SUNlite Shedding some light on UFOlogy and UFOs

Volume 3 Number 5 September-October 2011 Farewell to an era butions this month. They provide some interesting information for the readers of ecently, I visited the National Air and sad news until recently. Bob Girard of SUNlite. RSpace Museum near Dulles airport Arcturus books also passed away. Last- west of Washington D.C. There, they had ly, was the departure from this earth of TABLE OF CONTENTS the original shuttle Enterprise, which Budd Hopkins. He was respected by was used for aerial testing before the many in UFOlogy and UFO updates had Who’s blogging UFOs...... 2-3 first shuttle launch in 1981. It was well a long list of responses to the news. It is worth the visit and I highly recommend always disappointing to see anyone pass The Roswell Corner ...... 4 it to anyone visiting the area. I am sure away no matter how much your opinion Plenty of IFOS...... 5-6 the shuttle created its share of UFO re- differs with theirs. Hopefully, those close ports over the years. Goodness knows to these people will have them live in Upcoming IFO events...... 6 how much mileage, UFO proponents got their memories for many years to come. The best photographic evidence for UFOs: from the various videos taken from the A status report...... 7-9 shuttle. I just hope NASA comes up with In the image above, you can see the stel- Akhenaten: The heretic pharoh as his- a suitable replacement in the future. lar work of “Psycho Clown” (aka “stray cat” tory’s first UFO fanatic by Martin S. in the JREF forum). His artwork explains Kottmeyer...... 10-12 While my comment about an end of an well the concept of Carl Sagan’s state- era applies to the Space Shuttle, it can ment about “Extraordinary claims require An artistic record of the great JREF UFO also apply to the unfortunate passing of extraordinary evidence”. His artwork evidence debate...... 13-15 several persons associated with UFOl- made an on-going UFO evidence debate There be dragons!...... 15 ogy. Hillary Evans, a prominent British in that forum an enjoyable experience. UFOlogist, passed away. Magonia wrote As a result, I put together a brief synop- The Rashomon effect, UFO tales, a superb obit that should be read. Stu- sis of that debate along with the artwork and transmutation of memory art Millar, who wrote the newsletter “UFO to help illustrate some of the humor that by Peter W. Merlin...... 16-18 Review” for several years died in an un- resulted. UFOs on the tube: UFOs on the record fortunate traffic accident some months ...... 19-21 ago. Because Stuart had apparently re- As always, I want to thank Marty Kott- Buy it, borrow it, bin it...... 21 tired from UFOlogy, people missed the meyer and Peter Merlin for their contri- 1 Lance Moody alerted me in early May ing the shutdown. So far, we only have about UFOlogist Phil Imbrogno’s exag- Who’s blogging unconfirmed rumors. gerations of his educational resume’. Lance had pulled the loose thread on UFOs? Contrails being illuminated by the sun Phil’s claims and it was discovered that are being recorded on video and de- he was lying about his Massachusetts scribed as “flaming UFOs”. The plane Institute of Technology education. Once Hot topics and varied opinions can not be seen because of the resolution that occurred, the thread unravelled fur- of the camera and the angle at which it is ther when other stories that Mr. Imbrog- being recorded. In the Mexico video, the no told turned out to be highly plane is reflecting the sun’s exaggerated. When this news light preventing it from be- surfaced, Phil promptly “retired” ing identifiable. Again, peo- from UFOlogy. In late April, ple are making something Paul Kimball had announced mundane into something that Imbrogno was going to extraordinary. be part of his new “Beyond the best evidence” DVD project. Tim Hebert describes how That entry and any reference UFOs might possibly shut- to Imbrogno then disappeared down ten missiles at once. from Kimball’s blog about the Hebert is a former Strategic same time Moody e-mailed Air Command missile crew me about the problem with commander and can be Imbrogno. Moody had men- considered an expert on the tioned that he had told Kimball subject. His theory is that the about the issue. On July 11th, only way a single UFO could after the news became public, shut them all down would be Kimball posted a blog entry, where he to located near the flight’s Launch con- did not name Imbrogno or Moody (sort reviewed. If UFOlogy can’t clean its own trol facility/Launch control center (LCF/ of like Harry Potter’s “he, who shall not be house, it will never impress scientists LCC). The Echo and the undocumented named...) but did comment on the news. outside UFOlogy. Oscar flight shutdowns supposedly- in He implied this was all a waste of time volved UFO sightings near a single silo and it made no difference as far as UFO- A video of a bright fireball in Brazil and not over the LCF/LCC. logical research is concerned. Kimball was characterized by some as a UFO. It also stated on the same date that he was looks spectacular but it behaves just like Hebert then wrote another entry regard- putting his “Other side of the truth” blog a meteor. It constantly amazes me how ing the Malmstrom Echo flight incident. on hiatus (possibly for a year) and wanted UFO proponents so often mistake events He concluded there was no UFO involve- to get out and enjoy life. When I e-mailed like this as something “exotic”. The first ment and that the case is closed. I won- Mr. Kimball about all of this, he chose not thing a UFOlogist should do is educate der if Robert Salas and Robert Hastings to publicly comment on the subject. themselves about things that do appear think that way? If Echo flight did not in- in the sky. Maybe they will then make volve UFOs, what does it say for the never I have a different opinion than Mr. Kim- fewer mistakes like this. documented Oscar flight event, which ball concerning how this affects UFOlogy. supposedly happened the same month? UFO researchers should be held to the Manuel Borraz sent me a link to a piece It gives one another reason to doubt that same standards as others in academia if he wrote about Project Bluebook’s the Oscar flight shut down even occurred UFOlogy is to be considered something Special Report No. 14. I discussed this or, if it occurred, it involved UFOs at all. worthy of being called a “science”. In a in last issue and I believe Manuel’s article field where credibility is of high -impor is something that also has to be consid- Last issue, I mentioned a listing of UFO tance, being as truthful as possible about ered when evaluating the results of the blogs that contained no skeptical links. these things is critical. How can UFOl- study. I was not quite accurate. There were sev- ogy gain respect as a science if it’s lead eral skeptical links after close inspection. I researchers are lying about their creden- Lee Speigal seems to have pulled the missed it and apologize to the authors for tials? This kind of thing is what causes thread on some of Robert Hastings the error (especially the one who alerted people to dismiss UFOlogy as a fringe claims. While his article was biased to- me to this mistake). subject. People can claim just about any- wards Hastings version of events, he thing and get away with it because there did contact Public Affairs officers Lt. Col. Magonia noted that MUFON’s journal is hardly any fact checking or follow-up. John Thomas, who explained some of continues to promote some outlandish Imbrogno was even able to publish ar- Hastings exaggerated claims about the stories. The source of these claims come ticles with the International UFO reporter, FE Warren AFB shutdown. I am still wait- from people like Linda Moulton Howe, which is supposed to be one of UFOlogy’s ing for better evidence of his “blimp-like” who has to be one of the most credu- leading journals where articles are peer UFO hovering over missile silos and caus- lous UFO personalities I have ever seen. 2 It is hard to believe that the UFO exam- Who’s blogging UFOs? (Cont’d) iner’s blog could come up with a more outrageous UFO report than the one She promotes just about any UFO related allows so many “fringe” UFOlogists to ap- that claimed a five-mile wide UFO was story no matter how unbelievable it is to pear at their meetings. How can they ex- over Kansas City, Missouri. The source outside readers. What shocked me was pect UFOlogy to be considered scientific of this UFO report is a MUFON investi- the claim supposedly made by Kathleen when you have people at their gatherings gator, who apparently saw this UFO for Marden, who is the niece of Betty Hill. She claiming to be human-alien hybrids? Rob- several seconds and then it simply dis- co-wrote the book with Stanton Friedman ert also indicates he is releasing a book appeared into thin air! The investigator called “Captured”. Now she has apparently called Psychic Vibrations, which looks in- then saw a commercial airplane acting, moved on to abduction stories. Accord- teresting. in their opinion, like a fighter plane as it ing to Magonia’s blog, Marden recounted banked in the sky. After it left, a UFO ap- a story told to her about an abductee that CUFOS has put together a web site with peared. All of this and some other events received help from her abductors to be- all the old NICAP bulletins. I am sure were put together in some sort of bizarre come pregnant. For some unknown rea- there are some interesting documents in chronology that the “investigator” cre- son, the aliens made it so the baby had there for on-line researchers. It is interest- ated to support their wild tale. This is the some characteristics that were different ing to look back and see that the same most worthless UFO report I have ever than its parents. Things that make you kinds of claims being made over fifty seen. It is more imagination than infor- go....hmmmm...... years ago are still being made today. The mative. Not a single angular size is in the fact that none of these claims have ever report and I seriously doubt a five-mile Some of the biggest news in UFOlogy been shown to be true indicates that they wide UFO could appear over a major city this time period was the revelation that probably will not be shown to be true in and only a few people would notice. File the Petit-Rechain Belgium triangle pho- the year 2060! this one in the completely unbelievable tograph was shown to be a hoax. The and totally unreliable category. Mr. Clift, photographer revealed he hoaxed the Dr. David Clark posted a story about you need to fix your investigator training image using a Styrofoam model! Readers Col. Ted Conrad discussing Rendlesh- program. may recall the photo was discussed in SUN- am. There was nothing really new as we lite 3-2 by Roger Paquay. The photograph already knew about his testimony. How- John Harney’s Magonia Extra blog has had been analyzed by many UFOlogists ever, it re-emphasizes how much this sto- been briefly discussing some classic over the years and all determined that it ry has evolved into myth/folklore. UFO cases. People should take the time was unlikely or could not be a hoax. to follow the links in his postings espe- The latest release of MOD files occurred cially in the JAL 1628 case. Because of the nature of these revelations, in August. I think the most revealing doc- Auguste Meessen went over to the wit- ument was noted by Dr. Clarke. An MOD Stanton Friedman got himself into a ness’ home and began to grill him about official candidly admitted that they did not rather sticky situation recently. Greg technical aspects regarding the images. have enough money to study UFOs and Newkirk of the “Who Forted?” blog