Project Mogul became the initial trigger for the Roswell mystery. Readers may wonder why that effort has not been repeated for once-classified events detailed in this article. Actually, it was only at the urging of a congressman, the late Steve Schiff of New Mexico, that the Pentagon began work on the Roswell affair. Having participated in the preparation of the final report (McAndrew 1997), I can reveal there was substantial resistance to the whole process. A number of times we thought the enterprise would be cancelled. It was only via last-minute intervention by the Secretary of the Air Force that the report was finally published. Many Pentagon authorities believed that the Roswell and UFO investigations in general were not worthy of distraction from more pressing matters of national importance.

Despite providing accurate hardware descriptions of the programs we have covered, some reports included stories of onboard aliens and other typical elements of UFO mythology such as stalled cars and skin burns. They were imitating numerous UFO witnesses with a tendency to repeat stories that preceded their own sightings.

We can deplore or marvel at the persistent thirst for otherworldly fantasies, but a sage in Elizabethan England had an apt comment that can categorize even contemporary mythology:

So full of shapes is fancy, that it alone is high fantastical.

—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene 1

References

• Brookesmith, Peter. 1995. UFO: The Complete Sightings. New York: Barnes & Noble: 37, 83, 39.
• Corso, Philip. 1997. The Day After Roswell. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Fawcett, Lawrence, and Barry Greenwood. 1984. The UFO Cover-Up. New York: Simon & Schuster: 19.
• Good, Timothy. 1988. Above Top Secret. New York: William Morrow: 35, 272, 300.
• McAndrew, James. 1997. The Roswell Report: Case Closed. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
• Peebles, Curtis. 1991. The Moby Dick Project. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press: 128.
• —. 1994. Watch the Skies. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press: 153-154, 216.
• Randle, Kevin, and Donald Schmitt. 1994. The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell. New York: Avon Books: 154.
• Randle, Kevin. 1989. The UFO Casebook. New York: Warner Books: 175.
• Thomas, David. 1995. Recollections of Project Mogul. Skeptical Inquirer 19 (4) July/August: 15-18.
• Trakowski, Captain. 1949. Letter to Air Material Command. April 18.
• Weaver, Richard, and James McAndrew. 1995. The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

I've been studying the conflict between the skeptical community and the metaphysical/new age community for a few decades now, and I think I've finally discovered the central issue that makes communication so difficult. It is not merely, as many surmise, a conflict between fact-based viewpoints and faith-based viewpoints. Nor is it simply a conflict between rationality and credulity. No, it’s a full-on clash of cultures that makes real communication improbable at best.

I know this firsthand, because as a former member of the New Age culture, I struggled for years to decipher the language, the rules, the attitudes, and the expectations of the skeptical culture. Yet for a great while, all I could hear from the skeptical culture was noise-and confusing noise at that.

I'm not really sure how to introduce myself, except perhaps with this paraphrase: “I have seen the enemy, and she is me.” I'm an author and healer (or I was, actually) in the metaphysical culture. I wrote about energy and chakras, auras, healing, the different kinds of psychic skills . . . the whole shebang. I've traveled throughout the states doing book tours, seminars, and workshops. I've appeared at all the top New Age venues, such as the Omega Institute, Naropa University, and the Whole Life Expo (which I call the Hell Life Expo, but that’s another story). My books have been translated into five languages, and I've even had a title in the One Spirit Book Club. Understanding the metaphysical/New Age community and culture has been a central focus of my life and my career.

I'm not just a member of the New Age community—I've also been a purveyor of the very things the skeptical community is so concerned about. I've been involved in metaphysics and the New Age for over thirty years, I've written four books and recorded five audio learning sets in the genre, and I was considered one of the leaders in the field.

I'm not in the field any longer, but it’s hard to truly disappear when so many of my books and tapes are already out there. It’s also hard to disappear when I don't really know what to say to the people in my culture. The cultural rift is so extreme that anything I say will prove that I have gone to the other side, the wrong side—the side of the enemy. In actual fact, however, I have just seen enough to know that the skeptics and the critical thinkers have some extremely pertinent and meaningful things to say. I've now studied enough skeptical and scientific information about paranormal abilities and events to question many of the precepts upon which my work was based. More important, I've seen enough to understand firsthand the real costs of the New Age.

