Author

Title

Abstract

Ivar Volden
09:00 - 09:10
Friday
17 August

Welcome

Ivar Volden is the Mayor of Holtalen municipality, where the Hessdalen valley is located

Paul Devereux
09:10 - 09:30
Friday
17 August

A Historical Case of Earth Lights

An illustrated account of the 1904-1905 outbreak of light phenomena in north-west Wales, and how it helped instigate research that led to the UK government's acceptance of the earth lights theory.

Auguste Meessen
09:35 - 09:55
Friday
17 August

From UFO Properties to UFO Propulsion

This overview of 35 years of scientific investigation of the UFO phenomenon presents a model of UFO propulsion that is only based on observed facts and known physical laws.

We begin with visual, radar and photographic observations from the Belgian UFO flap (1989-1993). These and other facts allowed for the formulation of the "Pulsed EM Propulsion" model, which involves the action of electric and magnetic fields on electric charges, resulting from an adequate ionization of the ambient air. We also show how the required, extremely intense, but low frequency field can be produced. This theory seems to be confirmed by various physical effects that UFOs did actually produce.

Dave Akers
10:00 - 10:20
Friday
17 August

The Toppenish Field Study: A Technical Review and Update

The core characteristics of genuine UFOs were identified and cataloged by the late 1960s and generally describes some features of the earthlights, earthquake lights, Hessdalen phenomenon, and other anomalous luminous phenomena being studied today. Many of the instrument choices and techniques currently used were inspired by these earlier UFO studies.

We describe details of the instruments, field techniques, and results of field work conducted in south, central Washington state ( USA ) from 1972 to the present. Previously unreported data, including magnetophosphene observations, apparent localized magnetic pulses, and a recent daylight video recording is presented. The paper concludes with discussion of proposed plans for new instrumentation and field work. A separate appendix briefly describes other instrumentation field studies, conducted before and after the original 1972 Toppenish field work.

10:20 - 10:40

Coffee break

Erling Strand
10:40 - 11:00
Friday
17 August

Project Hessdalen: History and Data.

The Hessdalen Phenomena (HP) was first known to public in the early 80s. It was due to the sudden high number of sightings, starting December 1981. The high number of sightings could be in the order of twenty a week, which lasted to the end of 1984. From 1985 the number of sightings has been in the order of twenty a year. Project Hessdalen made one expedition in 1984 and one in 1985. Data was achieved on different kind of instruments used. Due to the low number of sightings in 1985, there have been no more scientific expeditions. During a visit in Hessdalen 1993, people told us that sightings still occurred. Project Hessdalen decided then to make an automatic measurement station (AMS). Students at Ostfold College started making the AMS in 1994. The station was installed and set in operation 1998.

The main instrument at the Hessdalen AMS was a camera connected to a computer, which analyzes a new picture every second. When a sudden change in light intensity occurs, the video recorder starts and the picture is sent to the internet. The pictures and the video have told us about new characteristics of the Hessdalen Phenomena.

Bjørn-Gitle Hauge
11:05 - 11:30
Friday
17 August

Optical spectrum analysis of the Hessdalen phenomenon.

Identification of the unexplained luminous phenomenon in Hessdalen has always been difficult to do, since these phenomena's often is mixed up with artificial and natural lights as cars, planes, meteors, planets etc. Although the Hessdalen phenomena has some spectacular manifestations, such as huge blinking and spiraling light balls. These manifestations are rare, and in most of the cases it shows itself in a more modest manifestation, often mistaken as a natural source of light. The latest development in digital SLR cameras, and the use of transmission gratings to obtain optical spectra, has made it possible to identify the Hessdalen phenomenon, and to find the chemical elements which the phenomenon is made of.

Stein Johansen
11:35 - 12:00
Friday
17 August

Outline of a typology to frame and explain "UFO" phenomena from cutting-edge natural science

What counts as "unexplainable", "paranormal" or "UFO phenomena" is relative to the most advanced science existing at the moment for classification, not to old stream ignorance about recent scientific revolutions and break-throughs. Among others, recent experiments by the PEAR group and Rupert Sheldrake have demonstrated by strict protocols the undeniable existence of "paranormal" phenomena as judged by the old stream paradigm. The paper will outline a typology for such phenomena, framed inside the theoretical body of cutting-edge natural science (hadronic mechanics, causal mechanics, Global Scaling Theory, nilpotent vacuum, wave genetics, topological geometrodynamics) and corresponding ontology. Cases from the Hessdalen material will be discussed as illustrations inside such a framework.