re- Anybody reading the story can see that he had higher priorities. There also seemed ports that Friedman had posted on red- was speaking way over the witness’ head. to be a lot of documentation about Nick dit.com an “ask me anything” question The witness could only respond that he Pope that was redacted. Mr. Pope’s desire relating to UFOs and, strangely, Apollo did not know. This appeared to be a pub- to make sure those documents are not re- 18. When people asked him to answer licity effort to refute his claim. leased had been discussed in SUNlite 1-3. questions about UFOs, his response was basically, buy and read my books, which Meanwhile, there seemed to be more dam- An interesting entry was posted in angered some. Eventually, it was deter- age control by COBEPS. They tried to spin it “the glowing raccoon” blog. The author mined that this was all part of a market- to indicate even though they had made an served one enlistment in the USAF as a ing campaign for the Apollo 18 movie error in analyzing the photograph, it does junior enlisted man. Most of what he re- and those asking questions got angry at not mean the other cases making up their peats are what we in the Navy used to call Stanton Friedman’s inability to answer Belgian UFO wave case book were invalid. “sea stories”. They were exciting little tid- their questions. He received insults and This is true but it does bring into question bits of one’s career that sounded interest- one person wrote, “This guy came totally the rigor to which they performed their in- ing but, more often than not, were slight- unprepared for the internet.” Stanton vestigations in those cases. ly exaggerated in nature. He mentions Friedman should stick to plugging his a briefing to airmen by AFOSI personnel, books on TV and speaking to those who I suppose Frank Warren got paid to plug where they described how exciting it was want to hear his UFO stories. It seems all those Cowboys vs. aliens trailers on to investigate UFO reports. The purpose that those on reddit.com are not so will- his blog? Maybe he thought it was a doc- of this briefing was basically a recruitment ing to drink the kool-aid he is serving. umentary. effort for volunteers. Is it any surprise they might mention “X-files” type stories to ea- Robert Sheaffer has several blog entries ger young men so they might join? Once about his recent trip to the MUFON sym- the blog started to support Bob Lazaar, I posium. I always wonder why MUFON figured the source was not very credible. 3 ror on the observed value of +/- 0.5%. ee Speigel gave the headline as if The Roswell That means the table really should read Lsome aging veteran of the 8th AF something like this: made the claim. However, it was none Isotope Abundance Abundance other than George Filer, quoting Ramey’s Corner observed Natural (%) wife, who stated that Ramey told her that (%) he “lied” about the weather balloon. One Mg-24 78.6-79.6 78.6 can easily conclude that Ramey “lied” to cover up the source of the weather bal- Another part of the saucer Mg-25 9.6-10.6 10.1 loon materials. Important to note is that rank Kimbler has stepped forward Mg-26 10.3-11.3 11.3 Ramey’s wife is over the age of 90 (she Fand states that he has found a piece Suddenly these ranges don’t look so un- was born in 1920). To make things more of debris that could have come from the natural. This also means the isotopic ra- interesting, she did not marry Ramey Roswell crashed spaceship. In a rather tio of Mg-26 to Mg-24 would be between until 1950 and Ramey died in 1963. This interesting posting on Openminds, Ale- .1294 and .1438 (and the ratio of Mg-25 means that his wife married him over two jandro Rojas outlines Mr. Kimbler’s find- to Mg-24 would be between .1206 to years after Roswell and he died before it ings. Among the items described were .1349). This range covers the normal became a major UFO story. There was no silver buttons that are tentatively identi- ratios for earth as demonstrated in Kim- reason for him to even tell her about the fied as military buttons, a Landsat multi- bler’s graph. However, he just plots the event. Exactly what part of her story can spectral image that supposedly shows one point on the graph. Instead, he be considered accurate? burned/disturbed ground, and a sample should have included the margin for er- This brings us to the source of this infor- of debris he located that gave isotopic ror. That means his graph should look mation. George Filer, is not what I would ratios that indicated it could not be from something like this (where the red en- consider the most reliable of people. this earth. compasses the margins for error in the Remember when Roger Pinson of the As always, I am skeptical of the claim and data): National Institute for Discovery Science tried to figure out if what he stated was (NIDS) wrote about their investigation true. The silver buttons have no military of Fort Dix/McGuire AFB alien shoot- markings on them that I saw and could ing? Filer had inserted himself into that have come from any clothing. Calling story but Pinson found no evidence that them military without evidence is jump- the incident had occurred as described ing the gun. and suspected a hoax. The file is no lon- The Landsat image is hard to figure. ger available on the internet but you There is no exif data or information of can access it at http://web.archive.org/ where the photograph was obtained. web/20071023054521/http://www.nid- We don’t know the location and one has sci.org/news/mcguire_contents.php to wonder why a photograph that was The bottom line here is that this claim of taken by a satellite launched in the 1970s Filer’s is questionable and appears to be would show something when aerial pho- The only person that I saw who publicly a lot of smoke with no fire. Both Ramey’s tographs taken only a few years after the commented on this misrepresentation widow, due to her age, and Filer, due to incident showed nothing. Is this a new of the data was the blog UFO trail. The his past record, are not what I would con- crashed spaceship location or is it the author of that blog, Jack Brewer, had a sider the most reliable of sources. More Brazel debris field? It is hard to draw con- friend of his, Frank Purcell, look at the evidence is needed than this. clusions without more information and it data. Purcell is a retired chemical en- seems that Kimbler is holding back. gineer and he identified the problem Yawn.....Nitinol..... Finally, we have the isotopic ratios. A I mentioned above. For some reason, scan of the report is posted with the he states the wrong value for Mg-26 (it nthony Bragalia revealed his latest table showing the magnesium isotopic is listed as 10.5 but the image on open- ANitinol story. About the only thing ratios. They read: minds clearly shows 10.8). Despite this, important was that he talked to retired Isotope Abundance Abundance his conclusion about the graph was, It is USAF officer Richard Weaver, who was observed Natural (%) clear that this range does in fact intersect involved in writing the 1994 USAF Ro- (%) the line and is suggestive that the AH-1 swell Report. He found Bragalia’s re- Mg-24 79.1 78.6 sample is not extraterrestrial. search interesting but it did not sway This appears to be a case of somebody his opinion about Roswell. If Weaver had Mg-25 10.1 10.1 misreading or misrepresenting the re- read SUNlite 1-2, 1-3, and 2-5, he would Mg-26 10.8 11.3 sults of the analysis and there is no evi- have known that Nitinol had nothing to Kimbler used these values to calculate a dence for this being from outer space. do with Roswell. I am sure Mr. Bragalia ratio of Mg-26/Mg-24 of .1365, which is will be entertaining us with more of his less than the natural ratio of .1438. How- Former AF officer says Ramey Nitinol “revelations” in the future but he ever, is this really accurate? What Kimbler lied BUT..... has to do better than this to change my apparently completely ignored in the opinion. printout is that there is a margin for er- 4 sort of tire of the various UFO reporting Plenty of IFOs scribed and probably was the source of Icenters. The UFO examiner’s blog run this UFO report. by Roger Marsh and The National UFO Reporting Center’s (NUFORC) web site Case 29840 involved an individual who seem to try to make simple IFOs into ex- saw his UFOs on two separate nights. He traordinary events. Any one familiar with saw it aound 10:30 PM on June 29th and the various types of IFOs, should be able July 1st from Philadelphia. Both UFOs to declare these as not being “unidenti- went towards “Jersey” (i.e. in an eastward fieds” in short order. Both proclaim they direction) and then vanished. They both are raw reports and probably are identifi- were about the same brightness. The able but they rarely, if ever, post stories ISS made passes at 10:10 and 9:50 PM where these UFOs are identified. on those nights (both moving NW to SE). While they are not exactly the same time UFO Wave in Pennsylvania as reported by the witness, he only states it was “around” 10:30 PM. It seems likely oger Marsh seemed to think the he saw the ISS in both instances if his es- Rnumber of UFO reports spiking in timates of the time were off. Pennsylvania in late June/early July was significant. Was this important or just a One can also match the ISS to the UFO coincidence? The weather was clear dur- sighting in case 29841. The witness made ing this time period and people were his observations “around 10PM” and his getting out more now that weather was UFO was moving from north to south nice. Evening sky watchers were also go- (even though he mentions it was headed ing to get a show that they may not have towards New Jersey). As stated previ- known was going to happen. This April 28, 2010 image of the ISS was 30 seconds ously, the ISS was making a pass around long. One can see how bright the ISS can be. 10:10 PM from NW to SE making this the Summer in northern latitudes brings probable source of this sighting. about some interesting situations for reported seeing a bright star that moved satellite observers. Because of the sun’s at the speed of an airplane across the sky Then there was the fisherman who liked position in the sky, satellites are visible all and then it disappeared. No time is given to flash his light at passing UFOs on the night. Add to this, the appearance of the but the person stated he saw that oth- night of June 30th in Warren, PA. He re- International Space Station (ISS) and you ers in Pennsylvania saw the same thing ported seeing about a dozen UFOs be- can get quite a sky show. So, let’s take a in MUFON’s database. On July 1st, the tween 9:15 and 11:15 PM. The first sight- look at the reports that Mr. Marsh finds International Space Station (ISS) made a ing occurred at 9:17PM. Not surprisingly, significant. pass that was visible over the entire state. the ISS made a pass from NW to ESE about It moved from NW to SE around 9:50 the same time! He then saw a brief UFO Case 23898 involved a man and his son in PM and entered the earth’s shadow as it that lasted ten seconds heading north. Pennsylvania at an undisclosed location moved towards the SE horizon. The ISS More than likely, this was a meteor. His playing with a telescope on July 1st. He behaves a lot like what this witness de- next sighting involved two stars that moved in the sky. One could have been a satellite. The other description was how a UFO brightened very rapidly as if it were coming towards him. About 9:45PM, Warren observers saw an Iridium flare that was as bright as -4 (Venus brilliance), which matches his description. He then saw 3-4 UFOs moving north to south and south to north for about 10 minutes. Ac- cording to Heaven’s above:

Satellite/ time Start direc- End direc- magnitude tion tion

Atlas rocket 9:47 NW SE body/+2.4

CZ-4C rocket 9:49 SE NNW body/+3.6

ADEOS 9:49 S NW II/+2.8

Two satellites (SPOT 5 and ALOS) move through the Constellation of Cygnus “in formation” on August 5, IGS 1B/+2.6 9:51 SE N 2011. 15 seconds exposure time. Just because they were moving in the same direction together does not USA 129/+3.7 9:53 SE NNW mean they really flying together. It is just chance they were in the same area of the sky. They are brighter than magnitude 4 and 5 should have been easily visible in a sub- the United States. Considering the 4th UPCOMING IFO EVENTS urban/rural location like Warren, Pennsyl- of July is a big celebration in the United he next few months have several as- vania. If the UFO seen prior to this was States full of fireworks at just about every Ttronomical events that can produce the Iridium flare, these satellite passes block party, I am puzzled by his confusion. UFO reports. I feel it is important to re- seem to match the UFOs he described in He suggests that some might be “Chinese mind readers of SUNlite to be on the his report. Lanterns” or other types of fireworks but lookout for reports that might be related feels not all could be of terrestrial origin. to these events. The only sighting in this list (case 29827) Many of the reports sound a lot like “Chi- described an observation of a bright sta- nese Lanterns”. The photograph shown tionary light. We had no location given for Moses Lake, Washington looks like the and the object disappeared after a few photographs I have taken of my “Chinese minutes. It could easily have been an Lantern” test (see below). The Barrington airplane flying towards the observer with landing lights on or it could have been an alien space cruiser. I prefer to think it was probably the airplane.

Marsh did not stop with the Pennsylvania sightings as he promoted a Maine fam- October usually only has one major me- ily’s observations of dozens of UFOs each teor shower but this year there may be night. No details were given but their two. The Orionid meteor shower peaks observations of lights appearing and dis- on October 21-22 but one can see me- appearing sound a lot like satellites. Illinois photograph could easily have teors from this shower a few days before been a formation of these lanterns. and after. It can produce bright fireballs. What this demonstrates is that these cas- I have seen several before that were as es all appear to have reasonable explana- I am simply amazed that Davenport finds bright as the first quarter moon and can tions and there was no need to make a these reports the least bit compelling. He cast shadows. They are mostly visible in production about it the way Roger Marsh is also under the false impression that fly- the morning but they can be seen before did. A cursory check of Heaven’s above, ing these lanterns are illegal/dangerous. midnight coming out of the eastern sky. could have presented most of these pos- I am unaware of any laws that state the The second meteor shower is the Dra- sibilities to him. sale and use of these Chinese lanterns conids. They normally are inactive but is illegal. I would compare these to the predictions indicate there may be a ma- same danger one gets from the normal jor outburst on the night of October 8-9. fireworks lit by US citizens. Europe is favored but North America may see some activity after sunset. Is it really about UFOs? The planet Jupiter reaches opposition on October 29. It will be a bright yellow bea- am always fascinated how UFOlogists, con in the east around sunset. I am sure Iwho should be familiar with these IFOs, there will be a few UFO reports involving fail to recognize them. This brings up the this planet. question, is it really about UFOs or is it something else? I guess when you are in the business of promoting UFOs and your UFO organization, any nocturnal light will do in order to make a headline.

Jupiter playing peek-a-boo with the trees in late August. Finally, our old friend Venus has just past conjunction with the sun and is now an evening sky object. It probably will not Fourth of July IFOs become visible until mid to late Octo- ber low in the southwest . I always look eter Davenport seems puzzled that at it as a challenge to see Venus as soon Phe received a great number of “fire- as possible after superior conjunction. ball” UFO reports on July 3rd and 4th in When can you first see it? 6 ecent revelations about the Petit-Re- photographs taken on May 11, 1950 Rchain photographs got me thinking The best photo- by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Trent. According again about UFO photographs. In SUN- to most UFOlogists, these photographs lite 3-3, I ran an article about how UFOs graphic evidence have withstood scientific scrutiny and are (as craft) rarely, if ever, are photographed for UFOs: A status considered as the best UFO photographs convincingly these days. Almost all of the ever taken. recent imagery surrounding UFOs has report been shown to be hoaxed or are indis- Even Dr. William Hartmann, of the Con- tinct blobs/lights. So, I thought I might Simply stating the witness showed no don study, could not find any fault with take a look back to all those UFO photo- desire to gain from hoaxing the images the images when he initially examined graphs (I will not mention films or videos is just not good enough. Why people them. However, when Robert Sheaffer in this article) that have been prominent- would choose to deceive others could be wrote a paper regarding the images ex- ly displayed over the years. as simple as a personal profit or as com- posing some inconsistencies, Dr. Hart- plex as trying to validate their own per- mann reversed his opinion and consid- Photographic hoaxes sonal UFO experience or belief. ered them a probable hoax.

lan Hendry notes in his book, The A flying wedge? Dr. Bruce Maccabee has been a strong AUFO Handbook, that when it comes supporter of these photographs and can to UFO photographs, there are a signifi- here aren’t many photographs from find no fault with them. He has consid- cant amount of hoax pictures: Tthe 1940s that have been promoted ered the arguments put forth by Sheaf- over the years. The only one that stands fer and declared them inconsequential I noted earlier in examining the conclu- out to me is the July 7, 1947 images by to the photograph’s authenticity. Other sions of the 1,307 UFO reports that hoax- William Rhodes. It really was not consid- UFOlogists have basically repeated the es did not figure at all into the scheme of ered much of a photograph until Roswell claim that the arguments are invalid. things--rather misperceptions of some became a household word. Suddenly, existing stimulus were responsible. This people tried to relate the Rhodes pho- In the late 1990s, Joel Carpenter sug- situation is not the case, however, when tographs to Roswell. The photographs gested the shape of the UFO looked like it comes to cases involving photographs, themselves show very little more than a side mirror for old trucks. He also point- where a significant population of delib- a dark wedge or V-shaped object that ed out that the photographs were taken erate fraud exists. The failure of photo- could be just about anything. It could very close to the ground. This was con- graphs to serve as impersonal proof of the be a huge craft or it could piece of scrap sistent with the idea of this being a prob- existence of UFOs up to now lay largely thrown into the air. able hoax. By photographing low to the in the ease of fabricating fake photos ground, the model would appear high of small models that couldn’t be distin- The best UFO photograph ever? in the sky. Quite a few in UFOlogy dis- guished from the real thing. 1 missed this idea but it seems rather odd he 1950s brought with them, the that the photographer would choose to Detecting hoaxes depends on the exper- Tmost prominent UFO photographs kneel down to take his photographs of tise of the hoaxer and the experience of ever published. They consisted of two an object that was moving across the sky. the investigator. Photographic analyst William G. Hyzer once wrote:

In my opinion, fakery is virtually impos- sible to prove in a well-contrived image. If certain anomalies are detected, the best that any photographic analyst can do is to point them out as possible or probable artifacts of photographic fakery. 2

So why do people want to create a pho- tographic UFO hoax? Many people sug- gest it is for money or fame. However, I think it is something more simple. While some are interested in money/fame, oth- ers just do it to see if they can get away with it. It is a challenge to them. Dr. Frank Drake described it as:

... a desire to pull the wool over other peo- The simplest method of UFO hoax photography - suspending a model (in this case an aluminum pie pan ple’s eyes and to do it very cleverly for sur- with a screw through it) from a thin thread or a piece of fishing line. The image was taken using a 6 megapixel prising reasons. 3 Pentax digital SLR camera and the fishing line is invisible in most of the images. 7 This photograph from Life’s photographic tograph taken in September of 1957. The photographs then magically reappeared archive showing one of the Trent children common belief is this was a defect on the in the 1990s. When the Condon study ex- on a ladder, is somewhat suggestive as to film and that seems to be the case as at amined copies of the photographs, they how high the model could have been. least one image has been found where felt some of the circumstances surround- the UFO is missing. ing the photographs were suspicious. They also mentioned that it was possible Island hopping to duplicate the photographs using a small model and some string. More re- n January 16, 1958, Almiro Barauna cently, people have suggested the model Otook the infamous Trindade Island used was a wheel from a electric train. photographs. Many have suspected it to While some in UFOlogy think this case is be a hoax but nobody could say exactly good evidence, there are indications that how it was done. Barauna never publicly this was nothing more than a hoax. confessed but several people have re- cently stepped forward claiming he told Christmas tree light? them it was a hoax. There are also some very odd circumstances surrounding the n the same date Rex, Heflin was ob- photographs like Barauna maintaining Otaining his photographs, a young Despite the claim that this is the best them in his possession for several days af- man in Tulsa, Oklahoma took an image of evidence ever, there are circumstances ter they were exposed. UFOlogists have a rather strange looking UFO. To me, it about the photographs that suggest the always claimed that the case could not looked something like the camera probe possibility of a hoax. One can never say be shown to be a hoax and used that as the martians used in “The War of Worlds” for sure but if this is the best case, it really proof the photographs were of an actual movie (1953 version). Many suggest it is not that compelling. craft of some kind. However, after exam- was just a Christmas tree light of some ining all the evidence there seems to be kind. The conclusion is that this was The first flying formation? enough indicators to suggest a hoax. If probably a hoax. it were ever proven to be a hoax, would On August 31, 1951, Carl Hart, took the UFOlogists be willing to admit it after de- Mapping image famous Lubbock Lights photographs. fending it for so many decades? While most of the observations of the September 1971 Costa Rican map- lights indicated faint objects, Hart’s pho- Out on the highway A ping photograph is often presented tographs were very brightly lit. Using ISO as one of those “UFO best evidence” im- (then ASA) 80 film and a 1/10th of a sec- n August 3, 1965, Rex Heflin took ages. To me the image looks like a de- ond exposure, it would be hard to record Oseveral photographs of a UFO with fect of some kind but those who have anything that was fainter than a bright his Polaroid camera. Heflin claimed that examined the negatives state this is not airplane light. So what did he photo- the photos were taken from him by the the case. As best I can tell, nobody in the graph? The photographs never have USAF or other government agents. These plane that took the photographs saw the been proven to be a hoax but it is peculiar that nobody else saw the same brightly lit UFOs he photographed. One can’t prove these were hoaxed but the fact remains that there are inconsistencies that brings into question their authenticity.