I've also learned to understand the differences and similarities in the New Age and skeptical cultures, so that I no longer react in a stereotypically offended fashion when I or the people I know and love are referred to as frauds, shams, or dupes. I understand now that these terms are not meant disparagingly, for the most part. I understand now that these terms often mask a great deal of care and concern for people in the New Age culture. It’s sometimes hard to unearth that concern—it often requires an almost anthropological capacity to understand the cultural differences between us—but the concern is there.

Until I understood that concern, I couldn't find myself in the skeptical lexicon. I couldn't identify myself with the uncaring hucksters, the wildly miseducated snake-oil peddlers, the self-righteous psychics, the big-haired evangelists, or the megalomaniacal eastern fakirs. I couldn't identify my work or myself with the scam-based work or the unstable personalities so roundly trashed by the skeptical culture, because I was never in the field to scam anyone—and neither were any of my friends or colleagues. I worked in the field because I have a deep and abiding concern for people, and an honest wish to be helpful in my own culture. Access to clearheaded and carefully presented skeptical material would have helped me (and others like me) at every step of the way—but I couldn't access any of that information because I simply couldn't identify with it. Until now.

I'm writing this piece as a thank you letter to the skeptical community. I want to thank you for helping me to fully understand just how much bad training I've been exposed to in my metaphysical/New Age culture (actually, it’s not my culture any longer, but for simplicity’s sake, let me continue to claim it for the duration of this piece). But I'm also writing as an attempt to open a dialogue, and perhaps to begin bridging the precipitous chasm that exists between our two warring cultures, because at this point, the lion’s share of people from my culture can't really hear much (if anything) from the skeptical culture. And that’s a real shame.

This cultural divide is making it nearly impossible for me to be honest in my own culture about the changes I've made. Right now, my Web site says that I'm on sabbatical. I've cancelled all workshops, turned down numerous book contracts, and I'm slowly deconstructing my career. I've cleared out files, e-mails, and letters, thousands of letters, from people who considered me an expert. I'm turning down all requests for interviews and consultations, and I'm going back to school to get my degree in sociology and behavioral sciences. If I write another book about the New Age culture, I want to write it as a sociologist—not as a mystic or as a naysayer, because neither of those positions has been truly helpful to people in my culture.

The fight between our cultures has often been an ugly and confusing one, and in all honesty, that fight can't be won the way we're fighting it. I'm tired of seeing so many people get hurt when so little good comes of that hurt. So I'm going to try something new, and I'm going to try to find a way to expiate the damage I feel I've done. But first I need to find the words to tell people in my culture what I'm doing and why.

On one level, my story is not a typical one, because I'm not simply a New Age follower who finally woke up. However, even though it is unusual and perhaps even unheard of for someone in my position to make a complete turnaround, I think the process I followed is fairly typical. I started out in my youth, knowing (through direct experience) that the things I learned in the New Age and metaphysics were true, and that naysayers were just that. After a time, though, I began to question the things I saw that didn't fit-the anomalies, the cures that didn't work, the ideas that fell apart when you really looked at them, and so forth. I wrote passionately about the trouble I saw in my culture, and I even became a voice of reason. Sadly, though, every time I tried to research the things that disturbed or troubled me, I hit a wall.

That wall, built of deep cultural differences and decades (or centuries) of distrust, meant that I could find nothing within my culture that could help me think critically. Critical thinking and skepticism live in another world from mine-they live across a chasm where no bridge and no safe passages exist. It wasn't until I became a citizen of the Web that I was able to undertake the harrowing journey across that chasm and land, finally, on solid ground.

How did a card-carrying, aura-wearing, chakra-toting leader of the New Age become able to understand and eventually embrace the skeptical culture? Well, it took quite a while, so let me start at the beginning.

I first encountered the New Age in 1971, when I was ten years old. My mother had been experiencing numerous arthritic symptoms that just weren't responding to medical care, and she was headed for a wheelchair. Somehow, she found a yoga class, and slowly, she became well again. She also became a vegetarian (which was very avant garde at the time) and we began frequenting health food stores in search of unusual things like whole grain cookies, cod-liver oil, and bean sprouts. Our lives changed very swiftly, especially after Mom became a yoga teacher herself and entered more fully into the metaphysical/New Age culture. Yoga has been jokingly called the “gateway drug” to the New Age. That was certainly true for us.

