Fed aba chase

With the recent additional content for DAK, I’ve had a lot of ideas poking around in the back of my head about new battlegroups that could be developed and other related ideas for DAK. Having a creative bent of mind, I decided to do a write up of these ideas for publication, ideally to influence what comes out later, but mostly for my own enjoyment. This is what this post contains.
The perspective I’m coming from in this post is that, to me, it would be non-sensical for Relic to develop another sequel to Coh, as the release of Coh3 has demonstrated that you have to compete directly with the predecessors, leading to schisms in the playerbase. Moving to Coh3 made a lot of sense, as the technology required updating, but now that that is done, I feel doubling down on DLC for Coh3 in terms of new factions, battlegroups and content is the way to go, unless some fundamental technology leap happens in the next 10 years. Coh3 should be treated as the ‘platform’ on which Coh is developed. Even if we have to wait another 5 years for another faction, this probably makes the most sense. This way, the effort that would go to porting functionality to a new game, can be spent on creating new content and new features for the already existing game.
In terms of the design of the battlegroups, I wanted to make them thematic, different from existing battlegroups, unique and mostly historically accurate. The interesting aspect of DAK battlegroups is that you have a limited pool of units to work with.
Without further ado, here are my battlegroup ideas:
https://preview.redd.it/ln47ig1ct61d1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=931bc2205f9585526dc0543c3b24fb7f15611ccc
Central Idea: Logistics, augmenting Halftrack Deployment System. The battlegroup focuses on mobility and efficient resource expenditure.
Opel Blitz Fuel Truck: The Opel Blitz Fuel Truck should have two effects with the lockdown, when locked down on fuel, it should increase the rate of fuel supply, probably by more than a normal cache, however when locked down in base, it should reduce fuel cost of the vehicles in the selected structure, so kind of like officer supervision. This would encourage more active micro management of the unit. When it dies it should have a large AOE explosion, meaning friendly units should avoid it and also that it can be driven towards enemy units, kinda like a less efficient Goliath that you can't manually detonate, I can’t see this being anything but ludicrously fun. You really could go nuts with the audio design on that. Top Up Vehicle should be an ability that can be targeted on friendly vehicles. Once done, the target vehicle has faster speed, acceleration and deceleration for a fixed distance. Note this is a fixed distance, instead of time, so if the vehicle doesn't move, it won't 'expend' the ability.
Recharge Halftrack Deployment: This feeds into DAK’s tempo playstyle by allowing you to muster units rapidly. The situations where I see this being useful are early in the game when you want to get double call ins early to build out your composition at a discount or later in the game where you’re trying to mass late game armour quickly. For instance, calling in a P4 as a stopgap measure before calling in a Tiger 90 seconds later, especially if you build up a bank in the lategame.
Panzer III Munitions Supply Vehicle: Largely self explanatory, its like the Munitions Store for US, except mobile and provides different buffs. I could see this unit being coupled with ATGs and LeIGs being strong, as well as recharging snares faster, it compliments that infantry and support weapon playstyle nicely. The unit also can drop MG42s and Mortars, which give DAK manpower efficient access to more team weapons, diversifying potential builds.
Vehicle ROF Ability: Self explanatory. Could see it being strong on Marders, Tigers and Stug Ds. You could make this a global ability but here I’ve stuck with a unit ability.
Ability/Upgrades Discount: This essentially makes Unit Upgrades and Unit Abilities 50% cheaper for the duration. Its thematically appropriate and potentially a strong ability. If you could pair this with the Panzer III Muntions Vehicle, grenades would be cheaper but also recharge faster, although this combination could apply to a whole bunch of different things. Strategies where you rush this ability to ‘mass upgrade’ MG34s on the PGs could be a thing, although you’d need a fair bit of munitions banked up. One thing that could be experimented with is applying this to mines, where you could pop this to spam out mines, depending on how expensive the ability is, the calculus might add up.
Panzer I Command Tank: Feeding into that tempo style again, this early game vehicle would have roughly the potency against infantry as a 250, albeit with better armour. However, the main appeals are the capping and mobility bonuses, these would allow you to rapidly gain map control and would give you an edge when switching sides of the map. For flanking manoeuvres, this would also come in handy, one combination that would be strong would be your vehicles ‘Topped Up’ with the mobility bonuses from the Opel Blitz Fuel Truck and your infantry buffed by the Pzr I Command Tank, meaning your forces can get off flanks or respond to threats much faster.
Withdraw & Refit: Again interacting with the Halftrack Deployment System, this allows you to trade in vehicles that are not needed for resources, exactly like with Brits. I could see this being useful when you want to get rid of 250s that you have spare.
Panzer III S-Mine Launchers: This would be an ability on the Panzer III that allows it to launch S-Mines. I could see this being implemented in 2 ways, either exactly like the Tiger S-Mine launcher ability, which would be really strong for flanking AT Guns or chasing down squads, or if that’s too strong, more like the grenade ability on the Sturmtiger in Coh2. Again, this synergises with the Panzer III Munitions Vehicle and the Ability/Upgrades Discount ability.
Panzer III Side Skirts: Self explanatory, improves the armour and health of your Panzer IIIs after a unit upgrade is purchased. I wouldn’t be in favour of this being an instant upgrade to all units. This would again synergise with the Ability/Upgrades Discount ability.
Lorraine Schlepper Mobile Artillery: Finally, mobile artillery, not unlike the Wespe, giving DAK another tool in the box at their disposal.
https://preview.redd.it/japhac3bt61d1.png?width=1496&format=png&auto=webp&s=3e701d51062abcefb4181342300ec17de4d2fcf1
Central Idea: Fire, anti-cover. It would be strong against team weapon camp gameplay.
Incendiary Grenade Assault: Its essentially the exact same as the Assault Gren grenade assault, except Panzer Grens have access to it and its better at denying cover. So I see this being useful when you want to dislodge infantry in cover or make a Team Weapon move, as they won’t be able to jump back into cover or move back.
Detonating Shot: This ability is available for; Paks, Marders, P3s, Tigers, P4s, Stugs, Flak 36s. While active, if you land a kill shot on a vehicle, that vehicle will blow up causing AOE damage to nearby units. How good this should be will need to be tested. The basic counter play would be just to split up your units, but that requires micro. On the flip side, using the ability well also requires micro and good timing, so there’s a skill factor involved. This ability can also be used on ATGs and Indirect fire units (including emplacements), and if you land the kill shot on these units while the ability is active, it not only explodes but also, importantly, destroys the weapon outright. So you wouldn’t need to focus the decrewed weapon afterwards. This is pretty strong against team weapon play.