UFO or scratch?

An unretouched image I took one day using a penny I tossed in front of the camera. The spots are dust common photograph published in specks on my camera’s sensor. It certainly looks like a disk in the sky and did not require it to actually fly AUFO books is the famous B-57 pho- like a frisbee or toy airplane. 8 UFO and it did not appear in any of the graph was never identified and that the of anything other than some UFOlogists other frames. Is it possible that it was point of origin can only be traced to Phil- can be easily fooled by photographs. something in the negative or previously ip Imbrogno, who’s integrity is in serious on the film? While it is interesting, there question these days, one can conclude Attack of the Drones is the possibility that it may be some- that this may be a hoax. thing other than an actual craft of some n 2007, the Drone photographs began kind that was recorded on the negative. Ito appear on the internet. No source Exactly what is hard to say without more was clearly identified but even MUFON information. concluded these images were crude hoaxes using photoshop or other soft- The Canary islands photograph ware. This web site (www.dronehoax. com) about the Drone hoax is very infor- he 1976 Canary Island photographs mative. The drone saga is an example of Tstill seem to make the rounds as some how easy it is to produce a photographic sort of photographic evidence. However, hoax these days and how many people they were long ago revealed to be pho- are willing to blindly accept it as “real”. tographs of test launches of interconti- nental ballistic missiles from American What’s left? Submarines in the Atlantic. f you ask me, this leaves us with just a Something tossed in the air? Ifew images (that have the potential for A double exposure of a model (poorly constructed being hoaxes or film flaws/artifacts) tak- n October 1981, Hannah McRoberts by me) lit from the inside and the sky at night. en after sixty-plus years of UFO photog- Itook an image in Vancouver, Canada raphy that might be considered good ev- that showed a disc-like object near a hill. Mr. Ed idence. With the ever increasing amount According to the witnesses, they never of cameras present in today’s society (cell saw the UFO until the film was devel- he many photographs taken by Ed phones, security cameras, weather cam- oped. However, the image tends to look TWalters between 1988 and 1992 have eras, live television coverage of outdoor something like a model (or frisbee) simply stood out as a good example of an elabo- events, etc.) it seems that there would tossed up into the air and photographed. rate hoax. While Dr. Bruce Maccabee and be a lot more photographic evidence for While it has been presented by several those close to Ed will strongly disagree, these exotic craft. This would include im- people as “UFO best evidence”, the pos- I have seen quite a few UFOlogists who ages from different locations of the same sibility of a hoax can not be ruled out. concur with this assessment. If one can event. However, this has yet to happen. not convince UFO proponents that the Are these craft that elusive that only a A stage show image? photographs are authentic, how can one farmer and his wife are able to obtain expect scientists to accept them? There clear photographs of them? The lack of he 1987 Waterbury, Connecticut UFO is plenty of circumstantial evidence that any clear-cut unambiguous photographs Tphotograph is a popular UFO photo- suggests that these were hoaxes and no in just the past ten years says a lot about graph but there is reason to doubt its au- evidence to indicate they were actual the photographic evidence. As of today, thenticity. This photograph, according photographs of alien spaceships. the photographic record is not very com- to various web sites, was taken by Randy pelling. Etting. However, this is not correct as it Belgian Waffles supposedly was taken by an anonymous Notes and references police officer or educated person (de- he 1990 Petit-Rechain photograph pending on the source) around or at the Twas once considered one of those 1. Hendry, Allan. The UFO Investigators same time Mr. Etting made his sighting. “UFO best evidence” photographs. Skep- Handbook. London: Sphere Books The photograph apparently was given to tics have suggested it was a hoax since Ltd. 1980. P. 204 Philip Imbrogno for publication. it first appeared. However, proponents managed to see an exotic craft and con- 2. Hyzer, William G. “More Deceptive Back in 2002, James Easton noted that the vinced themselves that the photographs Imagery”. Photomethods. Septem- Waterbury photograph lighting looked showed unique characteristics that could ber 1991 P. 13 amazingly like the Nashville UFO pho- not be hoaxed. This is very similar to tographs without all the smoke. These what happened with the Warminster 3. Sagan, Carl, and Thornton Page, eds. were nothing more than photographs photographs in the 1970s. UFO’s: A Scientific Debate. New York: of a disco lighting ring that appeared in Barnes & Nobles, 1972. P. 257. a German Magazine in 1980. I have seen The photographer recently confessed similar lighting arrangements in music that he had created a hoax from a Styro- concert photographs. foam model and some lights. With this confession, it seems that this photograph Considering the source of the photo- can no longer be considered evidence 9 if it is behind them? Did any Nubians ac- Akhenaten: tually die from the star’s striking to the South? Was the blood they fell in from The heretic pharaoh as history’s first UFO prior combat or from injuries from the star’s striking them? Could it be they just fanatic dropped down in simple panic of a sud- den flash of light? by Martin S. Kottmeyer A skeptic tends to gravitate to the as- sumption this may be an impressive fireball, a meteor, particularly if nobody was killed and this is just a visual spec- tacle. Even if there was something more physical, this could be something akin to a Tunguska event, in which case it would be interesting to know if anybody has stumbled upon physical evidence for it.