12:00 - 13:30

Lunch break

Massimo Silvestri, Giorgio Abraini, Renzo Cabassi, Nico Conti
13:30 - 13:50
Friday
17 August

Smart Optical Sensors Observatory

An optical research project about Luminous Phenomena in Atmosphere

At the end of 2006 the ICPH launched a research program to realize an equipment for automatic optical capture and analysis of Luminous Phenomena in Atmosphere. The equipment is devised for use with other instruments to gather different parameters within the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The instrumentation is called SOSO (Smart Optical Sensors Observatory) and is currently used for testing purposes under the direction of Massimo Silvestri. In this paper the Authors present the methods and materials at the root of the SOSO project. Keywords: Mintron, Motion, UFO-Capture, Imaging Source, Linux, Video Motion Detection, Optical Alarms

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Ole Jonny Braenne
13:55 - 14:15
Friday
17 August

Norway in UFO photographs, the first catalogue

The Hessdalen region in Norway is presently recognized worldwide as a location where anomalistic luminous events have place frequently. In order to be a stimulus for the long-awaited, complete, and up-to-date census of photographed activity in the area, a preliminary catalogue of pictures, films and videos of alleged UFO phenomena obtained in Norway 1900-2005 has been prepared. This catalogue places the Hessdalen Phenomena into proper historical perspective during the two last centuries, in relationship to other unidentified events in the country, as a reference for observational anomalous luminous and non-luminous, explained and unexplained air phenomena.

14:15 - 14:30

Coffee break

Antonella Vannini
14:30 - 14:50
Friday
17 August

Advanced Waves, Retrocausality and Consciousness.

In quantum mechanics, advanced waves, which propagate backward in time, have been usually ignored, as they were considered to be unphysical. Nevertheless, in the sciences of life, advanced waves may permit to answer some of the major mysteries and paradoxes. In this paper, a model which relates advanced wave solutions with the properties of living systems will be examined, and a retrocausal model of consciousness will be briefly presented.
Full text

Ulisse Di Corpo
14:55 - 15:15
Friday
17 August

The conflict between entropy and syntropy: the vital needs model

In this paper the vital needs model, which describes 3 main groups of conditions which living systems need to satisfy in order to survive, is discussed. This model was developed working on the laws of entropy, syntropy and retrocausality.
Full text

Parente Patricio
15:20 - 15:40
Friday
17 August

Experience and legitimacy of UFO accounts in Argentina : Popular and scientific narratives from an anthropo-epistemic point of view.

This presentation is part of a ethnographic research centered on the analysis of the discursive strategies of legitimization of UFO narratives, which has been relieved in a field work in Argentina . The study reveals discursive links and differences between popular and scientific accounts of observation of "strange lights". At the same time, work analyses the arguments about status of reality attributed to the events, the discourse about "qualified witness" and the disqualification of certain social identities. Finally, the discussion includes epistemologic reflections tied to the limits and scopes of the anthropologic approach to produce knowledge on a subject that is studied by social and hard sciences simultaneously.

16:00 - 20:00

Tour to Hessdalen
Bus leaves the hotel at 16:00 (4PM) and return back approx. 20:00 (8PM)

21:00

Dinner

Saturday 18 August

Author

Title

Abstract

09:00 - 09:10
Saturday
18 August

Announcements

Antonio Giuditta
09:10 - 09:30
Saturday
18 August

Creative evolution: what are your mechanisms?

Biological evolution is the most recent segment of the eons-long cosmic evolution, and the chief domain that displays an extraordinary flourishing of diverse living entities. These astounding feasts of creativity have long been attributed to chance genomic variations and to their natural selections according to the organisms' adaptation to the environment. Such a mechanism is widely accepted by the biological community despite the vanishingly low probability that chance events may give rise to the highly ordered functions of the living. Alternative hypotheses have nonetheless been advanced. Apart from the creationist propositions, they reach as far back as two centuries ago when Lamarck suggested that new properties acquired by the repeated use of biological functions. It is possible it is inherited. The Lamarckian view emphasized the capacity of the organism to shape its evolutionary future, at variance with its lack of involvement predicated by the neo-Darwinian belief. Experimental evidence supporting the Lamarckian view was present in disguised or marginalized form during last century.

In recent years, this subterranean stream explicitly emerged in several convincing demonstrations that acquired characters are indeed inheritable. Interestingly, these inherited variations are not based on changes in the genome but on novel epigenetic ways of expressing its potentials. While these data proved the organism's capacity to shape its future, evolutionary mechanisms still remain elusive. Of the many unsolved emphasizes the complexity of the problem. Could this creative capacity be entirely attributed to random chemical interactions? If not, how else biological components would envisage suitable changes? The main features of the human mind (notably, its creative capacity, mutual interactions with physical events, likely philogenetic origin) suggest that a significant role in biological evolution might have been played by the evolving mind.