Indirect Incendiary Rounds: Exactly like it was in Coh2 for the same units. It also applies to the 254 Artillery observer. All of these barrages are good for area denial and also killing off emplacements.
21cm Nebelwerfer 42: A heavier version of the Nebelwerfer, relative to Wehr’s one. This would have higher alpha damage on it’s shells and the flame dot damage to boot. Only 5 rockets though.
Incendiary Creeping Barrage: Self-explanatory, area denial tool, good against team weapons and emplacements. Strong for denying VPs.
Double Flamethrower Panzer Pios: Strong upgrade naturally, but expensive. In order to get the double flamethrowers you need to buy each flamethrower for 50 munitions. It makes the squad a massive target.
Flammpanzer I Assault Group: This is very much a shock callin, you’d get this to drive your opponent off the map in the early stages of the game. Relative to the L6/40 with the flamethrower upgrade, this would be more potent as it retains the coaxial MG. Relative to the Flammpanzer III, it would have less health but come earlier. Combined with the Panzer Pios, it’s a strong power spike which would be especially good on urban maps.
Inspired Assault: Exactly like it was in Coh1, it was an interesting ability.
Sd. Kfz. 233 Armoured Car: In the great pantheon of DAK light vehicles, where does the 233 fit? It would be most comparable to the Stummel and the Scott, being effective against Team Weapons and Camp playstyle. Unlike the Stummel, it would be more effective at short range, as it retains an MG42 and has the canister round, as well as having more health. Relative to the 8 Rad, it would be worse at chasing infantry on retreat (although you already have the Flammpanzer I), but it would be far more proficient against units at range, units in cover and team weapons. Relative to the StuG D, it would be faster, cheaper and require less teching, but would have worse armour.
Heavy Incendiary Bomb Drop: Extremely good against team weapon camp, emplacements and units capping VPs. Could potentially neutralise points like the Dive Bomb in Coh2?
https://preview.redd.it/aipq57z9t61d1.png?width=1020&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bba7347d9d2321fca701d0e1b97fac68f4d1a0f
Central Idea: Heavy Team weapon play, this battlegroup is the only one that ‘goes against the grain’ of the DAK traditional playstyle by offering you more of a camp based strategy.
250 Reinforce: Essentially a utility ability that congeals with the rest of the battlegroup. Although I could see it being useful in combination with Assault Grens as well.
Pak 36 ATG: Light ATG, effective against Light Vehicles. Unlike the Pak 38, it requires no tech, so you can get it early and allows you to tech T2 while still having ATG support. The Stielgranate 41 shot improves it’s penetration against vehicles, although at the cost of munitions.
Tobruk Bunkers: Variety of emplacements, lots of photos of the DAK using these in WW2, hence the origin of their name. For defence in depth, these are going to be strong, you could have one of the Panzerturms in the back to prevent light vehicles or infantry from breaking in. The 360 Bunker is not fundamentally different from the Wehr AA piece, however, to make it more skilful, it would be cool if you have to manually switch the firing arc.
Flak 37 AA: A larger and more powerful AA than the Wehr Flak 30. This would be more effective against light vehicles and infantry, although could be made slower to move around, and have slower pack up and setup times, to balance it. My thinking is something like the speed of Pak 40s in camo would be slow enough to make indirect highly effective against them. It would encourage using them in conjunction with a tow vehicle, moving them around the battlefield quickly would be impossible without a tow vehicle, although not strictly necessary.
Rapid Suppression Barrage: This is mostly a standard off-map, except that the shells also cause suppression. My thinking with this is that it should cover a broad area, with a relatively short delay between each shell, with each shell having a large AOE suppression. Perhaps the effect would be best compared to the Nebelwerfer from Coh1, minus the flame. What you essentially use it for is area denial and forcing off squads.
MG131 HMG Team: Essentially a ‘premium’ HMG team, the same way the MG42 and DSKH were considered premium in Coh2. Its suppression and damage would be far better than the MG34. It should perform relatively well against light vehicles, like the .50 Cal did in Coh2. The HE rounds ability I see performing better against units in cover, potentially even allowing you to perform cover suppression.
Sd. Ah. 52 Supply Trailer: The Supply Trailer requires some explanation. My thinking with this is that its a brand new unit type, which loosely can be defined as a support weapon. How it works is that infantry squads can crew it, push it around, vehicles can tow it, etc. When in a position, it provides an aura which in this case gives nearby units additional construction options as well as increasing pio construction speeds and giving vehicles the ability to hull down. However, the unit shouldn't require pop cap and moreover, you can actually manually decrew it and it will still provide you the benefits. So for example, let's say it spawns in your base and you want to setup a strong point, you can crew it with a squad, wheel it over to a house near the frontline and then decrew it. Units within its vicinity would still be benefiting from the aura. When you want to move it, recrew it again, or tow it, to a new location. The beauty of this dynamic is that your opponents can steal these units from you like an ATG, so while they don't take up popcap and would be relatively cheap (say 100 to 150 manpower), you're still incentivised to protect them. You can also attack move them with AT guns etc, would be interesting to play around it. I think it would make for an fun dynamic, but would need to be coded from scratch. It also indirectly makes tow yet more useful. With this trailer specifically, it’s aura will make the area around it a point where you can dig in. Multiple squads would be setting up sandbags, vehicles would be able to hulldown and it can also distribute medical supplies.
Off-map Mortar Creeping Barrage: Fairly straight forward light off-map.
Hold The Line: This allows you to hold onto territory easier. A global ability, while in capture circles, your infantry will be hardier. Moreover, they can also reverse the capping progress of your opponent when you contest the capture with your own unit, although you can’t use this to capture territory that is contested. This will be really powerful in VP wars.
15 cm sIG 33 Heavy Infantry Support Gun: The star of the battlegroup. This would be like an LeIG but dialled up to 11. It would have 110 range direct autofire (so like Free Fire Drills), but with a slower ROF. The team would be able to move it around without tow, but like the Flak 37, it would be incredibly slow, like a Pak 40 in camo. The demolition shot would have a much shorter range, like 50, but be incredible against emplacements, although if you manage to get vehicles or team weapons it would be deadly as well. The trick shot nature of this should make it easier to avoid. So kind of like a Sturmtiger but much easier to notice and dodge, while also being less powerful. Realistically you would need to use tow to get it around, but its not strictly required.
https://preview.redd.it/4yg3itn8t61d1.png?width=1012&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb6f1e7b2a4c8d145cfe231db303b0474c33d4e9
Central Idea: Vision, having awareness of the battlefield and executing flanks. Conceptually this battlegroup is the opposite of Battlefield Espionage.