Our family fell apart over this massive change (though my parents’ marriage was rocky anyway), as my father was and still is a skeptic with a strong intellect and good native training in scientific and critical thought processes. One of my brothers, who is now a mathematics professor, joined with my father, while the rest of us kids (four total) went along in our own ways with my mother’s interest in metaphysics, spirituality, and the New Age.

We switched from conventional medicine to homeopathic care, learned to meditate, and joined groups that listened to supposedly “channeled” beings-we became a part of the “in” crowd. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, and went to high school in Marin County (the epicenter of the New Age explosion of the seventies and eighties), so I was surrounded at all times by unusual people and experiences. It was a fun and often exciting time, and though I much preferred the magical world my mother showed us to the mundane world my father defended, I was always a very bright and skeptical person. Even in my early teens, I was able to see right through questionable things like est, Scientology, breatharianism, urine drinking, and the really dangerous cults-yet that same skepticism and intelligence actually helped me validate other unusual experiences (of which I had many). I knew many psychics and alternative healers who seemed to be very good at what they did, and I directly experienced healings and psychic readings that I couldn't logically refute.

In that period, it would have been wonderful to come upon skeptical and critical thinking techniques, but alas, critical thinking wasn't taught in my high school. I didn't even know the category existed! When I went to junior college, I took geometry and logic for my critical thinking courses and thus I missed out on the subject once again. In my education, I didn't gain the skills I needed to help me understand what was occurring when New Age and metaphysical ideas and techniques seemed to work. My empirical experience “proved” the validity of things like psychic skills, auras, chakras, contact with the dead, astrology, and the like—and I had very little in my intellectual arsenal at that time to help me understand what was truly occurring.

For instance, an understanding of cold reading would have helped me a great deal. I never knew what cold reading was, and until I saw professional magician and debunker Mark Edward use cold reading on an ABC News special last year, I didn't understand that I had long used a form of cold reading in my own work! I was never taught cold reading and I never intended to defraud anyone—I simply picked up the technique through cultural osmosis.

To be fair, a skeptical movement did arise during my early teens, but it unfortunately created a deep cultural rift that continues to this day. In the seventies, Uri Geller became popular. My first real contact with someone in the skeptical culture was watching James Randi on television, just tearing Geller to bits. I didn't understand what was happening. Uri Geller appeared on the Mike Douglas show and on the Merv Griffin show, and you could clearly see him perform his paranormal feats right there on television. Surely Mike and Merv wouldn't be involved in lying to the public? I really didn't understand what Randi’s problem was with Geller, and my friends and I thought Randi was very vitriolic. I didn't learn about critical thinking from Randi—what I learned was that some people just had it in for healers and people with paranormal gifts. I know he would not like to hear this, but it’s still true: James Randi’s behavior and demeanor were so culturally insensitive that he actually created a gigantic backlash against skepticism, and a gigantic surge toward the New Age that still rages unabated.

I certainly understand and support James Randi’s anger, frustration, and even vitriol now (especially after having lived through the New Age for so many decades), but all I could see then was a very sarcastic man who seemed to attack Geller personally. Now, after having been a regular visitor to Randi’s Web site (www.randi.org), I can see him as a deeply caring man who works tirelessly for an important cause. I also see that he is very concerned about some of the unbalanced New Agers who write to him in barely legible missives. I empathize with Randi, because people like that write to me, too (though I take on the role of hero in their fevered fantasy lives, while Randi is treated as a villain). Now that I can see him as an individual and understand his culture, I can see James Randi as the excellent (and intense) man he is-but it took me a while. Had Randi understood the New Age culture back when Uri Geller was becoming popular, he could have easily spoken in a way that might have been heard—or at least in a way that wouldn't have caused such a violent backlash. Or perhaps I'm being too idealistic.

You see, I've been speaking to people in this New Age culture in their own language, and though I certainly was heard, I don't think that, in the end, I really did any good. Growing up as I did in nutty, kooky Marin County, I was able to see some of the most egregious examples of New Age chicanery—and as I matured into a writer and healer, I always warned against them. The problem is this: In my culture, you can't openly attack anyone or their character, and you can't use truly focused skepticism. In my culture, personal attacks are considered an example of emotional imbalance (where your emotions control you), while deep skepticism is considered a form of mental imbalance (where your intellect controls you). Both behaviors are serious cultural no-nos, because both the emotions and the intellect are considered troublesome areas of the psyche that do very little but keep one away from the (supposedly) true and meaningful realm of spirit. When I wrote my books and recorded my audio programs, I had to write and speak so carefully that it took most people two or three readings to figure out that I was directly challenging many of the foundations upon which the New Age is built. Actually, my culturally sensitive capacity to attack without attacking and criticize without criticizing was so effective that some avid readers still don't know what I was saying.