Stefano Siccardi
09:35 - 09:55
Saturday
18 August

Instrumental Investigation of OBE (Out of Body Experiences)

Our research plan about OBE is conceptually divided into two parts. We are currently running part 1, which is the topic of this presentation: in it we will consider an OBE a subjective experience, we will try to characterize it and search for ways to teach people to control it.

In part 2, we will investigate if an OBE can actually be an objective experience, causing some physical modifications in the environment (actually we will describe some preliminary measures in this sense), or allowing OBErs to know information they couldn't be aware of by ordinary means. We will describe the experiments we have been carrying out for about a year and a half, collecting physiological data, while subjects are relaxed and trying to have an OBE. We have had some formal sessions, in a controlled laboratory setting using a standard EEG device; and some informal ones, that subjects have run at home, using small portable data collection devices. Our first goal is to replicate the OBE phenomenon almost at will, in order to study it in depth. As physiological data, we intend mainly EEG, Heart Rate and electrodermal activity; as anticipated, we also consider some environmental data e.g. images recorded by "night vision" TV cameras.

Physiological data are used to learn about individual differences (we are working with both experienced OBErs and some novices), experimental setting and relaxing strategies details, in order to find the most OBE-favorable ones. Our final goal is the building of a biofeedback device to help OBErs, and we will describe how we are approaching the task: in a broad sense, our data confirm previous findings that the threshold between wakefulness and sleep is crucial to start an OBE. So we are trying to help people in consciously keeping this intermediate state at length, without falling asleep. Environmental data are used to detect if the presence of the self outside the body has any physical/measurable impacts, and if there are some links relating to subjective condition and external results. We will also report about the impact on EEG data of some commercial devices used to induce OBEs or lucid dreams. Likewise, we will describe the first trials of our biofeedback system. Moreover, we will discuss some data analysis problems and how we have tackled them.

Michal Teplan
10:00 - 10:20
Saturday
18 August

EEG analysis for application of mind machines, relaxation, and meditation. Some thoughts on anomalous research

In my contribution I'd like to share my experiences in two parts. The first part will briefly introduce the results of my PhD. work dealing with EEG analysis of brain signals. The second part will present some of my experiences and aspects on researching anomalous phenomena.

My work at the Institute of measurement science, Bratislava, Slovakia was luckily not too far from some kind of anomalous research. Presented methods, more generally termed biosignal analysis, may be usable in certain type of anomalous studies.

In my dissertation two different problems reflecting brain functioning were addressed: Impact of audio-visual stimulation (AVS or mind machines) on human EEG and EEG characteristics of human relaxation. Within subtle physiological changes, number of linear and nonlinear EEG measures was examined for their sensitivity. Meditation data were added for my personal pleasure.

In order to identify direct, transient, as well as long-term changes in human cortex under influence of repetitive impact of AVS experiment was set up, consisted of 25 repetitions of a 20 min AVS program with stimulation frequencies in the range 2-18 Hz. Entrainment of brain waves as a direct reaction to AVS was well developed in majority of cases, being strongest in backward regions and spreading also to other cortex locations. Regarding long-term effects, changes were observed in powers in different frequency bands and different cortex locations. Also certain complexity and interdependency measures displayed significant changes (correlation dimension, spectral decay, or inter-hemispheric alpha-1 coherence). Our results show that regular training with AVS does induce changes in the cortex functioning, such as those commonly reported to be features specific to relaxation or altered states of consciousness. It seems that AVS training could be more effective in inducing long-continuint changes of EEG than regular 20 minute listening to relaxation music.

Physiological characteristics of psychosomatic relaxation (3-minute duration, lying position with eyes closed) was addressed. On the contrary to general expectations, during resting conditions both alpha-1 and relative alpha-1 powers were decreasing. Decrease of total power over the whole cortex implied gradual diminishing of overall brain activity during the resting process. Then 2 categories of more and less successful relaxation were discriminated. Potential applications of our EEG studies involve clinical, pharmacological, self-regulative areas and actual problems with stress management.

Concerning problems of non-mainstream research, I'd like to discuss some of the following issues. How to: motivate young researchers; switch between two - official and hidden "science"; understand and accept conditions of the situation; make specialists from unfriendly areas to communicate; make smart brains to cooperate; keep ourselves in inner and outer equilibrium. And finally, what may drive us to "scientific exploration".

10:20 -10:40

Coffee break

Paul Devereux
10:40 –