Horch 108 Recon: A heavy ‘ultra light’, which sounds like an oxymoron, but to put this on a scale, it would be better than the Krad as a harassment tool, but not as good as the 250. However, the 250 can’t cap and this can, whereas the Krad is cheaper, faster and has more vision while stationary. So there are trade offs to all 3. The Flak 38 gives the Horch better scaling than the krad. Relative to the Dingo, the Dingo should win, but one would expect the fight with the US Jeep to be more even, if not slightly Horch favoured.
Forward Observation Posts: These are equivalent to the battlefield espionage beacons, except they’re focused on providing LOS. You set them up with infantry and they can be faced to an area to provide sight. I could see these being super handy on the edge of the map, overlooking a flanking route.
Sd. Kfz. 263 Panzerfunkwagen: The Panzerfunkwagen would be a solid sight tool. The MG would be roughly as good as a 250, so you might want to use it aggressively early on, but you’d mostly be using it as a mobile sight platform. With cautious movement, you would be able to spot your opponents forces from camo and the Mark infantry ability should have a short cooldown and be free. You’d mark several units and they would make they more vulnerable to small arms. This would reward active micro management.
Timed Infantry Sight: Amazing for executing flanks, you can detect enemy units before they see you. This should make getting around MGs and picking your engagements far easier.
Panzer Commander Upgrade: Exactly like Coh2.
Suppressive Fire: Gives various units access to a suppressive fire ability. Coupled with the sight abilities, you can trigger this before an opponent’s unit comes into range.
Sd.Kfz.6/3 AT Halftrack: Weaker than the Marder in terms of health, the ATHT has the benefit of providing mobile AT without needing to tech T2. The ranged shot works well in conjunction with the sight tools allowing you to get off shots against more powerful vehicles without taking shots in return.
Temporary 222 Recon Group: Double 222s arrive off-map, they are in your control and you can use them how you please. However, after 75 seconds, they turn to AI control and leave the battlefield. By the time they reach the front, you’ll have roughly 60 seconds to ‘go nuts’ and do as much damage as possible. They don’t require manpower, fuel or popcap. This feeds into DAK’s tempo, all-in playstyle. So I could see a player building an 8-Rad and then using this ability, using the sight tools to determine where the ATGs are and then going all in, the 222s are relatively expendable. The 222s should benefit from the armoury upgrades, so in the lategame you could use this ability to jam captures or sneak off to grab a VP. As an opposing player, mines, hand held AT and snares are your friends. 222s should basically require 1 snare to cause engine damage. Some people have said they don't like temporary units, I haven't seen a good argument against them yet.
Bf 110 Autocannon Heavy Strafing Run: A heavy anti infantry strafing run, akin to the IL-2 strafe in Coh2. It would also be of variable length. Let's say X is your first click and Y is your second, which marks the end and direction of the run, the default run is diagram A, but you can drag the cursor of point Y as far as you want, with a maximum of either 35 range or when you don't have enough munitions banked up for the run. This gives you the flexibility of deciding how much you want to spend and where it will land. A well placed strafe on retreat could be devastating. The cursor should highlight the munitions cost as you drag from point x to point y.
Me 210 Light (SC50) Bombing Run: This is a much lighter bombing run than the US carpet bombing. It should be single line and relatively fast, the damage of the shells should be roughly equivalent to 5.5 inch artillery shells.
https://preview.redd.it/qi30nfn7t61d1.png?width=1417&format=png&auto=webp&s=200547a5ba6b66003c79100161f2613bc96b8c4f
Central Idea: Map presence, retaining position. The battlegroup was inspired by the invasion of Crete.
Luftwaffe Ground Forces: Somewhat similar to the Coh1 equivalent, they would be a fairly weak combat squad with lots of utility. In this case, they would have various construction options as well as being able to heal squads. L.P.Z. Light AT Mines would be more spamable than your standard mines, would be cheaper and only detonate on vehicles. If the vehicle is on less than 80% health, it would cause an engine crit. As an alpha damage, probably 75% of the standard mine would be sufficient. It would require 2 of these mines to detonate on a full health vehicle to engine crit it basically. Dosenmines are essentially like S-Mines and would be planted in patches. The M30 Drilling Shotgun Shot ability would be targeted on a squad and would have short range of about 5. You’d more or less use it like you would a grenade, except it like a throwing knife and the Sniper Shot ability, it can’t be dodged. More than likely, you’d get just one of these squads to augment your composition, with PGs as the mainline.
DFS 230 Glider HQ: Essentially a standard glider, you can drop it in to provide in field reinforcement. However, this glider can also heal nearby squads and recrew team weapons. In addition, the DFS 230 has roof top MG15 upgrade, which turns it into something akin to a light MG emplacement. So there are a few ways I see this being useful. One would be to drop the glider so that it covers your cut off, upgrade the MG and it will make it much harder for your opponent to cut you off and you’ll get infield reinforcement with healing. Maps like Famonville and Road to Tunis, this would be immensely useful. Another use would be in intense VP wars, at the end of the game you want to secure a flank VP, you drop the glider in and upgrade the MG, in many ways its like an auto build, quick deploy MG emplacement, that can also reinforce. Great for map control.
250 W/ Flak 38: Fairly vanilla, like the other 250 callins except with a Flak 38. The Flak 38 would have identical performance to the Flak 30 of Wehr, one way to differentiate them would be to give the gun shield heavy cover properties, but reduce the unit to 4 men to compensate.
Ju-87 Multi Vector MG Strafes: Essentially 3 separate strafes that you call in one after the other. The difference between this and a standard MG strafe is that these strafes give you what is essentially a ‘bulk buy discount’, but also, since they can be targeted in 3 totally separate places within LOS, your opponent has to react quickly to dodge all 3 of them. Its acts as a micro spike test, where you quickly throw them down and they quickly have to dodge. The skill of placing them all fast and accurately needs to be matched by the skill in dodging them all. Moreover, when combined with an attack with units, it can create an overwhelming set of threats.
Bomb Drop Overwatch: The most comparable ability to this would be sector artillery. However, in this case, its planes dropping bombs on units that come into the territory. Its not exactly a loiter though as the planes wait off map, they can still be shot down however. In terms of how strong the bombs should be, it would require testing but somewhere between a 5.5 inch shell and the US Dive Bomb would be a good place to start. Ideally a broad AOE, with only a small zone of full damage. This tool would essentially be used for area denial and be really strong in VP wars.
Ready Reinforcements: A fairly straight forward ability that speeds up reinforcement and allows quick return to the battlefield, again allowing you to retain field presence. Another feature of this ability is that it speeds up in field reinforcement and allows infantry to sprint in friendly territory outside of combat, being able to react to hot spots faster.
