You can find examples of this by listening to almost any Art
Bell show that focuses on UFO encounters, but it was British ufologist Jenny
Randles who noticed and coined a term for it: the Oz factor. Randles carries
some weight as a writer and thinker on anomalous topics, so if she says she
perceived a pattern in accounts of experiences, I’ll take her word for it.
Although, not actually having any of her own books at hand, I’ll quote Lewis (2017)
quoting Randles’ explanation of the Oz Factor: “a sort of inner tuning, as the
percipient’s mind blocks out attention to all external sounds in order to note
the message that is about to bombard his or her consciousness.”
Lewis goes on to say that in other writings Randles extends
this into putting “forth this idea of Synchronistic Reality Mode and the
ability for the human mind to take in this anomalous information in a
parapsychological way and create a virtual reality telepresence experience.” I
don’t really understand what that means and I don’t know if it’s a fair reflection
of Randles’ own thought, but I do want to point out this: the Oz factor seems
to involve a special mental mode which allows communication and contact with
undefined, anomalistic Others.
People have bizarre, traumatic encounters they can’t
understand and struggle to explain to others. But people also have completely
mundane traumatic encounters they can’t understand and struggle to explain to
others. A lot of peoples’ stories about UFOs focus on how they can’t get any
one to believe in what happened or take them seriously. The same is true,
though, about a lot of people’s stories about experiencing sexual assault or
domestic violence. I’ve always wondered how ‘special’ the experiences of UFO experiencers
are compared to normal human reactions in other extremely taxing, liminal or transgressive
situations.
At this point I’d like to introduce Rory Miller, a veteran
corrections officer and martial arts teacher who has written several books
about the sociology and psychology of real-time violent encounters. In Facing Violence: Preparing for the
Unexpected, Miller describes something close to the Oz Factor as one of
several types of freeze responses a person may experience when faced with a sudden
threat. Miller calls it the hard-wired freeze response and writes, “Know that
the hard-wired freeze response is triggered by fear, but it usually doesn’t
feel that unpleasant, kind of warm and floaty with a sound in your ears like the
ocean. People who have been so terrified they couldn’t move have described this
state and decided that they weren’t really afraid so they weren’t really
frozen. It just seemed like a good idea at the time not to move.” Which is
pretty much exactly how the Oz Factor is described on all those Art Bell
programs.
I found Miller’s books after I experienced threat-induced
altered sensory functioning during a community “Force Options” training held by
my local police department. After classroom time studying use of force policies,
hearing real-life stories from officers and discussing events unfolding
nationwide, community members had to go alone into a staged scenario with a
fake weapons belt and decide how to respond to a call. For real officers in
Richmond, if they fail their scenario test, they lose their job.
Before I entered the scenario, a detective prepped me by
telling me exactly what would happen and what I should do. “Distance is time. Remember
that! You will get tunnel vision and not be able to see. You will stop hearing
anything. To break out of that, move your eyes right and left. Then you will be
able to hear.” I thought to myself, “That’s bullshit. I know how my mind works
under stress. I’ve never lost hearing before.”
The detective pushed the door open and I went into the
scenario. All I saw were two guys fighting. I told them to stop and advanced on
them. One charged me. I fumbled over the weapons on my belt – OC spray, Taser,
gun, baton. By then the guy attacking had come in too close for anything other
than baton which, as a student of Filipino martial arts, made me very happy. I
was now in my comfort zone - except for someone kept tapping me on my shoulder
and another guy was in my face repeating, “It’s over. The scenario is over!”
The guy yelling in my face was my role-playing attacker, and the guy tapping on
my shoulder was the detective. He had walked beside me and I hadn’t even seen
him.
Afterwards, the detective debriefed me. He told me what I
had failed to hear. One guy was attacking the other, yelling his intention to
kill him. The guy being attacked was yelling for help. I hadn’t heard any of
it, although I had heard yelling. My hearing and vision had been restricted and
I would have been completely unaware of what I was missing without the post-scenario
feedback I got. It was a fascinating and sobering experience.
Is the Oz Factor the same as the what Miller calls the
hard-wired freeze response? Possibly. Miller is not the first to write about
the psychological and physiological effects of confronting violence and dealing
with the Survival Stress Response. USAF Col. John Boyd, by observing thinking
and response to combat conditions, pioneered the OODA loop model, showing how
physiological response happens and where thinking can get hung up. UFO writers tend
to think in silos where the experiences they report on are so special that
there can only be one explanation. I submit to your consideration that the Oz
Factor is in fact the Freeze Factor and that traumatic encounters with the paranormal
work by the same rules as do life-threatening encounters with the normal.
Which brings me to a point made by Jack Brewer in his chapter
of the book Robbie Graham edited. Reframing the discourse around UFOs to make
it of greater general relevance would require addressing and taking seriously the trauma that experiencers
undergo. “Demonstrating a willingness to acknowledge the relevance of trauma
shows commitment to accuracy, concern for witnesses, and helps create an
atmosphere more conducive to authenticity and good quality of discussion.” (p.
45)
UFOs: Reframing the Debate (2017) Robbie Graham, ed.
Facing Violence: Preparing for the unexpected (2011) Rory Miller
