{"id":11073,"date":"2019-12-10T16:19:05","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T23:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11073"},"modified":"2020-10-16T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T21:42:06","slug":"witness-of-another-world-is-a-powerful-documentary-about-visitor-encounters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11073","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Witness of Another World&#8221; is a Powerful Documentary about &#8220;Visitor&#8221; Encounters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 625px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-11073-1\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Witness-of-Another-World-English-version-burn-in-subtitles.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Witness-of-Another-World-English-version-burn-in-subtitles.mp4\">https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Witness-of-Another-World-English-version-burn-in-subtitles.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9681\">Aside from an occasional excursion,<\/a> I am not much into UFO studies. It was years after it came out that I read <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e\">Jacques Vall\u00e9e&#8217;s<\/a><sup><a href=\"#footnote_1_11073\" id=\"identifier_1_11073\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"Born in France, Vall&eacute;e has spent most of his life in the US. His career includes astronomy, software engineering, venture capitalism &mdash; and UFO studies.\">1<\/a><\/sup> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0987422480\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0987422480&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=soutrocknatub-20&amp;linkId=558dd22201760e2b3a70b81ed8ffc5d7\">Passport to Magonia<\/a>, <\/em>and it shaped my thinking.<\/p>\n<p>I put its thesis like this: Instead of chugging through interstellar space to Earth, the UFO-nauts have always been here. &#8220;They&#8221; appear in many different shapes, some humanoid, some not, as it suits their fancy. Sometimes They just like to mess with us for reasons we do not understand. Or in more refined language,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As an alternative to the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis, Vall\u00e9e has suggested a <a title=\"Interdimensional hypothesis\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Interdimensional_hypothesis\">multidimensional visitation hypothesis<\/a>. This hypothesis represents an extension of the ETH where the alleged extraterrestrials could be potentially from anywhere. The entities could be multidimensional beyond space-time, and thus could coexist with humans, yet remain undetected (Wikipedia).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Back in the 1970s, Vall\u00e9e and his wife flew to Argentina to investigate the case of Juan P\u00e9rez, a 12-year-old boy from a<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gaucho\"> gaucho<\/a> family in northern Argentina. Sent out one morning to bring in the family herd, Juan saddled his favorite horse, Cometa (Comet), and rode off into the pastures. On his ride, Juan encountered . . . something . . . that seemed to be a typical flying saucer. Tying Cometa to the craft&#8217;s ladder, he went up into it, he said.<\/p>\n<p>There he encountered two beings. When he went home and told his story, he soon became a UFO celebrity. Cometa, however, sickened and died mysteriously only a few days after the encounter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Juan&#8217;s life was wrecked.<\/strong> Call it PTSD. Call it a bad case of <em>susto<\/em> (soul loss). He fled the ufology scene. He ended up a fifty-ish bachelor, living an isolated life with just his dogs, working seasonally on neighboring ranches and otherwise alone.<\/p>\n<p>There he was until an Argentine filmmaker, Alan Stivelman, decided to reunite him with Vall\u00e9e, with whom he had had a good relationship as a youth. Vall\u00e9e was enthusiastic about the plan \u2014 all he wanted was a couple of months to study intensively to improve his Spanish.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.witnessofanotherworld.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11081 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Witness-of-another-world-Movie-Poster-.jpg?resize=236%2C331&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"331\" \/><\/a>Stivelman&#8217;s documentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.witnessofanotherworld.com\/\"><em>Witness of Another World<\/em>,<\/a> is just beautiful movie-making. Whether on Argentinian pampas or up north in the jungle villages of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Guaran%C3%AD_people\">Guaran\u00ed<\/a> Indians, who play an important part in the documentary (Juan has some Guaran\u00ed ancestry) or exploring the texture&#8217;s of Juan&#8217;s crumbling house, it is good to look at.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It is a story of a man brought back from the edge, a spiritual rescue mission, where ufology meets shamanism meets a compassionate reunion of old friends \u2014\u00a0 the eighty-year-old scientist and the grown-up but still frightened gaucho boy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/movie\/witness-of-another-world\/id1479940727?mt=6&amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4\">You can rent it (download) for $4.99 or buy it (download) for $12.99.<\/a> It is on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B082G5JP7D\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B082G5JP7D&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=soutrocknatub-20&amp;linkId=c032899fc5d8f177052e02bde679b5d9\"> Amazon Prime<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to what Jacques Vall\u00e9e has to say about &#8220;the phenomenon,&#8221; his term for the whole UFO\/demon\/fairy\/visitor complex. Watch what the shamans do. And remember that &#8220;They&#8221; are not necessarily our friends.