Junkers Ju 52 Reinforcement Pass: This is most comparable to the Paradrop Reinforcements of US, except where that ability is a stream of reinforcements over a long duration, this ability is more geared towards a burst of reinforcements all at once. There’s an element of skill in its deployment, as you’re incentivised to line up as many squads lengthwise as possible to maximise reinforcements dropped per munitions expenditure. Since its substantially longer than wide, you could have several squads in different engagements all ‘caught’ in the line and all benefiting from the ability. I could see this happening when you have multiple squads spread across the centre of the map and all located within the area of effect. The ability can be used to swing engagements and keep units in the field.
Paradrop 4.2cm Pak 41 Team: Self-explanatory, the performance of the Pak would be better than both the Pak 36 and the 38, as well as being more mobile than the 38. Useful to quickly deploy AT to a trouble spot.
Temporary Bolster: During the duration of the ability, squads can get an extra man. So Panzer grenadiers can go from 5 to 6 (or from 6 to 7), MG34s go from 4 to 5, Paks likewise etc. This applies to all infantry and support weapons. Once the ability ends, the extra model doesn’t leave, but when the squad drops back to normal numbers of models, it won’t return to the bolstered level until the ability is reactivated. What this ability allows you to do is augment the heath and DPS of your squads temporarily, making them more survivable in the field. Obviously though, the extra models are not free, costing both manpower and munitions.
Temporary Fallschirmjägers Assignment: Like the 222 assignment in the previous battlegroup, this involves you taking control of 2 squads which leave the battlefield after a period of time. In this case, 2 squads of MP40 Falls are dropped where you like and then can be used to sow carnage for 75 seconds from when they touch the ground. Their MP40s make them ideal for flanking team weapons, they have smoke grenades and the can throw short range snares. So you could potentially drop them in behind the lines with the intention of catching a vehicle trying to back up from the front line. One massive use of this ability will be in VP wars, where you drop them onto a VP in the lategame to swing the match in your favour. They don’t cost manpower, population or upkeep, but require a lot of munitions.
Historical Accuracy Notes
A few notes on what is inaccurate or anachronistic. The Panzer III Munitions Vehicle, as far as I know, wasn’t used in Africa but on the Eastern Front. There was another, the Lorraine Schlepper Munitions Vehicle, that was used in Africa for the exact same purpose and this could be used instead, but the benefits of the P3 are reduced development cost as some of the voice lines and the vehicle sounds can be reused. I’m also not so sure whether Side Skirts were used on P3s in North Africa, I haven’t seen photo evidence in any case.
The MG131, while used in a ground HMG role, I haven’t seen evidence of it being used by the DAK in North Africa. About ten Sd.Kfz.6/3 AT Halftracks were used, some people might object to that unit on these grounds. I haven’t seen evidence of the Pak 41 being used in North Africa, I’m also fairly sure they didn’t paradrop them. The M30 Drilling Shotgun was used in North Africa…but only by downed pilots. The Madsen Belt Fed MG was a Luftwaffe contract gun, but I haven’t seen evidence of it being used in North Africa. Likewise with the Panzerhandmine 3. Needless to say, all these are exceptions. Otherwise, to the best of my knowledge, these designs are historically congruent.
Design Notes
I deliberately avoided using Italian Units in these designs. Following from what I said about Relic doubling down on Coh3, I feel it makes sense for them to eventually create an Italian Faction, so I didn’t want to cannibalise that faction, especially when the DAK already has plenty of material to play with.
What to do with the remaining units in the files?
There are several other units in the game files that I haven’t used here. This was intentional. Several people having been calling out for the substitute vehicle feature from Coh1:
https://preview.redd.it/ijcq0sb6t61d1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=62585a9618ad9fb793d9ce95dcaccacf61dabaaa
As a feature it makes a lot of sense, I feel the community would be far more interested in small and frequent content drops like these instead of cosmetics and they could be priced to be more profitable than battlegroups at less development cost. They would ideally be more frequent as well, bringing players to the game. I feel games like War Thunder and WOT benefit from the sheer variety of units and I can’t see how this wouldn’t apply to Coh. Whenever they release, the units will be similar enough to the units they replace that they won’t disturb balance much, meaning less emergency balance hotfixes.
I feel this is what makes the most sense for the units already modelled, for example, the Panzer II is fundamentally serving the exact same role as the 8-Rad, they’re both 20mm autocannon light vehicles. Its hard to imagine a build where you would build both of them in the same composition and trying to make them different would be clumsy. We see this with the L6/40s, which are also similar to the 8 Rad and have been specialised to be worse against infantry and better against vehicles, to mixed results. Then there’s the 250/9. Adding another autocannon light vehicle via a battlegroup wouldn’t be that different from what we already have but as a substitute vehicle it makes a lot of sense. This logic can be applied to most of the vehicles already in the game files. The substitutions I would advise would be:
https://preview.redd.it/rermeob5t61d1.png?width=584&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a507899379f8fcd8c50d3ae04d85f8982f7ca12
The Panzerjäger I is already in the game files and could be substituted for the Marder. It would have less health and worse pen, but could be made significantly cheaper. This would be an interesting trade off in the composition. Alternatively, there’s the Marder III H which also could be made as a substitute, it would largely have the same performance but could have an MG upgrade and have a different starting price.
https://preview.redd.it/1jsj20n4t61d1.png?width=698&format=png&auto=webp&s=8be575f13ce97a2cd6c3e773ce16d67885949a5c
The Sturmpanzer II would have a much larger up front damage, closer to a Brummbär, but would have a lot less health and far worse frontal armour. You wouldn’t be tanking Bazooka shots like you do with the StuG D but it would be significantly more deadly.
https://preview.redd.it/gza0pvy3t61d1.png?width=526&format=png&auto=webp&s=c3425632265b68ee6e8d47216ceb8d6c0f36b83b
For the Opel Blitz Flak 38, it would be cool if this worked more like the Flak HT in Coh2, with the set up time and suppression. So this unit could be made cheaper and have the same role as the Flakvierling, but be more finicky to use.
Others:
https://preview.redd.it/mtp4c3a3t61d1.png?width=702&format=png&auto=webp&s=32e312dabe55957321e2ec9af9e8f89f89709906
https://preview.redd.it/n0klnvo2t61d1.png?width=652&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5825bd63a95e22090b3b9f52a8f820e61054537
https://preview.redd.it/59hqrd02t61d1.png?width=617&format=png&auto=webp&s=428ac413c7d8617936417072a1e74e0116285c46
https://preview.redd.it/9xmco9e1t61d1.png?width=813&format=png&auto=webp&s=3f34a21b37f36313900d7dc0cc2f0fa025370b03
Conclusion
This is what I would do with the remaining DAK content, short of a rework. The battlegroups are unique, fairly historically accurate, thematic and interesting. The concepts can at least be stolen and repurposed elsewhere. If there’s anything clearly broken or so amazing that it needs a shout out, feel free to let me know. I have other ideas for the other factions but I'm still pondering them.
PS. This is a repost from before, when I initially posted this I didn't understand how Reddit worked.

