An Interview with Lucius Farish

Lou on UFOs (both modern and ancient), alien abductions, Jessup and the Philadelphia Experiment, the paranormal, Keel and Vallee, and what it takes to be a good ufologist!

by Brent Raynes

Lucius Farish of Plumerville, Arkansas has been an active student of ufology for half a century. He is widely regarded as one of the most respected, credible researchers in the UFO field.

Editor: I know that soon after entering the UFO field way back in 1967, back then a teenaged ufologist, you were one of my first correspondents. I recall bouncing a lot of questions and theories off of you, in addition to exchanging xerox copies of many UFO newspaper clippings. Besides the modern reports of UFOs, you were I think best known back then for your research and articles on the "airship" waves of 1896-97, and 1909-10. In fact, because of your influence, I got rather proficient at going into libraries and newspaper offices and using their microfiches to do similar research. Early on I mimeographed a UFO newsletter, and I remember you giving me sound advice on using proper grammar and spelling (I admit it, I was really bad back then!), and being careful also to maintain balanced and objective logic and reasoning when trying to write about and report on what's going on.

You've certainly maintained a sterling reputation in this field as a highly credible and professional writer and researcher of solid integrity. You've had hundreds of articles and columns in the old Skylook, in the MUFON UFO Journal and elsewhere that dealt with UFO cases, book reviews, and astronomical information. Plus for nineteen years now you've been active in working the magic of the Ozark UFO Conference.

What is Lou Farish's personal story? How and why did you become interested in this deep, complex and controversial mystery?

Lou Farish: Oh gosh, you've asked "THE QUESTION" which I've been asked so many times and I really don't have a good answer! I honestly can't say why I became interested in UFOs. It seems as though I've always found the subject fascinating. There was no spectacular sighting or similar event to trigger my interest. In the early-mid 1950's, I read Gerald Heard's IS ANOTHER WORLD WATCHING? and Keyhoe's FLYING SAUCERS FROM OUTER SPACE. In 1957, I read Jessup's THE CASE FOR THE UFO (which I would still recommend to anyone interested in the subject). This introduced me to the much broader field of Forteana and I haven't been the same since!

Yes, I've seen things which I couldn't identify as anything conventional, but nothing close-up. I simply couldn't ignore all the other reports over the years. If UFOs (or some of them, at least) are spacecraft from other realities, my attitude has always been, "Sure, why not?" I never saw anything the least bit unacceptable about such a concept.

Editor: Okay, I think I get it. Jessup's book introduced to your awareness the earlier data of anomalous aerial phenomena, like the "airship" waves and so forth, and this allowed you to look beyond the so-called "modern" UFO phenomenon and look back at a historical pre-1947 perspective that seemingly dated back centuries.

What I wonder now is how after all of your own many, many years of pondering and analyzing the whole broad UFO spectrum, what do you think is the best evidence and what does that evidence tend to point to or indicate to you about what seems to be going on?

Lou Farish: Insofar as Jessup's book is concerned, I think it might be more correct to say that it not only suggested that UFO phenomena had been around for a very long time, but it opened my eyes to other types of unexplained phenomena and how they might be related to UFOs.

Incidentally, have you ever read the Varo Edition of THE CASE FOR THE UFO? If not, you might find it very interesting. It is available online.

To me, it is not a question of Cases X, Y or Z constituting the best UFO evidence. You have to look at the overall accumulation of reports and form opinions or conclusions from that. I'm really not sure what is going on, except that I suspect that visits by/interactions with other intelligences is the norm, rather than the exception. I also suspect that we vastly underestimate the total amount of space traffic in our solar system. Many sources, many agendas. Beyond that, I'm not sure.

That's about the best I can do on that score.

Editor: So obviously we're talking about thousands of similar reports from all over the globe and from many different periods of time historically. Credible witnesses and multiple witness encounters of course are what investigator's desire to nail down the most in their investigative efforts, plus isolate potentially significant and revealing patterns, like the so called electromagnetic induced car stallings and electrical interferences that have been reported in hundreds of cases.

What kinds of data and patterns suggests to you extraterrestrial or otherworldly visitation versus other more conventional explanations or theories, such as natural phenomena, secret military aircraft testings, etc.?

Lou Farish: I would say that such things as instant appearances/disappearances, EM effects, maneuvers such as right-angle turns, etc., all suggest (strongly) that in such cases, we are seeing evidence of advanced technology and I rather doubt that all of it can be explained as earthly experimentation.

I also find it very interesting to examine contactee/abductee testimonies for matching details. I wish someone would take such accounts seriously enough to really do a comprehensive comparative analysis of the reports.

