July 21, 1996
Source: The Daily Independent, Ridgecrest, California
Article Title: Doctor says aliens are already here, ET group believes military knows more than it's telling the public
By Laura Monterey, Staff Writer
Friday night, in the comfort of the dining room at Farris' at the Heritage, a man of science spoke to a room full of colleagues about exterrestial intelligence.
Dr. Joseph Burkes, a member and team leader with the Center for the Study of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) was the guest speaker at the biannual dinner meeting of the High Desert Engineering Association (hIDEA).
During the cocktial hour, the room was buzzing with excitement. When asked what they thought about the speaker's subject, people were curious and intrigued, but generally stuck to the safe territory of "maintaining a healthy skepticism."
In that room, on that night,only the bold dared go where few had gone before- on the record for believing in aliens.
Burkes, an emergency room physician in the LA area, says he has often been asked, "What's a nice doctor like you doing in such a strange field?"
"I never thought about UFOs much until 1990," he said. That was the year he decided to add a studio to the top of his house for his wife, an artist. The architect, however, skipped out before the job was done, "leaving me with my very own planetarium."
Burkes thought back to something his professor used to say. When grilling the med students about why a certain patient died of heart attack, he would patiently listen to all the sound scientific guesses. "No, it's because he didn't have a hobby."
"Well," said Burkes, "I thought if I'm going to survive this, I'd better get a hobby." He appealed to his local librarian. She asked him what he was looking for, and he said "Give me a book on... oh, I don't know... UFO's." After a year and a half of reading on the subject, Burkes became convinced that something was going on. In 1992, he met with Steven Greer, also a doctor, who had founded CSETI in 1990.
Greer's group was interested in changing the focus of UFO research from investigating past sightings to researching sightings themselves. To do this, he developed ways of attracting the extraterrestrials (ETs) and trains teams of observers to take notes. Burkes himself is a team leader.
According to Burkes, CSETI has been successful in orchestrating close encounters of the fifth kind -- human-initiated contact.
The methods they use reflect information gathered from years of sighting reports.
ET crafts are often reported over outdoor concerts where there is sound and a lot of lights flashing across the sky so researchers use strobe lights, lasers and tones that match those recorded from ET craft.
In some reports, people have mentioned how a craft responded to an internally expressed thought, such as wishing the craft would come closer, so CSETI trains its members in directed thought techniques. In one instance, a team discovered a triangular design carved in a nearby corn field that matched the design they were projecting the night before, according to Burkes.
The group was formed to scientifically research and catalog sightings of space ships, on-board experiences and attempts at communucation. Their goal is to train interested parties in techniques to attract ETI's. Though membership worldwide doesn't reach 800, they have set up Rapid Mobilization Investigation Teams all over the world to take data on sightings and conduct their own research.
Burkes, and many others, believes the military complex knows more than it's telling. CSETI hopes to convince world leaders to release military researchers from their codes of silence.
However, Burkes isn't going to wait. Borrowing a phrase from his work with Physicians for Social Responsibility, he said, "This is too important to be left in the hands of the generals and the politicians."
Burkes is aware that the field attracts people who are not as scientific as the members of CSETI. Many reports of sightings and personal contact come in from people who have psychological issues or their own personal agendas, but he does not ridicule them. "They should still be treated with respect," he says.
He doesn't know where their research will take them, but, Burkes said, "We wont know until we try."
He has a point, and we may be surprised. Truth is often stranger than fiction.
End of article.
My wife and I were at this dinner sponsored by the local chapter of the IEEE. The dinning room where the dinner was held was filled to capacity with the turnout somewhat exceeding the maximum projected attendance. This was an indication of the level of interest the talk by Dr. Burke generated among the many scientists from China Lake and the local supporting businesses. I was pleasantly surprised at the respectful reception given to Dr. Burke and the guinine curiousity expressed by the attending highly educated and intelligent crowd. I was really very proud of the open mindedness of these people who have generally been taught from birth that they are the best and brightest of all that God has created. But Dr. Burke and the evidence he presented was very credible. These people are not stupid and the accumulating evidence is so overwhelming that it can only be ignored by the most insecure of the observers.
Les Forrester, lforrest@owens.ridgecrest.ca.us
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