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

A similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job, buzzed me on the 405 Freeway/
INTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

INTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

A similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job buzzed me on the 405 Freeway
Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

A Similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job, buzzed me on the 405 Freeway.
INTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

A similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job, buzzed me on the 405 Freeway
IINTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

A similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job, buzzed me on the 405 Freeway
INTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

“Seeing is Believing & Believing is Seeing”
The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model
Joseph Burkes MD 2019 edited 2023

A similar chopper, but with a bizarre paint job buzzed me on the 405 Freeway .
INTRODUCTION

This article is based on my chapter in Volume 2 of the 2022 book “A Greater Reality.” This compendium published and edited by Rey Hernandez can now be viewed without charge on the CCRI, Consciousness and Contact Research Institute’s web site, links provided at the end of this narrative.

A familiar statement by members of the public is, “I’ll believe in flying saucers when I see one.” As the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” During my many years of contact activism, I have learned that “believing” can also lead to “seeing.” The aim of this report is to describe two important features of the contact experience. The first concerns how UAP intelligences shape encounters depending on the existing beliefs and expectations of contact experiencers. The second theme is that intelligences responsible for flying saucers employ what from a physicalist perspective is “illusion” as a mechanism of contact. I present a case in which both mechanisms were likely employed.

Readers of this blog please note the following: This narrative was originally conceived when I was writing about UFOs from within what can be called a “physicalist” or philosophical materialist’s perspective. This paradigm makes the metaphysical assumption that mass/energy is the wellspring of creation, and that mind/consciousness is merely a product of brain activity.

More recently with the assistance of my friend and publisher Rey Hernandez, I have increasingly viewed this physicalist assumption as flawed. If Consciousness is primary, not mass/energy then the psi mediated mechanisms of contact might be viewed as being closer to the wellspring of creation (and therefore perhaps more “real”) than the construct of our senses that we call “physical reality.”

My changing metaphysical views have been propelled in part by the “simulation hypothesis” that has gained some popularity within professional scientific circles. My growing acceptance of Consciousness being primary, and that the physical world is an illusion therefore compels me to view technologically based psi technology as creating “illusions” within the physical realm that could very well be an illusory simulated reality as well. In Eastern mystical traditions, the illusory nature of the physical world is called “Maya.”

THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION

It has been said that UAP intelligences are able to access experiencers’ consciousness as readily as you and I access light by turning on a wall switch. Among contact experiencers it is common knowledge that the so-called “aliens” are totally telepathic. In my opinion, such awesome power also allows them to readily access our entire storehouse of memories. This capability, when combined with their ability to create psi mediated “illusions”, enables them to co-create with us any kind of encounter that you and they can “co-imagine.”