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonus:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unknowncountry.com\/dreamland\/jacques-vallee-and-director-alan-stivelman-on-their-stunning-new-documentary-witness-of-another-world\/\">On his <em>Dreamland <\/em>podcast, Whitley Strieber interviews director Alan Stivelman, with contributions from Jacques Vall\u00e9e.<\/a><\/p>\n<ol class=\"footnotes\"><li id=\"footnote_1_11073\" class=\"footnote\">Born in France, Vall\u00e9e has spent most of his life in the US. His career includes astronomy, software engineering, venture capitalism \u2014 and UFO studies.<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_1_11073\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aside from an occasional excursion, I am not much into UFO studies. It was years after it came out that I read Jacques Vall\u00e9e&#8217;s1 Passport to Magonia, and it shaped my thinking. I put its thesis like this: Instead of chugging through interstellar space to Earth, the UFO-nauts have always been here. &#8220;They&#8221; appear in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[373,82,208,95,36,374,227,11,22],"class_list":["post-11073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-argentina","tag-fairies","tag-indian-tribes","tag-journalism","tag-movies","tag-paraguay","tag-paranormal","tag-shamanism","tag-weirdness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2SB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7063,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7063","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":0},"title":"Magic Earth Lines 2: The 37th Parallel","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The ranch was owned by a man named Howard Munsell (now deceased). Unlike a lot of Southern Plains ranchers who are, shall we say, standoffish toward strange visitors, he had previously run a trail-ride business, and so he was able to handle several dozen campers on his land, providing water\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"snake blaksless","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/snake-blaksless.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/snake-blaksless.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/snake-blaksless.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1019","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":1},"title":"Gallimaufry for Many Moons","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 Malleus Maleficarum collector figures.\u00b6 Women of Esoterica blog: \"On women involved in the paranormal, esoteric, Fortean, strange, magickal, supernatural, anomalous, symbolic, UFO, ghostly, chupacabra-y, Nessie\/Sasquatch, world of really weird things.\"\u00b6 I would like to have walked out under these skies.","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1975,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1975","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":2},"title":"The CIA, UFOs, Fairies, etc.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am reading Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Pyschological Warfare, and UFOs, by Mark Pilkington. (There is a related documentary film.) Small disclaimer: I met Mark Pilkington a few years ago in England. We did not talk about UFOs nor about the fact that he was one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":603,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=603","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":3},"title":"Fairies, the Dead, and Book-Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Spring semester has started, and teaching does cut into blogging time. And my reading list (for myself) is huge: all the books that I ordered at AAR-SBL (and elsewhere) started arriving in December. I just finished At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5375,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5375","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":4},"title":"Where Are the Hidden Folk?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 My little patch of the southern Colorado foothills may not be great agricultural land, but it does (or because it does) have boulders. Big ones. Ever since I posted about the Icelandic hulduf\u00f3lk (hidden folk) documentary, I have been scrutinizing them. Is this one . . . um .\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"huge boulder","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/boulder-cave.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14248,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14248","url_meta":{"origin":11073,"position":5},"title":"When a Blanket Is as Weird as Bigfoot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A traditional Hudson's Bay blanket in \"Queen Anne\" colors. Encounters with the paranormal \u2014 the Other, as some say \u2014 can change people, Some have a \"UFO\" encounter and are never the same, often psychologically damaged. Some encounter Bigfoot or other cryptids and are sort of afraid of the dark\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Bigfoot\"","block_context":{"text":"Bigfoot","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=bigfoot"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/the-oher-blanket.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11073"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11815,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073\/revisions\/11815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}