Pertinent to the purposes of Aubeck and Vallee’s study, though, is the question of whether this plausibly helps demon- strate their claim for a constant & robust core ufo phenomenon? The answer is obviously No. This event violates one of the more fundamental laws of the ufo phenomenon. Richard Haines stated the law in these terms: “The likelihood of a UFO manifestation decreases as the number of potential observers increase.” (Haines 1979; Story, 1980) Hynek made a similar point when he lamented that unexplained ufo events that present with large numbers of witnesses invariably col- lapse upon investigation. Ufo events are isolated in space and cases that seemed to stretch over towns and states “always turned out to be an IFO.” (Hynek 1978) We are left with two options. The entry had no business being in a catalog of alleg- edly true and anomalous ufo events and it is an IFO that would be easily solved if more information was turned up. The al- Aten’s ufo radiating on He who served it ternative is the core ufo phenomenon is inconstant and broke laws in antiquity it he first two entries in Chris Aubeck & power and majesty. The Amun priest- has adhered to since 1947. TJacques Vallee’s official chronology of hood usually was supportive of imperial ancient ufos for Wonders in the Sky in- conquests since the plunder and subse- We must add that if this is some sort of volve Egyptian civilization. According to quent tribute of the vanquished vastly (deadly?) ETH intervention in earthly af- the first entry, Thutmosis III was in a war enriched Egypt’s economy. fairs, does the fact that it happens to with the Nubians around 1460 B.C. when the detriment of the Nubians and to a star fell to the south and struck the Nu- This was inscribed in the Temple of Amun the benefit of a rich and powerful impe- bians. None could stand. It positioned erected to honor Thutmosis III’s victo- rial conqueror befit one’s ideas of how an itself above them “as if they didn’t exist ries in Asia. The temple sits at the base advanced intelligence ought to behave? and then they fell upon their own blood.” of Gebel Barkal Mountain in the great Does this accord with one’s ideas of how The star was behind them illuminating Bayunda desert. There are plenty of aliens meddle in earth history in modern their faces with fire; none could defend ambiguities here for a skeptic to grouse times? Is there a consistency of purpose himself and none looked back. The hors- about. How precisely does one position evident in ufo intelligences siding with es fled in panic. Thutmosis III interpreted a star to make anybody seem as if they the Egyptians in helping them steal from this to be a miracle designed by the god didn’t exist? Does that mean anything? their weaker neighbors? Amon to impress upon foreign lands his How can it illuminate the Nubians’ faces 10 If we toss out the Thutmosis III ufo as an history.” They state, “Akhenaten also The new religion of Aten, sun-worship, IFO, we move entry #2 of Aubeck & Vallee’s founded a new religion based on the was cobbled together from an existing case catalog to the position of oldest ufo worship of the Solar Disc, thus assur- cult of the sun god Re at Heliopolis mixed experience and this is an interesting move ing his immortality in our history books with a hymn to Amun lightly rewritten indeed for the Akhenaten ufo encounter as the most powerful heretic of ancient to now honor Aten. Some motifs in the is quite delicious, a juicy piece of history Egypt.” They grant this involved worship new state religion were stolen from still engorged with irony and naughty gos- of the Sun, which is indeed perceived as a earlier material called Coffin Texts. The sip. There is a veritable industry of schol- flat disc when one can look upon it, usu- architecture at Akhetaten reflected solar arship surrounding Akhenaten and we ally near the horizon or when sufficiently worship with open-air temples distinct know a lot and suspect even more about veiled by clouds. They seemingly felt from the closed temples used in worship his reign thanks to the accident that he obliged to include this case as a genu- of the dead. The original Heliopolitan built a city that was abandoned to the ine ufo since other contemporary writers theology was not monotheistic but as- desert soon after his death. It had been tend to consider this a match to flying similated other gods of the region and forgotten for millennia. Then archaeolo- saucer iconography. Beyond the entry, was not inherently hostile to Amun. But gists over the past century began to dig they also bring up Akhenaten in a listing once Akhenaten got rolling, he started it out. Due to this situation, we have a lot of eight ufo incidents that made “a major a campaign against the Amun religion. of strikingly well-preserved artifacts con- impact on human history and culture.” He would purify Egypt, return it to first cerning his period. principles by all means in his power. He This is all comically problematic. Until Na- ordered statues of Amun be smashed, It is also helps that Akhenaten started poleon Bonaparte brought attention to the name and image hacked from tem- a religion that many moderns thought the ruins of the city in the desert, Akhen- ple walls, shrines, and obelisks. The pha- was the first example of monotheism aten had been successfully erased from raoh’s men set towns and villages on fire, and thus a forerunner to Judeo-Christian history. His name had been removed pillaged temples, and made a practice of culture. Though this is now largely dis- from lists of kings, his monuments had forcing priests to butcher sacred animals, counted, for a few decades this made been defaced to remove all signs of his roast them, then strip the men naked Akhenaten the subject of extra attention existence. Records rarely mentioned his and cast them away. among scholars in a spectrum of subjects name except obliquely and always unfa- like comparative religion, psychoanalytic vorably. This was all done by adherents In a word, Akhenaten was a fantatic. theory, atheist rhetoric, and anthropol- of the older religion of Amun that Akhen- ogy. aten had been trying to escape by the Akhenaten seems to have had strong creation of the new religion and the new and strange sexual appetites. He fa- The ufo incident is set in summer 1347 city in the desert. thered children from several women, B.C. along the Nile. Pharaoh Akhenaten at least six daughters with Nefertiti. He (a.k.a. Amenophis IV) strolls along the We can’t be absolutely sure, nobody can had a skilled harem that was constantly Nile, admiring Nature’s splendors, when read the mind of man dead for millennia, being replenished. While harems are he looks up and sees “a shining disc” de- but the suspicion is strong that Akhen- nothing unusual in royalty in the region, scend from the sky. He hears the voice aten created both the new solar religion we do have clues his tastes may have ex- of the Solar Disc tell him to build a new and the city of Akhetaten as ways of un- tended to father-daughter incest which capital with the name of Akhetaten. Part dercutting the existing priesthood which strays beyond the norms of even that of this reads, had grown powerful in prior generations time and place. In this he was emulating off the plunder of expanding empire. Vic- his father, Amenophis III, who had col- Then said his majesty to him: Behold Aten! tories were officially credited to Amun’s lected women from far and wide; foreign The Aten wishes to have made for him [...] divine intervention and support. The princesses and some known for special as a monument with an eternal and ever- Amun priesthood existed as a veritable skills like the lady Sati aka Miss Whiplash lasting name...It was the Aten, my father, state within a state and they had inter- and Lady Tawosret who was blessed with who advised me concerning it, so that fered in the ruling of the royal family with sexual zeal. It is suspected that Akhen- it could be made for him as Akhetaten... their support of a woman pharaoh and aten justified incest in his own mind after Behold, fill Akhetaten with provisions – a her choice for subsequent king a man he had elevated his father to the position storehouse for everything, while my fa- from northern regions of the Egyptian of godhood in the Aten religion. Hints ther proclaimed to me: It is to belong to empire. Akhenaten’s family lived in the exist, around Year 12 of the Aten, Akhen- my majesty, to be Akhetaten, forever and southern region. Court intrigues involv- aten then elevated himself to godhood. eternity.” ing the rival families and the Amun priest- At that time, a co-regent was inducted to hood created bad blood among compet- eventually take over his rule. Some de- Akhetaten’s name translates to “The Hori- ing factions. Whether it rose to the level pictions of worship seem to show people zon of the Solar Disc” and its symbol was of attempted assassination is unknown, groveling before Akhenaten and his fam- a disc floating over a mountain range. but something of the sort is speculated ily. They are surrounded by troops with to have triggered the desire to escape batons. Aubeck and Vallee make various claims the existing capital and create a new one on the incident’s behalf. It was “a unique protected by the military whose support Akhenaten’s reign became something of experience that was to shape Egyptian Akhenaton still had. a disaster. He didn’t pay much attention 11 to the good foreign relations Egypt had material rewritten from the Amun hymn freaky self-glorifying fanatic. He ordered developed with major foreign powers and Heliopolitan belief seems to under- towns burnt down, had priests tossed and let matters degenerate. Trade cara- cut any presumption of a novel infusion naked into the streets, committed incest, vans were subject to increasing theft and of extraterrestrial guidance or even vi- and single-handedly brought the Egyp- foreign trade declined. Mayors panicked sionary hallucination. It seems unneces- tian empire to the precipice of ruin. as pleas for military support against pil- sary to bother with offering interpreta- lagers went unheeded. Income from tions of the material offered by Aubeck Now that’s a guy you really need to start tribute and taxation began to decline & Vallee as involving over-interpretation your ufo history with. and the new capital Akhetaten became of natural stimuli, though, if you want a money pit, draining the empire of re- to be tactful to tender alternative-prone Sources sources. No surprise therefore that when minds, it would be simple to invoke the Akhenaten died, the city was sealed up, observation that the sun veiled by clouds 1. Haines, Richard. Observing UFOs plundered of what could be carried, and can create imagery matching a shiny, Nelson-Hall, 1979, p. 125. left to the desert. even silvery, disc. 2. Hynek, J. Allen. “UFOs as a Space- At this point, we must note that the mes- The visual representations of Aten in Time Singularity” 1978 MUFON Ufo sage of The Aten to create a new capital Egyptian iconography are not compel- Symposium Proceedings, pp. 114- to proclaim the majesty of his father, ling matches to contemporary saucers. 21. “eternal and everlasting,” was in some de- Early versions have falcon wings. On see- gree probably foredoomed if one takes ing this, I was immediately reminded of 3. Reeves, Nicholas. Akhenaten: Egypt’s the natural sense of Akhetaten being a Jacques Vallee’s discussion in The Invisible False Prophet Thames & Hudson, city that should thrive and ever honor College of Phoenician amulets that show 2005. This is a masterful state of the the one who started it as a mecca for discs possessing wings and tail feathers. art product of Akhenaten studies worship. The sacred city suffered a quick He unfortunately compared one to the and is the source of practically every death. Millennia passed before the city Hamilton calf napping case of April 1897, fact used in this article. was exhumed by modern archaeology. which would be thoroughly debunked The Aten religion similarly quickly died, merely a couple years later - the hazards 4. Story, Ronald D. The Encyclopedia of erased with prejudice from the historical of comparative analysis based on simple UFOs Dolphin, 1980 pp. 268-9. record by the Amun priesthood. iteration of a parallel or two. The Phoeni- cian art had a quite exciting similarity to 5. Vallee, Jacques and Chris Aubeck. For non-specialists who need to be a daylight disc, beings riding the birds Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained brought up to speed because popular creating a parallel to center domes. Aten Aerial Objects from Antiquity to works still keep the idea alive, we need imagery disappointingly lacks even a Modern Times and their Impact on to state of the claim that Akhenaten was hint of a true domed disc. Aten images Human Culture, History, and Beliefs, the first monotheist and that he bears tend to involve simple circles with rays Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, 2010, responsibility for the innovation leading extending outward, entirely appropriate pp. 19, 29-30. to Judeo-Christian monotheism; schol- to a solar disc and rays of sunlight not un- ars don’t think that is true anymore. Even like one sees created by holes in clouds. 6. Vallee, Jacques. The Invisible Col- learned atheists accept that parallels be- There is frequently the interesting detail lege: What a Group of Scientists has tween Akhenaten and later religions are of the rays having hands holding symbols Discovered about UFO Influences on too few to accept there was some sort of on the ends and some of them seemingly the Human Race, E.P. Dutton, 1975, conceptual continuity. Doubt even exists about to shove ankhs up the noses of the pp. 131-2. that his religion should be considered royal family. a true monotheism for it was mainly a throwback to a form of ancestor worship The Aten religion existed too short a time and the ancient Heliopolitan cult of sun to consider any impact long-lasting. The worship. If the Aten religion venerated effect Akhenaten had on Egyptian histo- both Akhenaten and his father as seems ry was mostly negative and wholly tem- true near the end, the obviousness of the porary. What influence his name wields error comes down to what do you think in our present history books is mostly one plus one equals?. inflated by the accident that so much as- sociated with him was preserved in the Now, let us come back to Aubeck and desert, untouched by the ravages of life Vallee’s claim that Akhenaten’s ufo had a and commerce that erased so much of major impact on history. First off, do we the rest of Egyptian civilization. even know Akhenaten had an ufo expe- rience? Scholars have gravitated to the If ufo buffs desire to embrace Akhenaten idea that the whole thing was a cynical as history’s first contactee, personally political gambit to escape the political they have my blessing and bemusement. snake-pit of the existing royal court. The The man was, by any objective measure, a 12 An artistic record of the great JREF The Trent pictures UFO evidence debate When this case was presented as UFO best evidence, I pointed out to the forum, eaders of SUNlite might be familiar The Gay rodeo? Joel Carpenter’s theory that the UFO may Rwith the artwork of “Psycho Clown”. have been a suspended model made He did the poster art for my articles about he Rogue River sighting sparked sev- from an old truck mirror. Stray Cat pro- Malmstrom and the Arizona UFOs in SUN- Teral month’s of debate about if the duced this movie poster to commemo- lite 2-2 and 2-3. Psycho Clown goes by UFO might have been the Goodyear rate the idea: the name of “stray cat” in the James Randi blimp (which had been in Oregon that Education Foundation’s (JREF) skeptics month) or possibly another blimp. The forum and often creates some interest- drawings by the witnesses look some- ing artwork that highlights many of the thing like a blimp and one has to note discussions about UFOs. this is one of the few UFO sightings where the UFO has a tail fin. I tend to think this When a UFO proponent, who went by might have been an aircraft seen under the name of “Rramjet”, had started sev- conditions similar to the Catalina island eral threads about UFOs (One of those UFO movie of 1966. Whether it was a was titled “UFOs: The research , the evi- blimp or not isn’t really important. The dence”), Stray Cat and another member extent to which Rramjet wanted to dis- by the name of Akhenaten were inspired. miss the Goodyear blimp as an explana- I have been collecting many of their im- tion inspired this movie poster: ages and, with their permission, I desired to share them with the readers of SUN- lite. Hopefully, you will find them as hu- morous as I did.