THE PHENOMENON IS “REFLECTIVE”: THE RADICAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCED BY JOHN KEEL

John Keel,(1930- 2008) was a legendary UFO and paranormal researcher and author. He published over a dozen books. These include the “The Mothman Prophecies” (1975), that was made into a successful film starring Richard Gere. In 1966, Keel entered into an intense investigation of the flying saucer phenomenon. As part of this study, he read thousands of local newspaper articles on UFO sightings provided by clipping services. He travelled across the United States interviewing hundreds of witnesses. Keel coined the term MIB (Men In Black).

In 1967, after just one year of his intense field investigations, he abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis. He did so because of, “an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs...” Famous investigators like Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Jacques Vallee eventually came to similar conclusions. John Keel was one of ufology’s most controversial writers and his work still influences current debates about the nature of the flying saucer phenomenon.

Keel, in his classic book, “The Mothman Prophecies” discusses how flying saucer intelligence manipulated his own investigations in ways that reinforced his beliefs about what was going on. On page 111 he states,

“I was being led to people and cases to support whatever theory I was working on at the time. I tested this by inventing some rather outlandish ideas. Within days I would receive phone calls, reports, and mail describing elements of those ideas. This was the feedback or reflective effect. Other investigators concerned with solving problems such as how flying saucers are propelled have automatically been fed, or led into, cases in which the witnesses supposedly viewed the interiors of the objects and saw things which confirmed the investigators' theories. If the phenomenon can produce any effect through hallucination, it can easily support any theory.”

As a physician I prefer the term illusion rather than “hallucination” to describe the mechanisms involved in Close Encounters. Hallucinations, from the medical point of view, are manifestation of disease states and should not be applied to encounters with non-human intelligences in which the witnesses are generally not ill.

According to my analysis, psi-mediated technologically induced illusions are being presented to human subjects. This noted, I cannot over emphasize the importance of Keel’s above quote from “The Mothman Prophecies.” In addition, it is important to note that the reflective nature of the contact experience exists on both a societal as well as an individual level. Researchers John Keel, Dr. Jacques Vallee and others have aptly observed that the appearance of the UAPs reflect the cultural expectations of each historic period in which they have manifested.
Thus, to the ancient Chinese, they appeared as “dragons.” During the 1890s airship wave in the USA, they took on the appearance of Zeppelins that would be built a few years later. For the last sixty years, as we have gotten out into space, they are now thought of as “extraterrestrial.”

The following narrative is an example of an encounter that is both “illusory” as well as reflective of one’s own beliefs about what the phenomenon is “supposed to be.”

Mystery Helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass

During the mid 1990s, I was a Working Group Coordinator in Los Angeles for the CE-5 Initiative. This involved staging what I now call Human Initiated Contact Events (HICE). My contact team regularly travelled to remote locations in the high desert. There we used consciousness techniques such as meditation and thought projection to stage limited interactions with UAPs. To our surprise UFOs appeared not only during our fieldwork but also during everyday types of activities. These multiple data points helped me understand the psychic mechanisms used to engineer Close Encounters.

During the five years that I was a contact team leader, my sightings occurred, not only during fieldwork, but also in my West Los Angeles neighborhood. Some of the sightings demonstrated a flat two-dimensional quality. This made me suspect that they were not physical objects at all. Instead they appeared to be visual displays that were being produced by some kind of holographic technology. As the result of these encounters, I developed a new model incorporating the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact. I call this theory, The Virtual Experience Model.

The Virtual Experience Hypothesis

Virtual Experiences of the First Kind (VE-1) are illusory visual displays of structured objects or “alien” beings that typically convince witnesses that they are physical “craft” or “extraterrestrials” beings respectively.

Other categories include the psychic creation of a kind of virtual reality that produces a full sensory illusion that is convincingly real to the human subject. I designate this type as a VE-2.

The final major category is Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3). In this setting, artificial memories are implanted into the consciousness of the contact experiencer. Although the witness recalls seeing a non-human being or remembers going on-board an ET craft, according to this scenario no such event has actually transpired. The false memory does the job of convincing the witness that was happened was “real”, i.e., a physical event.

A HIGH LEVEL CONTACTEE JOINS THE TEAM

One member of our HICE/CE5 Los Angeles group was a high level contactee from the former Soviet Union. I refer to him as “Misha Goldman”, a pseudonym. He worked as an EKG tech in the Kaiser Hospital where I was employed. He was what you might describe as a “human UFO magnet.” As soon as he joined the group our level of contact, as measured by the appearances of UAPs, increased dramatically. I deemed it highly likely that he had direct telepathic communications with what contactees might call “friends in high places.”

Living just a few miles from Hollywood, “the entertainment capital of the world,” I thought that perhaps Misha’s boost to our contact efforts was analogous to how Hollywood describes climbing the ladder of success. “It’s not what you know, but who you know” that facilitates getting the next job as an actor, director or producer.

MISHA’S PROBLEMATIC SIGHTING OF A FLYING SAUCER & MYSTERY HELICOPTERS IN THE SEPULVEDA PASS

One Tuesday morning during Easter Week in 1994, Misha called me at home to describe a sighting that he had the previous evening. While driving on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley he reportedly saw a typical disc shaped UAP flying overhead. It was about 1000 feet up and approximately thirty feet across. Misha was not the only member of the team that was having sightings while driving, but what made this sighting highly unusual was that this saucer according to Misha was being chased by several military helicopters.

Based on my growing suspicion that some UFO sightings are illusory in nature, I told Misha that there were features of his sighting that were problematic. It is important to point out that the San Fernando Valley had a population in 1994 of about one million people. In addition, there are no major US military facilities located nearby. I told him that his assessment that the military helicopters were chasing an “alien craft” didn’t make much sense. The flight characteristics of some UAPs include their ability to fly circles around top performance military aircraft. Slow moving helicopters in pursuit mode would never be able to keep up with a “real flying saucer.” So, then what was going on?