From a vantage point outside the New Age culture, my culture’s disavowal of emotions and the intellect may seem very strange and nearly inexplicable. Nevertheless, it is a very real cultural component that must be understood and considered if any useful communication is going to occur. If we want to successfully communicate with someone, we've got to understand not just their language, but the cultural context from which their language springs. From what I've seen in both the New Age and the skeptical cultures, this understanding is absent. I certainly didn't understand the skeptical culture until I spent real time considering it as a culture—and I know from my reading that most people in the skeptical culture don't understand the New Age culture at all. As a result, the yelling between our cultures just becomes louder while the real communication falls into the chasm that divides us. In all the din, people in my culture hear what they deem to be hyper-intellectual and emotionally charged attacks upon their cherished beliefs, while people in your culture hear what they deem to be wishful thinking, scientific illiteracy, and emotionally charged salvos in defense of mere delusions.

This is of course a tragedy, but after reading through the skeptical literature for the last three years, I feel that this tragedy may be avoidable. I understand your culture now, and I understand the concern, care, and interest you have for the people in my culture. I'm now able to read past text I once considered inflammatory and see the dedication behind it-not just your dedication to competent research and information-gathering, but your dedication to clear communication. I see your faith in human intelligence, your anger about swindlers and charlatans, your open-minded ability to question authority and accepted wisdom, and your willingness to fight to further a cause close to your heart. My favorite people in the New Age culture share these same qualities. I feel that people in your culture are capable of reaching out to my culture in sensitive ways that will have a chance of being heard—because it’s vital that you are heard.

It’s vital that a way be found to help people in my culture question, think about, and critically interpret the barrage of information and misinformation they receive on a daily basis. However, it’s also vital that the information be culturally sensitive. For instance, the first time I visited the skeptical health care Web site called Quackwatch, it felt as if I were walking into enemy territory. “Quack” is a very loaded word-it’s a fighting word! Though site owner Dr. Stephen Barrett has every right to call his excellent Web site anything he likes, I wonder why it couldn't have been called, for instance, HealthWatch, HealingInfo, DocFacts, or something equally nonthreatening. Why do I have to type the word “quack” when I want a skeptical review of the choices I make in medical care? And why do I have to spend so much time translating on the skeptical sites I visit-or just skipping over words like scam, sham, quack, fraud, dupe, and fool? Why do I (the sort of person who actually needs skeptical information) have to see myself described in offensive terms and bow my head in shame before I can truly access the information available in your culture?

I have a selfish reason for asking these questions, because one of my first ideas was to make my own Web site a culturally sensitive portal to the skeptical sites—yet I cannot find a way to do so. I've got a Web page mock-up brewing in my files—a page that I've rewritten maybe fifty times or more-that tries to introduce the concept of skepticism in an open and nonthreatening way. I'd like to include links to the brilliant urban legends site (snopes.com), to Bob Carroll’s online Skeptic’s Dictionary (skepdic.com), to CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer (csicop.org), and to The Skeptic (skeptic.com). I also really wanted to include Quackwatch (quackwatch.org) and James Randi’s site (randi.org)—but I just can't find the words. Sure, I can use my site to prepare people for the journey, but I know from experience that they would be in for quite a shock once they clicked on the links. I mean, it’s one thing to find out that much of my culture and belief system was based on gossamer and hearsay, but it’s another thing altogether to see people like myself being denigrated and pitied.

I found your culture and persevered through the (perhaps unintentionally?) insulting text and the demeaning attitudes because I had a serious need. I had a need to understand the avalanche of New Age ideas, gadgets, meditation techniques, and personalities I encountered as my career gathered momentum. I saw so much as I traveled and spoke to people in my culture, and so much of it worried me that I began to use the Internet to organize this avalanche and acquaint myself fully with information in my field. It was a harrowing journey, to say the very least. I waded into your culture for much-needed information, and ended up losing my own culture in the process. During the most difficult throes, I joked that I would have had to cheer up to be merely despairing—and that I would have had to calm down to be merely enraged. I'm still working through this.