ECREE

his was a thread, where a Rramjet Twanted to declare Carl Sagan’s state- One can’t say for sure if the images show ment of “Extraordinary Claims Require a truck mirror or not but it is worth con- Extraordinary Evidence” (ECREE) as non- sidering instead of being dismissive of sense. In his way of thinking, there was the idea. no such thing as an extraordinary claim or extraordinary evidence. By declaring It was a lighthouse! that all claims and evidence were the same, it implied that anecdotal evidence Rendlesham was would count just as much as physical evi- mentioned brief- dence. After almost a hundred pages of ly in the discus- discussion, forum member Akhenaten sions and Stray tried to point out the ridiculous nature of Cat offered some Rramjet’s argument by illustrating how poster art. How- a headline about physical evidence for The Goodyear blimp theory was “ana- ever, his more alien spaceships would appear using this gramized” into the “Gay Rodeo” blimp. This interesting work philosophy: anagram was chosen because of the ten- concerning this dency for some aliens to do invasive prob- case can be seen ing on some of their abductees. Akhen- on Youtube. aten generated this recognition In his Psycho-Clown TV episode, we see guide for those lights flying about Rendlesham forest alien space- and then disappearing into space. We ships. The “Gay then zoom into the light as it leaves earth Rodeo” blimp and see: would make further appear- ances in other cases.

13 He closes with the statement, “It was a When the discussion about the squid ing in formation in a straight line near lighthouse....live with it!” These are my fishing fleet occurred, Stray Cat produced midnight on New Years eve on the South- sentiments towards this case, which, this magazine cover for Squid Fishing ern Australian coast. Two of the lights ap- somehow, was considered worthy of be- Monthly: peared to oscillate around a central point. ing considered a top case in Paul Kimball’s Several proposed that they might have documentary about UFOlogy’s “best evi- been birds (possibly geese) in flight. dence”.

Squid fishing monthly

robably the most extensively dis- Pcussed UFO case was the New Zea- land UFOs of 1978. Quoting Dr. Bruce Maccabee’s web site regularly, Rramjet felt he had the ultimate case. Of course, the skeptic forum found the videos of lights jumping about and moving in and out of focus less than compelling:

Not to be left out, the Gay Rodeo Blimp made a cameo. I suggested they might be satellites and the two lights only appeared to oscil- late around a central point. I thought it might be rare for four satellites to be seen in this configuration. However, a check of Heaven’s Above revealed that it would not be too unusual to have four satellites moving in the same general direction around the same time.

Was this the source of his sighting? No- body really knows and, without a time machine, one can never be sure. It is important to note that the witness was speaking from memories over two years Another movie poster took its inspira- old and they were never recorded in a tion from the debate that went on for way that can be verified (i.e. a UFO re- months. port). I believe in the old Chinese proverb that states, “The palest ink is better than the best memory”. Without the sighting being recorded in a manner that can be verified, it is just an anecdote that carries While the debate seemed endless, it was little weight and is not very reliable. these moments of humor that made the discussion tolerable. Other items of interest

Birds or satellites? hese were the highlights of the “great TUFO debate” at the JREF forum. The ramjet’s extensive presentation of UFO cases I described above weren’t the RUFO evidence in the JREF forum only ones discussed and there were more reached its peak when he published his opportunities to produce some interest- own UFO sighting as an example of a reli- ing artwork. However, the thread became able UFO report. He challenged skeptics moderated for some time, which hin- to explain it. The sighting consisted of an dered the creative talents of Stray Cat and observation of four nocturnal lights mov- Akhenaten. Despite this handicap there 14 were some other gems that surfaced. Dr. Greer’s disclosure project claims inspired There be dragons! this poster art from Psycho-clown/Stray ver the years of discussing UFOs pendence is most important (I shall return Cat: Owith UFO proponents, I have noticed to this point). I want to emphasizes that that many claim to be skeptical of certain the singleness of a witness necessarily types of UFO reports but are more than puts his case into some sort of doubt. All of willing to blindly accept others without us know how people have been mistaken any proof at all. That seemed odd to me with the best will in the world.1 and I have begun to offer the following hypothetical question, “If the witness re- It is these single eyewitness UFO reports ported they saw a dragon or a witch in that I focus my hypothetical question this UFO report, would you be just as will- upon. UFO proponents should have a cer- ing to accept it?” tain degree of skepticism when it comes to these types of reports. This is especially Invisible dragons true if the report includes exotic details like missing time, alien entities, spaceship r. Carl Sagan sort of took this ap- landings, or some other claim. Without Dproach in one of his chapters in “The any confirming evidence for their story, demon haunted world”. He described they might as well say they saw a witch the claim of an invisible dragon being in or dragon. his garage. Every time somebody sug- gested a way to prove the invisible drag- A prime example on was there or not, he had a ready made excuse as to why it was not detected. In he most classic example of these this scenario, the invisible dragon acted Tkinds of single person stories is the The never-ending debate the same as if there were no dragon at all. Kenneth Arnold case. Other than the Fred The bottom line is that these kinds of re- Johnson letter, which did not surface t is important to note that in all of these ports really are just based on the person’s until two months later (possibly being Icases that were presented, nobody say-so and are unverifiable. influenced by reading the newspaper ac- claimed that these cases were positively counts), the report by Arnold is simply a solved as blimps, airplanes, stars, truck Dragons vs UFOs single person report with no supporting mirrors, geese, satellites, etc. It was just evidence. If Arnold’s report was not such that the skeptics felt these explanations o far, when I have brought up my an important case in UFOlogy, it might were more probable than the Extra-Ter- Shypothetical question about sub- have been easily dismissed by some as restrial Hypothesis (ETH) explanation im- stituting a dragon for the UFO, I have being unverifiable. Had he stated he saw plied by the proponents. If Rramjet had been criticized or ignored. Many state, dragons or some other mythical creature taken the approach that some of these “everybody knows that dragons don’t ex- that day in June of 1947, people would “classic cases” had plausible explanations ist but UFOs (as some form of craft) do”. have ignored him. instead of bitterly disputing any expla- This is not really true. We have evidence nation other than the ETH, the debate that UFOs exist because people can not Where does skepticism start? might have taken a different path. identify things they see in the sky. How- ever, nobody has ever shown that what he whole point of this exercise is they have seen are real craft that are “not Tto ask the question, “When does a of this earth”. So, when people are de- UFOlogist suddenly become skeptical of scribing UFOs in this sense, substituting a UFO report?” In my opinion, if they can a dragon (or witch, fairy, etc.) is appropri- substitute a dragon for the UFO and can ate since there is the same amount of not present a valid argument that states evidence for their existence. it could not be a dragon (other than drag- ons do not exist), then the report is essen- Many UFO reports involve single eyewit- tially worthless. Either more evidence is nesses that may have simply misinter- required to support it or it should be dis- preted what they saw or they could have carded as being unreliable. made it all up. As Dr. Phillip Morrison once stated, Notes and references