Reverse Engineered Craft was not a likely Explanation

I suggested to Misha another possibility. What if the flying disc were a top-secret prototype military device? Then, perhaps the helicopters were escorting it rather than chasing it. This notion was reminiscent of the famous Cash-Landrum Incident in which supposedly a reverse engineered radioactive craft accompanied by US military helicopters injured several witnesses on the ground. However, there was a problem with this possible explanation. The densely populated San Fernando Valley was the least likely place for the authorities to test such a craft. Just imagine the uproar with thousands of witnesses if the saucer had to stage an emergency landing in a community of a million people. Prized government/corporate assets were better kept secure, way out in the desert where they might be secretly developed, and test flown.

I told Misha that the entire sighting might have been a kind of “theater of the mind production.” (This conversation occurred years before I coined the term Virtual Experience describing the role of illusion as a mechanism of contact.) Instead, I told Misha that the disc he had seen over the 101 might be the product of some kind of advanced alien “mind control” technology.

“Helicopters” vs Bizarre Visual Displays

After making this sweeping speculative analysis of Misha’s encounter on the phone, and feeling quite proud of myself at that, I said good-bye to my contact team buddy. I set off to work, driving on the 405 Freeway. I didn’t want to be late for the noon doctors’ meeting. Back in 1994 my department was still offering fresh donuts at conference and I didn’t want to miss my share.

So, there I was, driving through a sea of cars, on what seemed like a normal Tuesday afternoon. Or was it? As I reached the middle portion of the Sepulveda Pass, I noticed something a bit strange. Above the eastern rim of the canyon, I saw two military helicopters. This in and of itself was strange. There are no major military bases located near the City of Los Angeles. What was even more bizarre was that both choppers were vintage aircraft. One was an old Sikorsky, the kind first used in the Korean War. I recognized its typical large rounded nose with the cockpit located high up above the main cabin. The other was a Huey, a Bell UH 205, the standard workhorse helicopter of the Vietnam War.

I was immediately struck by the wild colors on both craft. The Sikorsky, instead of the standard military dark green was a brilliant candy color green. It looked like something out of a circus. The Huey appeared a bit more respectable. It was painted a darker olive color, but the bright green circle surrounded the US star insignia on the side of the craft just didn’t look right. Both helicopters were slowly moving back and forth above the over the canyon. They appeared to be no more than 200 feet above the rim. This was several hundred feet below the minimum altitude required by government regulations when flying over densely populated areas.

A Coincidence or an Example of what John Keel Would call the “Reflective Factor.”

I thought to myself, “This is very strange.” I have a conversation with Misha about his sighting possibly being a simulated visual display and then I am witness to craft that were fit for a carnival. I had specifically mentioned to Misha the notion that helicopters might be used as props in his sighting. Now I was witness to not one, but two bizarre “identified flying objects.”

Was this just an amazing coincidence, or was I being given a rather theatrical visual display similar to Misha’s? The sequence of events in retrospect suggests that the “reflective” aspect of UFO intelligence as described by John Keel was in effect. I had formulated a “belief” that the craft and helicopters from the previous night were illusory in nature, and as if to confirm my “pet theory” bizarre helicopters were flying overhead. Things got even stranger however. I wondered if Misha’s sighting was a kind of a test as to whether I would choose to attempt to interact with UFO intelligence.

On the chance that the choppers were psi mediated visual displays and not “physically real” and were produced by a telepathic non-human intelligence that might be able to communicate with me, I decided to “send out” a mental message of welcome. This, after all, was part of the contact protocols that I was employing during fieldwork. As my vehicle approached the top of the Sepulveda Pass, I was doing about 55 miles per hour. I watched the helicopters located now above me and to the right. They were still moving back and forth perpendicular to the freeway.

Human Initiated Contact Event: Was a Consciousness Connection Evident?

Not actually expecting a response from the craft overhead, I sent out a mental message of welcome. My 1983 Toyota Camry reached the crest of the Sepulveda Pass. The San Fernando Valley stretched out before me. As always, I took pleasure in the spectacular panoramic view. I accelerated as I headed down the hill into the Valley. To my surprise, I noticed that the Huey had broken away from the Sikorsky. It was headed my way! Just another coincidence?

The Huey was now above my vehicle, and I noticed that it was descending rapidly. It kept pace with me, flying just a few dozen yards out front. I had a perfect view of its underbelly through my windshield. The chopper leveled out at less than 100 feet above the roadway. I could hear the chopper’s engines, but they seemed quite muffled. The roar should have been deafening, but it wasn’t. My heart pounding, I continued to silently chant welcoming thoughts.

For about one mile, we traveled together. As we passed the Sepulveda Basin Dam, the Huey moved off to the west. I looked towards the walls of the reservoir, (a favorite “shoot site” for film crews.) The large concrete plaza in front the dam was totally deserted. Apparently, the choppers were not part of a Hollywood action movie being filmed on the spillway of the reservoir.

After the medical conference, I worked an evening shift in the ER. I then called Misha and told him about the helicopters in the Sepulveda Pass. Was the appearance of the helicopters an example of the “reflective aspect” as described by John Keel? Did I really have a contact experience while driving through the Sepulveda Pass? I suppose skeptics would reject any positive interpretation of the events as nothing more than “UFO fan club wishful thinking.” Coincidence might explain all. I should point out however that prior to this experience, I had never been buzzed by a helicopter while driving, never before and never since for that matter. It all might have occurred by chance. But I don’t think so!