What I see in the tragic clash between the New Age and skeptical cultures is that, for the most part, the skeptics have not yet been able to speak in a way that can be heard. Certainly, neither have people in my culture been able to perform that same feat. I see some scientific types working in the New Age culture, trying to prove that chi exists or prayer works (or whatever it is they're doing this week). There’s an awful lot of scientific jargon all over the New Age now, and while it’s sad to see science being bent and mangled by my culture, I have to say that it shows we're listening to you. It shows that we're trying to get it right-to say things in a way you can hear. I know that my culture’s sloppy and disrespectful use of science is something that angers and confuses many people in the skeptical community, but can we look at it in a different light?

People in my culture have heard you and we're trying to answer—but we don't understand you. Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly—or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind. I know that sounds silly, but think of the way you view our capacity to dive deeply into matters of spiritual or religious study. You don't often treat our rigor as scholarship, per se (though it takes quite an intellect to understand and organize the often screamingly inconsistent sacred canon)—instead you tend to treat our work as an overabundance of credulity or perhaps even a stubborn refusal to listen to sense.

It is possible that our two warring cultures will never build a bridge across the deep rift that divides us. I know that in my own case, the transition from my culture to yours was long, arduous, and deeply painful. It was not an easy traipse across a well-constructed bridge. In essence, I had to throw myself off a cliff. I had to leave behind my career, my income, my culture, my family, my friends, my health care practitioners, most of my business contacts, my past, and my future. I say this not to garner sympathy but to show what the leap truly entails. The New Age is a complete culture with its own rules, ideals, infrastructure, and social life. When I finally realized that my cultural training had me teetering on a foundation of candyfloss and dreams—and worse, that my work had encouraged others to teeter alongside me, I was inconsolable, yet I had absolutely no one to turn to.

I've made it, I think, through my rage and horror at my own complicity in helping people remain susceptible—and perhaps through my grief and despair (though that’s more cyclical) about my own miseducation. Now I'm considering what to do from here. I've discovered in just the few (less than ten) conversations I've had with faith-based people that skeptical information is absolutely threatening and unwanted. What I didn't understand until recently is that when you start questioning these beliefs, there’s a domino effect that eventually smacks into your whole house of cards—and nothing remains standing. Opening the questioning process is a very dangerous thing, and people in my culture seem to understand that on a subconscious level. In response to their extreme discomfort, I've become completely silent around believers—which is hard, because they make up most of my friends, family, and correspondents.

If I were in this business for the money, I would have never seriously questioned what I was doing. I would have turned back as soon as my research challenged or threatened me. But I wasn't in it for the money. I was there to help people, often very disturbed people who were trammeling after this cure, that device, these gurus, or those miracle supplements. I tried to help people in my culture make sense of all the ideas and gadgets that were coming at them with such rapidity, but I was unable to make even a dent. When I understood fully that, no matter how good my intentions, the mere mention of things like auras, chakras, and “energy” brought with them a host of truly unsafe and untested assumptions—and that I was leading people into an arena where skepticism and critical thinking were forbidden—I knew that it was time to stop, and stop completely. It was a wrenching, isolating, and despair-filled decision, but since my focus is to help others, it was the only ethical or moral shift for me to make.

I respectfully ask that you in the skeptical community consider making a similar (though hopefully not so jarring) shift in your behavior and approach to us. I understand now, after years of reading and research, that the skeptical culture exists because of a very real concern for the welfare and well being of others. Of the two cultures, I can honestly say I now vastly prefer the skeptical one. However, I know firsthand that the skeptical viewpoint cannot be heard or assimilated in the New Age and metaphysical community; it is anathema, and that’s a shame for every single one of us. It is a shame because the search for the truth, the concern for the welfare of others, the need to be treated with respect, and the need to be welcomed in a culture—are all things my people share with yours. We have a different language and different references, but we share these basic human needs. I would ask you to respect our humanity, and approach us not as if you are reformers or redeemers. I would ask you to approach us as fellow humans who share your concern and interest in the welfare of others. I would ask you to be as culturally intelligent as you are scientifically intelligent, and to work to understand our culture as clearly as you understand the techniques, ideas, and modalities that have sprung from it. We are a people, not a problem.