I would say that NO witness is credible 1. Sagan, Carl, and Thornton Page, eds. who bears a sufficiently strange story. UFO’s: A Scientific Debate. New York: The only hope is for independent chains, Barnes & Nobles, 1972. P. 282-3. several independent witnesses, and then credibility certainly rises. Moreover, inde- 15 he focus of Annie Jacobsen’s Area first question. In a May 2011 article for T51: An Uncensored History of Ameri- The Rashomon Effect, The Space Review, Day noted similarities ca’s Top Secret Military Base was not, as between O’Donnell’s account of the Ro- might be supposed, the history of the UFO tales, and trans- swell Incident and “Tomb Tapper,” a short infamous facility that spawned the U-2, story by James Blish published in the July the Blackbird, and various stealth aircraft. mutation of memory 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The poorly sourced and error-filled book Blish’s tale follows two men investigating instead focused on a bizarre new story what they at first believe to be the crash about the “Roswell Incident.” of a Soviet bomber on U.S. soil. Instead, By Peter W. Merlin they find a rocket ship made of advanced Passages throughout the book serve as a alloys. When they finally gain access to set-up for the final chapter in which the the cockpit, they discover that the pilot author claims that in 1947, Soviet leader is a little girl, barely eight years old and Joseph Stalin was responsible for a UFO apparently equipped with an enhanced crash hoax in New Mexico that was meant brain. To survive extreme acceleration to cause panic in America. Stalin suppos- forces during flight, the child-pilot was edly enlisted the aid of the Horten broth- enclosed in a tubular tank filled with a ers (inventors of German flying wing pro- viscous substance. “And of course,” wrote totypes) to create a fake spaceship with Blish, “this way, the USSR could get a rocket advanced hovering capabilities, and Nazi fighter to the United States on a one-way doctor Joseph Mengele to genetically trip.” engineer children to look like an alien crew. Two of the crew members allegedly Parallels between the Blish and O’Donnell survived the crash. Comatose but still stories are hard to ignore. Perhaps alive, they were transported to Area 51 O’Donnell read the story or perhaps he in tubular tanks filled with a gelatin-like heard of it from his EG&G supervisor. It substance. may have been passed down as some- thing heard from a “reliable source.” Even- Upon hearing such a preposterous story, tion at the Nevada Test Site in 1951. While tually, perhaps, O’Donnell integrated it any real investigative journalist would his background checks out, his story has into his own memories, conflating fact have attempted to corroborate the de- more holes than Yucca Flat. and fiction. This hypothesis is by no tails before going to press. Jacobsen, means farfetched. It has happened be- however, cited only a single, unnamed During an interview with the author on fore. source for this tale. She claimed he was ABC’s Nightline, Bill Weir asked, “Surely a former employee of Edgerton, Germe- you must have obsessed over how to dou- In May 2005, historian and author Cur- shausen & Grier, Inc. (EG&G), and the last ble-source this? How do you confirm this?” tis Peebles wrote an article for Magonia surviving member of a five-man team Jacobsen replied, “Well, I’m not sure that magazine about a UFO abduction story who had direct access to the Roswell it’s my job to prove it. I do know it was my that had been passed along from one “equipment.” According to her source, job to report it, and that’s what I did.” the truth about Roswell was covered up to hide the fact that the U.S. Atomic En- Weir managed to set up an off-camera ergy Commission was conducting simi- interview with O’Donnell. Afterward, he lar secret experiments and atrocities in described O’Donnell as appearing con- Nevada. While Jacobsen has repeatedly fused, telling conflicting accounts, and claimed to believe that her source was saying he was motivated to tell his story sincere, she concedes that his informa- “in order to help Annie’s book.” tion about Roswell was relayed to him by his supervisor, who supposedly received Jacobsen has been widely criticized for the it from a government official. including O’Donnell’s unsubstantiated tale in her book. The details of the story Anonymous source itself have been parsed and analyzed, revealing numerous logical and factual or anyone trying to follow up on this flaws. If O’Donnell’s story is bogus, then Fdubious anecdote, the murky trail be- where did it come from, and why does he gins and ends with Jacobsen’s anonymous seem sincere in his belief that it is true? source who has since been identified as retired EG&G engineer Al O’Donnell of Fiction as fact Las Vegas. O’Donnell, 89, joined EG&G in 1947 and is the last living person to have erospace historian and policy analyst witnessed the inaugural nuclear detona- ADwayne Day may have answered the 16 person to another as fact and eventually Human memory can be surprisingly published in Ann Druffel’s book Firestorm: unreliable. Most commonly, individu- Dr. James E. McDonald’s Fight For UFO als misremember details or sequences Science (Wildflower Press, 2003). McDon- of events. Sometimes, groups of people ald, a senior physicist at the University of can share a single false memory. There Arizona’s Institute of Atmospheric Phys- is also subjectivity of perception, known ics in Tucson, became interested in UFO as the “Rashomon effect,” in which mul- phenomena and amassed a large collec- tiple observers of a single event produce tion of research material. substantially different accounts of it. This phenomenon is named for Akira Kuro- In 1968, according to Peebles, Robert M. sawa’s 1950 film Rashomon, in which a Wood, deputy director for research and crime is witnessed by four individuals development at Douglas Missile and and described by each in mutually exclu- Space Division, told McDonald that an sive contradictory ways. X-15 pilot on a planned 15-minute flight had disappeared (along with his airplane) peared during a flight. Iliff told Peebles In an example of misremembered details, for three hours. Wood reportedly identi- that he was horrified at the speaker’s lies a retired test pilot who had flown the YF- fied the pilot as Gene May of Douglas. He but figured the man was just trying to 12 and SR-71 Blackbirds wrote in his auto- said the source of the abduction story promote the book he was selling at the biography of an event that had occurred was a colleague who worked at Vanden- convention. some 20 years earlier. In 1981, he had a berg Air Force Base, Calif., and Wood con- unique opportunity to fly a U-2 high- sidered him “very reliable.” Frank John Reid, in an August 2005 Ma- altitude reconnaissance plane for more gonia article, revealed that on Decem- than two hours. He recalled the airplane’s Although McDonald made note of the ber 24, 1949, the Saturday Evening Post challenging handling characteristics and X-15 story for future reference, he appar- published “Outer Limit” by Graham Doar described the landing procedures in ently never followed upon it before his (reprinted in 1950 for Groff Conklin’s an- great detail. In the original manuscript, death by suicide in 1971. Had he done thology, Big Book of Science Fiction from he wrote that the event took place in the so, he might have discovered that there Crown Publishers). “Outer Limit” was a “spring of 1981,” and recalled that a fellow was no substance to the claim of an X-15 fictional story of a test pilot who isab- Blackbird pilot traveled with him to Beale disappearing during a flight and, more ducted by aliens for 10 hours while flying Air Force Base and also made an orienta- important, that Gene May never flew the a high-altitude research aircraft on what tion flight in a U-2. Prior to publication of aircraft. So, where did the story told to was supposed to be a 10-minute flight. the manuscript, an examination of flight Wood originate? logs from 1981 revealed that the U-2 Could this have been the origin of a story sortie took place in summer rather than Peebles learned that several years before that, passed from person to person, even- spring and that the second pilot was not Wood told the tale to McDonald, NASA tually came to be considered as truth by the one remembered by the author. engineers Kenneth W. Iliff and Lowell anyone not willing to do a little research? Greenfield (both assigned to the X-15 If so, then this is a perfect example of This same author also described a major project at the time) attended a UFO con- how fiction can morph over time through NATO exercise in which he had partici- vention at Giant Rock Airport in the Mo- the fog of memory until it is perceived as pated while serving in the Navy in 1953. jave Desert. One of the speakers claimed fact. He remembered that several aircraft car- to have been involved with the X-15 riers from the United States, Canada, and program for the previous several years, Deceptive memories Great Britain participated, and specifically and that he was on active duty with the named the British carrier H.M. S. Ark Roy- Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base. He emory encompasses a variety of al. Although the British Royal Navy oper- told a story about the X-15 disappearing Mcognitive mechanisms by which we ated several ships of this name at various for several hours during a flight that was retain information and reconstruct past times, none existed in 1953. Prior to pub- only supposed to last a matter of minutes. experiences. Recollection of past events lication, a vigilant fact-checker noted that He claimed that all the participants were is different from perception of the pres- the Ark Royal’s sister ship, H.M.S. Eagle, sworn to secrecy. The speaker said that, ent, and because we recall real events, participated in the exercise. despite his security oath, he had to tell memory is different from imagination. In the truth about what had happened on practice, however, people can experience There are numerous examples of small the flight, that the X-15 and its pilot had close interactions between remember- and large groups sharing identical false been taken aboard a UFO intact, exam- ing, perceiving, and imagining. According memories. In one case, two men were ined for several hours, and then returned to John Sutton (“Memory,” The Stanford searching the desert for parts of a crashed to where the aircraft had been flying. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer airplane. They had explored the area on 2010 edition), “Memory goes wrong in several previous occasions with mixed Being intimately familiar with X-15 op- mundane and minor, or in dramatic and success. Another, much larger search erations, Iliff and Greenfield knew the disastrous ways.” team also visited the debris field and col- story was false. No X-15 had ever disap- lected a variety of artifacts over a two- 17 at all.” you in the environment can interfere with the original content of the memory.” To investigate the reliability of memory, Ost surveyed people in England and The mutability of memory comes as no Sweden about their recollection of the surprise to psychologists, whose ex- July 2005 terrorist bomb attack in Lon- periments have suggested that people’s don. He asked his subjects if they had memory can be distorted without their seen closed-circuit television footage of realizing it. In Miller’s article, “How our the bus bombing in the city’s Tavistock brains make memories,” he cites a 1978 Square. Eighty-four percent of British re- University of Washington study in which spondents said they had, compared to 50 researchers showed students a series of percent of Swedish participants. In fact, color photographs depicting an accident no such footage exists. Some partici- in which a red Datsun car knocks down day span. The two-man team recalled pants in the false memory investigation a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The students that shortly afterward, they found a very even provided explicit details of events then answered various questions, some large and impressive piece of wreckage. they had seen in the non-existent foot- of which were intentionally misleading. In the ensuing years, they often shared age. McCall reported that in response to The results showed that students who this anecdote, always expressing their the question “Was the bus moving when had been asked a misleading question amazement that the larger team had the bomb went off?” Ost received such were more likely to give an incorrect an- missed this piece. Eventually, upon re- detailed responses as: “The bus had just swer than the other students. viewing long-forgotten field notes, they stopped to let two people off when two were surprised to find their recollection women got on and a man. He placed the It is clear that under the best of circum- of the sequence of events was inaccu- bag by his side, the woman sat down, and stances, memory can be unreliable. Even rate. They had found the large piece long the doors closed. As the bus left there was vividly striking images can be distorted before the other team arrived. Both team an explosion and then everyone started to by the mind’s eye as a result of a variety members shared the same false memory, scream.” of factors. People can recall things that apparently reinforced through verbal never happened, conflate details to alter repetition. “Play it again, Sam” time lines, and co-opt a fictional tale as a memory of a supposedly real event. An- Some false memories become part of ome researchers believe that the very other factor for consideration is normal popular culture. Ask most anyone who Sact of remembering can change our cognitive decline due to aging. While watched the 1980 television series Cos- memories. Karim Nader, a neuroscientist people of any age can experience mem- mos what they remember most, and they at McGill University in Montreal, says it ory lapse and distortion, it is particularly will likely say it was the way host Carl Sa- may be impossible to bring a memory pronounced among the elderly. gan said “billions and billions,” with his to mind without altering it in some way. distinctive delivery that emphasized the Greg Miller interviewed Nader, an expert Al O’Donnell was 89 when interviewed first syllable. This catchphrase became a on memory, and, in particular, on the by Annie Jacobsen, and was recounting popular target for parody among stand- malleability of memory, for Smithsonian memories nearly 60 years old. She has re- up and late-night-television comics. The magazine in 2010. peatedly told interviewers that she stands only problem is that Sagan himself never by the veracity of her source, supposedly said it. While narrating the show he used Neuroscientists and psychologists be- because his recollections of other unspec- the word “billions” on numerous occa- lieve that most people have so-called ified events proved accurate. It remains sions to describe the number of stars “flashbulb memories” of where they were impossible, however, to ignore the simi- in the universe, but the closest he ever and what they were doing when some- larities between O’Donnell’s Roswell tale came to his supposed quote appeared in thing momentous happened. Examples and James Blish’s “Tomb Tapper,” and the the book Cosmos, where he wrote of “bil- include events such as the assassination precedent set by Robert M. Wood’s tale of lions upon billions” of stars. Nevertheless, of President John F. Kennedy, the explo- the X-15 abduction that was apparently many people still remember him saying sion of the space shuttle Challenger, or drawn from Graham Doar’s “Outer Limit.” “billions and billions” on television. the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But as Most important, O’Donnell had no docu- clear and detailed as these memories feel, mentation or additional witnesses to A study by James Ost, a psychologist from Nader believes they are more susceptible corroborate his story. Perhaps Jacobsen the University of Portsmouth, England, to change than others, possibly because should have been less credulous when found that people easily convince them- we tend to replay them over and over in presented with such a dubious yarn. selves that they have seen things that our minds and in conversation with oth- never happened. “Some people think that ers. Oliver Hardt, a postdoctoral research- our memories are like video recorders and er in Nader’s lab interviewed by Miller, that if you press play the memories come said that recalling an experience to other flooding back,” said Ost in an interview people may allow distortions to creep in. with Becky McCall for Cosmos Online in “When you retell it, the memory becomes September 2008. “It doesn’t work like that plastic, and whatever is present around 18 UFOs on the tube - Secret access: UFOs on the record