In my opinion, MUFON has had one really good idea, that being the Abduction Transcription Project, which is now apparently dead. That's exactly the sort of thing which needs to be done. Wilbert Smith, in the 1950's, did comparisons of contactee testimonies, even though most of this has never been made public, so far as I know.

Editor: How do you view the paranormal, altered states of consciousness element of many UFO close encounters, what British researcher Jenny Randles called the “Oz Factor”? And while we’re talking about Jessup and the Varo edition of his book, what of the Philadelphia Experiment, which Jacques Vallee wrote an article refuting, and what some see as Jessup’s suspicious suicide?

Lou Farish: So far as I can see, the altered state and parapsychology aspects of UFOs are not at all surprising. "They" obviously have a much better understanding of such things and use them as a matter of course. Exactly what you would expect from an advanced culture.

Incidentally, the Varo Edition contains the first (so far as I can determine) reference to what is now called the "Oz Factor," which is just one more reason to seriously consider its contents.

I think it very likely that something like the Philadelphia Experiment did take place. I don't take a lot of Vallee's comments very seriously.

As for Jessup's suicide; I can understand people wondering about it, but from all I can learn, Jessup was very depressed at that time. It’s hard to say anything definite.

Editor: Why do you think that we can have this staggering and ongoing global UFO situation with sixty years of thousands of seemingly credible eyewitness reports, and yet have nothing absolute or concrete to offer or show the public? Are the governments and military's of the world this good at covering up the crucial evidence, or are we dealing with an intelligence that's amazingly capable of covering it's own tracks?

Since you're open to concepts and notions of altered states, the paranormal, advanced science and physics and visitations from an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence (or intelligences), what are your reflections or thoughts on John Keel's "ultraterrestrial" theory and Jacques Vallee's "control system" as an explanation of why the UFO enigma is so complex and hard to solve?

Lou Farish: Well, you're asking questions that are hard to answer, so all I can do is give guesses and speculations.

"Are the governments and military's of the world this good at covering up the crucial evidence, or are we dealing with an intelligence that's amazingly capable of covering it's own tracks?"

I suspect it's a combination of both. Are you familiar with Dr. James Deardorff's "embargo hypothesis"? He thinks that ETs always give a contactee combinations of genuine and nonsensical data because the skeptics always need an "out", i.e. something they can point to and say "this is obvious nonsense."

Frankly, I have a difficult time accepting just about anything coming from Keel! As you may know, I corresponded with Keel extensively when he was writing OTH (Operation Trojan Horse) and his other books. Although he did some good by pointing out aspects of the subject which others ignored, some of his conclusions left much to be desired. At best, he's not saying much that's original. At worst, he's distorting data.

I simply don't know what to say about Vallee's "control system." His comments are ETs are pretty nonsensical ("they can't be ETs because they don't act like ETs would act"). My guess would be that Vallee is playing a role. That's all I'll say about that.

Remember, there is far more involved in keeping things secret than "just" the reality of visitors from elsewhere. For instance, the real origins of mankind.

Editor: So you think too that there is some sort of conspiracy to conceal the truth about human origins on planet earth? What do you think is being concealed? ET origin or ET based genetic work of some kind?

Lou Farish: Well, it does seem as though there is some sort of concerted effort to keep a lot of things secret from the general public, including the origin(s) of humanity. It seems pretty clear to me that the human race has been genetically modified, probably several times throughout its history. I think this all ties in with religions, which, of course, are the biggest control systems of all.

In my more cynical moments, I think that Earth must be some cosmic lunatic asylum. Of course, that always brings up the troublesome question, "Well, what am I doing here then?"!

Editor: With all of your innumerable contacts, with all of your years of lining up conference speakers, and all of the vast amount of literature that you've digested in this field, there must be certain UFO researchers/authors who stand out in your mind as exemplifying the best qualities, character traits and take on the evidence. What makes them that way, in your eyes?

In contrast to that, without naming names necessarily, what type of researcher/author generally ends up on your s--t list? Falls well short of the mark?

Lou Farish: What makes a good researcher? Being willing to examine ALL the evidence with an open mind and being willing to admit one's ignorance. If you go into the study of UFOs/unexplained phenomena thinking that you know what is possible and what isn't, you're just wasting your time.

Researchers who fall short of the mark, in my opinion, are those who are motivated primarily by ego and an unwillingness to put aside preconceptions and beliefs. Of course, I think that "belief" of any type is the great enemy.

Where is ufology currently? I'm really not sure, but it seems to me that "progress" is slow, if not non-existant. I dislike "organizational" thinking. I much prefer the idea of individual research and, while I see that value of specialization, one must also have a familiarity with the literature, in order to better understand the overall picture. Groups whose aim is to "solve the UFO mystery" fail to impress me. As I see it, there is not so much a mystery to be "solved," as there is a SITUATION TO BE UNDERSTOOD.