Addendum: A much expanded, footnoted version of this article appears in the anthology “A Greater Reality” edited by Reinerio Hernandez. This multivolume work is published by the newly formed The Consciousness and Contact Research Institute (CCRI) and supports the concept that consciousness rather than mass/energy is the wellspring of creation.
My chapter titled “Report from the Contact Underground: The Consciousness Connection and the Virtual Experience Model” can be accessed at:
https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Burkes%20-%20Report%20from%20the%20Contact%20Underground.pdf

Other chapters published by CCRI may be viewed at the organization’s web site at:
https://agreaterreality.com

Form additional articles on the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
This is an overview of the Virtual Experience Model (VEM) with a brief explanation of categories one, two and three.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/03/the-virtual-experience-model-an-overview/

I further develop the VEM by discussing the traditional Tibetan belief in “tulpas.” These are thought to be more than holographic projects, but rather physical objects and beings.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/05/20/the-interdimensional-vs-et-hypothesis-virtual-experiences-and-ufo-sightings-as-thought-forms/

American physician Andrija Puharich’s work with psychic Uri Geller gives a striking example of “virtual memory” a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/andrija-puharich-mds-work-with-uri-geller-supports-the-virtual-experience-model/

I describe field observations of anomalous shooting star visual displays that played an important role in the development of the VEM.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/why-might-ufo-intelligence-hoax-shooting-star-displays-reflections-on-the-virtual-experience-model/

Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: “Virtual Memory” is a concept explored here considering advances in memory science.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/virtual-memory-a-virtual-experience-of-the-third-kind-ve-3/

Good afternoon everyone, like many of you I am eagerly awaiting potential development of several active regions currently in play, but none more so than AR3685. The AR-tist formerly known as AR3654 announced its presence with an estimated X2.9 off the E limb a few days ago, but we had not gotten a good look at it yet. When it did rotate into view enough to make out its features, I was surprised by the lack of enthusiam in some places. While no one would confuse it with AR3664, I think the potential is there for a more than respectable run across our star. It cares little for what I think, or anyone else for that matter, but I trust my instincts here.
At 21:08 an M7.25 fired off from AR3685 which has only strengthened my confidence that despite the lack of organization currently displayed, the potential is there. If this AR can produce X2.9 and M7.25 in its current state, does that bode well for the coming week for aurora chasers? I think so.
SE LIMB M7.25
EDIT 8 PM EST - M7.2 did create a CME, it is not earth directed.
https://preview.redd.it/9tn4w8czs21d1.png?width=777&format=png&auto=webp&s=8700502153c3fb3cc3405b7a2e1b5c70580abada
Now don't get carried away with that. I have lost count at all of the REDICULOUS articles stating that a worse solar storm is on the way and that aurora chasers will have one more chance this year. Could a worse solar storm happen? Yes. Could Aurora chasers in fact get another chance? Of course. My problem with these articles is the wording. It lends the impression to people that we can actually forecast or predict what the sun will do when anyone familiar knows damn well that it is not possible. Might we be able to in the future? Sure, anything is possible. We could make a ground breaking discovery or build a craft that can get data points that would help us know what we don't know. But at this point, it is irresponsible and meant to capitalize on both peoples fear and excitement. If you want a case in point, AR3685 only had a 5% chance of producing an M-Class flare today. Do you think I really took that probability seriously? No. We play the cards dealt, when they get dealt.
https://preview.redd.it/v5raf3gx821d1.png?width=693&format=png&auto=webp&s=53ff2b4cf2b917f0d2b665020129a56236fc1c54
THE MEDIA-IOTS
The media no longer adheres or understands the role of media in the first place. The media was meant to keep the public informed and to ensure that adequate public scrutiny could be applied to any pressing issue and to do so in a manner that is completely unbiased, objective, and without concern for marketing or views. Now you can believe whatever you want, and somewhere there is a news outlet producing the "facts" needed to make it coherent at face value, but never able to withstand scrutiny by an informed person. I told it to you true when I said there is no predicting what happens next with the sun good or bad. When you see these stories and articles you are armed with the knowledge of the how and why we both experience geomagnetic storms and a grasp of what I call the cosmic slot machine effect. In order to get a significant geomagnetic storm, whether its like last weekend or the CE, you need to pull the level, and hit all three Lucky 7's.
FLARE>CME>EARTH DIRECTED
It is true that CMEs can be produced through other mechanisms, fairly common even. Generally this occurs through plasma filament destablization but as a rule, (although not always) these events are weaker than CMEs produced by major flares. They use the notion that since on a long enough time scale we are guaranteed to suffer a severe solar event that its acceptable to tell people that its coming, even coming this solar cycle. Do you think the AI writing Newsweek knows something you dont? Know something that I dont? What if I wrote an article with a big headline saying YOU NEED TO PREPARE NOW and you open it only to see me warning that an asteroid is heading our way and will definitely cause signficant damage to our planet.....someday. That is what it is. Here are some of the more rediculous news articles I have seen. Most of them are not from reputable sources, but WTF is a reputable source now? People are still reading this crap and factoring it into their understanding and its plain wrong.
Brits warned to prepare for 'solar flares' that could cause serious burns in scorching 31C highs - plain wrong
Feds Issue Warning Earth To Be Pounded By Powerful Solar Storm That Could Wipe Out Internet - clickbait
Twenty minutes to impact: Solar storms could wreak power grid havoc on Earth - plain wrong - if a CME gets here in 20 minutes, it will need a speed of 300,000 km/s - we are all dead - braindead article
Aurora Alert: Why You Now Need To Pack A Bag For Sudden Solar Storms - misleading title, actually aurora chasing instructions disguised as fear mongering
NOAA says tonight's 'cannibal' solar storm could be worst in 165 YEARS and cause GPS and power outages - as they reveal exact time it'll hit - Scaremongering and wrong, there is no revealing exact time, as was the case last weekend in nearly every case
Folks need someone they can trust about space weather and again I will ask. Why not you?
I have a few other things for you to check out, just for fun
All 12 X-Class Flares from AR3664 - Credit goes to SolarHam.net
A Celestial Convention - Credit Dr Ryan French
AR3664 Viewed from Mars - NASA
Storm Comparison - 2024/2023/1989 - Credit Dan Welling
From SpaceWeather.com - Likely first aurora for New Caledonia since 1859 at least.
First Aurora Sighting Ever in these Regions - From a flurry of LOW end X and high M flare/CMEs - Interesting
Have a great weekend everyone!