I think I have found a way to speak across the chasm, to you. I am now learning to perform that same feat in reverse—to talk to people in my culture about your culture, but that’s a lot harder. I first need a rest, and I need to be in a real school, studying real science and getting a real degree (people in my culture tend to pursue offbeat degrees in offbeat subjects at offbeat schools). Watching people in the New Age has been as hard on me as it has been on you. Underneath all the magic, the wise ghosts, and the never-ending remedies lies a well of pain and loneliness that is immense and overwhelming. I always saw it—I always saw the excruciating truth of my culture, and I thought I could help. That I didn't help—not truly—is possibly the greatest devastation of my life. I need to heal from being a healer.

My voice was an important one in my culture; therefore, I've got to take responsibility for what I've done. I need to educate myself and come back into the fray in a healthy and respectful way. Maybe by the time I've organized my thoughts, a bridging culture will already exist. Maybe I'll find a way to be heard—or to translate the skeptical lexicon in such a way that people in my culture can access it without being insulted or shamed. One thing I'll be sure to stress is the fact that there is actually more beauty, wonder, brilliance, and mystery in science than there is in the mystical world.

One of the biggest falsehoods I've encountered is that skeptics can't tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can't handle mystery—not even a tiny bit of it. Everything in my New Age culture comes complete with an answer, a reason, and a source. Every action, emotion, health symptom, dream, accident, birth, death, or idea here has a direct link to the influence of the stars, chi, past lives, ancestors, energy fields, interdimensional beings, enneagrams, devas, fairies, spirit guides, angels, aliens, karma, God, or the Goddess.

We love to say that we embrace mystery in the New Age culture, but that’s a cultural conceit and it’s utterly wrong. In actual fact, we have no tolerance whatsoever for mystery. Everything from the smallest individual action to the largest movements in the evolution of the planet has a specific metaphysical or mystical cause. In my opinion, this incapacity to tolerate mystery is a direct result of my culture’s disavowal of the intellect. One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.

Maybe I'll find a way to capitalize on my culture’s thirst for answers, and my people’s capacity to work with conflicting information (metaphysical ideas change every six months or so and therefore people in my culture are very accustomed to switching mental gears). I have faith now that I didn't have before: faith in your culture’s concern and integrity, and faith in my culture’s curiosity and capacity to learn new things. I've also learned firsthand that bad training, though damaging, is not a life sentence.

I have a lot of work and research to do, but I do see a possibility now that I didn't see before. I want to thank you for your work and your efforts to protect people like me from harm. You make a difference. I hope one day to be able to do the same.

When SKEPP, the (Flemish) Belgian skeptical organization, attacked the health insurance companies for wasting people’s money to promote quackery, we got the traditional response: “People like it.” Insurance payers love to be deceived, so let’s deceive them. SKEPP suggested reimbursing red Bordeaux wine, as people love red wine, too. We were not joking: there is a trillion times more evidence that red wine (taken in moderation) is good for your health. “Traditional doctors do not perform evidence-based medicine.” The CEOs of the insurance companies did not explain to SKEPP how quackery would improve the quality of medical practice. It cannot be the idea to add, to the dangerous quacks abusing modern medicine, the somewhat less dangerous quacks selling water and silliness, or is it? And of course, the final argument was that “Homeopathy is cheap!” It may cost Belgium $18 million per year, or some $1.80 for every Belgian, for something that does not work. Is $1,000 cheap for a car that cannot, and never will, operate? The Belgian health insurance companies deliver astonishing insights in economy.

The Belgian skeptics were exhausted and overwhelmed by such well-crafted arguments. Seeing the errors of the skeptic’s ways, they resigned themselves to committing mass suicide by drinking a lethal dose of terribly toxic and dangerous drugs: snake poison, Belladonna or deadly nightshade, arsenic, dog’s milk, petrol, and cockroach. Dog’s milk does not sound that dangerous, but try milking a pit bull. To assure immediate death, these powerful drugs were immensely dynamized: the daring skeptics selected the over-the-counter 30C homeopathic solutions (reimbursed by the health insurance, if prescribed by a certified quack). A dynamization of 30C means the poison is diluted 10 to the 60th times. That is a one followed by sixty zeros. The whole earth (estimated at 10 to the 50th molecules) is way too small to hold a single molecule in that dilution. That is, in homeopathic terms, an awfully powerful dilution. The immensely “dynamized” spirits of arsenic and snake poison (not to mention the pit bull milk) will rise from the liquid, and kill the skeptic on the spot. All important newspapers and TV stations were recruited to witness the terrible extermination of these dangerous minds.

It would be a great loss to Belgian academia, a terrible blow to all these narrow-minded people that do not understand the miracles of homeopathy. Among the twenty-three suicidals were a hoard of professors from medical and other faculties, a rightly famous publicist and television program maker, and even a few normal people armed with nothing but common sense.

The guy who spawned the idea of the skeptical suicide was Joeri Mesens, indeed an ordinary young man. Once a true believer he became an apostate of homeopathic salvation after conducting self-designed, skeptical experiments on his poor children. Several times he withheld life-saving homeopathic wonder drugs from one of his two sick children, observing that both of them recovered in exactly the same amount of time. The idea of suicide came to him after an argument with his mother, a true believer in homeopathy. She was horrified when he proposed to drink all of her drugs at once.

The idea was taken over by Tom Schoepen, editor-in-chief of the SKEPP’s magazine Wonder en is Gheen Wonder (Miracles Ain't Miracles). The son of a once famous Belgian country and western singer, his looks are better than Johnny Depp’s. He effortlessly raises highly undiluted hormone levels in fellow human beings blessed with a second X chromosome, and bewitches our (female) minister of Public Health. Alas, they fall for his looks, but they resist his arguments. They know someone who has been cured by homeopathy, and even more, they know several people who know someone who has been cured by homeopathy, which is obviously an unbeatable argument to subsidize quackery (some jokes about the average Belgian intelligence seem true). As a matter of course, Schoepen and Mesens were joined by the Fidel Castro of the Belgian anti-quackery rebels, the Scourge of Homeopathy, professor in Medical General Practice Wim Betz.

Betz treated the press and the public to a talk on homeopathy and on the products selected for the skeptical suicide. Betz did not need a Castro diatribe of eight hours; a solid twenty minutes was enough to butcher homeopathy: the homeopaths were so kind to deliver their own satirical texts. To be sure the suicidals knew all the risks, Betz cited copiously from Kent’s Materia Medica, which covers sixteen pages on arsenic, twenty-four on Belladonna, and twelve on snake poison. We learned among other things that arsenic “patients” suffer more at the seacoast, are restless, drink with small sips, and have a tendency to develop wrinkles. If you feel that your organs are escaping through your vagina, or if you bark like a dog, you are more of a Belladonna patient. However, if you lose gas from your vagina and dream of snakes, dog milk is your poison.

Finally the time had come. The skeptics on death row solemnly queued to personally select their own toxin: “In Flander’s fields the skeppies glow, to take their poison, row on row.” In front of the assembled national press they filled their chalices and drained their drinks, fully expecting to meet their Maker (if He existed). The skeptics didn't succeed in their suicide attempt, however. All of them survived. Those who had come by car had to wait before returning home, a bit dizzy from the alcohol on their empty stomachs. Indeed, homeopathy in alcohol at the liberal dose of a bottle a day might decrease your cardiovascular risk (but a good Bordeaux is still a lot cheaper and infinitely better).

The attempt was amazingly well covered by all the national press media. CANVAS, the equivalent of BBC 2, re-broadcast James Randi’s homeopathy documentary, where a carefully controlled experiment showed that Randi’s $1 million was safe: there was not a shred of evidence that homeopathy differed from the pure solvent. It shows that a few drips of acidic humor in a good idea are more efficient than long serious articles. Not so many people know that homeopathy attributes its presumed effects to ridiculously large dilutions (delusions?).

Most of us, including Prof. Betz, who once followed a serious course of homeopathy, have “believed.” Being progressive and social, we were critical about the modern drug industry and embraced “ecological” and “natural” alternatives. But there is nothing social or progressive about deluding people. Permitting yourself to be deceived by a silly theory that was outdated and untenable even in the nineteenth century does not show an open or tolerant mind. It only shows you are gullible and an easy prey to smooth talking quacks. We hope some more people discovered this, thanks to our (unsuccessful) suicide attempt.

Acknowledgments

Luc Bonneux wishes to thank Griet Vandermassen and Paul de Belder for assistance and helpful comments on previous drafts.