eslie Kean’s book, UFOs: Generals, Pi- Kean implies the AF lied when they ex- Llots, and Government officials go on plained the event away as flares because the record, was a big hit last year and she they dropped the flares at 10PM and the managed to get a television producer to bulk of the sightings were at 8-8:30 PM. make a documentary based on it. The Of course, if Kean would have done her History Channel presented the program research, she would be aware that Cap- on August 25th with the usual applause tain Bienz never stated that the flares from the UFO aficionados. Most notable explained the earlier event. In the July was that not one skeptical voice was 25, 1997 Arizona Republic story, Captain presented on the program. I can only and stars. Recent revelations by Colonel Bienz stated they only explained the vid- conclude this was because Kean or her Conrad have shown that most of Halt’s eos shot around 10PM. Of course, Kean producer did not want to present an op- conclusions are bogus. His changing also makes the claim the event transpired posing point of view. As we will see, there the number of objects in the sky is an for 106 minutes, which implies that she was a reason for this approach. example of trying to make a good story was including the 10PM sightings! It is better. It is the evolution of a myth based statements like these that indicate she is The show was two hours long and broken on actual events. either clueless or deliberately misleading up into several “landmark” UFO cases that the viewer. were supposed to be the best they had Discussing Rendlesham on any UFO to offer. Added to the Kean commentary show means we get to hear about Nick The show also attempts to present the was the face and voice of Nick Pope, who Pope making the usual claims about him theory floated by some that the 10PM has made sure evidence about his actual performing some form of investigation flare drop was staged to divert atten- performance at the MOD never surfaces while he was at the MOD. For somebody tion away from the 8-8:30PM event. This in the public eye. This brings into ques- who spent, according to the program, conspiracy theory completely ignores tion his integrity as somebody, who is in- three years investigating the case, he re- the fact that the A-10s were scheduled terested in pursuing the truth. ally hasn’t done much beyond repeating to conduct this exercise long before the what was already known at the time by night of March 13th and that the flares Rendlescam UFO investigators. There were claims of were ejected on the return back to base 60 and “over 80” Air Force Personnel sup- because they were left over from their he first case presented was the Rendle- posedly seeing the object take off from exercise. It also indirectly calls the pilots, Tsham affair. In addition to the usual the forest yet we did not see one state- who have described their participation story, the show made the claim that the ment from any of these individuals. They in this event, liars. radiation readings were ten times back- might as well have said that 600 or 6000 ground radiation. Research has shown people saw it. Those numbers are mean- The program played the NUFORC tape this was a false claim made by Pope, ingless without any evidence. of an anonymous person on the phone which is repeated as fact by Kean. This claiming an F-15 pilot (Luke air force will not be the first time that Kean gets The show calls the Rendlesham case, base only operated F-16s and there is her facts wrong. “one of the most conclusive UFO sightings no evidence for F-15s being present) at- in history”. I almost fell out of my chair tempted to intercept the UFO that night. Charles Halt recounts his usual tale but with laughter because if that is the case, Upon his return, the base was supposed- added a new twist. Instead of two star- it is the most convincing case of misper- ly “locked down”. No evidence was pre- like objects being visible in the north ception and UFO mythology one can sented to support such claims but it was (as stated in his memo), we now are told present. Leslie Kean goes on the record presented as factual. It makes one laugh there were four or five and they were ac- as stating that Rendlesham “stands as a at Kean’s statement, “Always focus on the tual craft. He pretty much repeats the benchmark against which all other UFO hard core factual information... and not on rest of his story about the winking eye cases can be measured”! I am not sure the more conspiracy-oriented material...” and the various other claims. Most of what benchmark she is talking about these can be attributed to the lighthouse but it certainly has a lot more to do with myth-making than scientific investiga- tion. No wonder they did not invite Dr. David Clarke or Ian Ridpath to discuss the case.

The Arizona UFOs

n the Arizona UFO segment the wit- Inesses briefly tell their usual story about Disgraced governor Fife Symington re- the massive triangle they claim they saw. counted his recent revelations that he 19 also saw the UFO. However, his story ap- to explain such a public report. To her, pears fabricated. According to him, he this is the standard operating procedure. was watching the news reports of the If this was so, why are all these people, UFO on TV while dining with his family. who reported the UFO still working for Intrigued, he then drove out to a park. the airlines? After being their five to ten minutes, he saw the UFO. The problem with that The golden age story is that the local television appar- ently did not report the UFO event until found it funny that Leslie Kean referred the late evening news. This was hours Ito the days of project Bluebook as “the after the event occurred. If the media golden age of UFO study in America”. This were aware of the event in real time, one implied the USAF did a better job of The Belgium wave wonders why not one camera crew was studying UFOs than all these private UFO able to go out and record it the same way organizations (CUFOS, MUFON, NICAP, resented as a primary source in this Symington supposedly saw the UFO. Un- APRO, etc.) combined. I am sure many Psegment was Patrick Ferryn, who less there were interruptions of regular UFOlogists would have a different way of was the head of SOBEPS, the civilian broadcasts at 8-8:30 PM, it indicates that describing Project Bluebook’s efforts in UFO group that investigated the wave. Symington probably fabricated his story. investigating UFOs. The wave has been discussed in SUNlite This is probably to gain some publicity so several times, so I will skip the details he can reinvent himself as an honest per- Alaskan adventure concerning most of the witness reports. son. After all, he IS a politician and they However, they did mention the F-16 always want to tell you what you want to nother case that made the cut into chase and presented one of the pilots. here. Athe show was the JAL 1628 event. A He stated that they chased an object on lot of data about this case was presented radar. Missing in all of this is the fact that The real story about the Arizona UFOs can by John Callahan but I am unaware of they never actually saw the UFO visually be told if one just reads SUNlite 2-3. The that data being presented to the public. and only chased a radar return. Also miss- claims about “thousands” seeing a mas- If Callahan can present all these graphs ing from the discussion was the analysis sive object are exposed as inaccurate by and radar tapes, why isn’t this read- by Salmon and Gilmard, who stated one looking at the data in the NUFORC data- ily available for all to see and evaluate. pilot accidently locked on to the other base. Additionally, I present the one piece Clearly, science would be interested in F-16 at one point and that the radar re- of evidence that totally debunks the analyzing this information. turns were explainable. The same can be claim there was a massive craft involved. said for the study by UFOlogist Auguste That being the Terry Proctor video, which Meesen, who also concluded the radar shows only lights shifting in formation. returns could be explained! Ignoring all One wonders why Kean and the producer of this evidence, Kean chooses to refer to never bothered to show actual evidence the Belgium wave as “historic” because of like this? one photograph.

The O’Hare UFO The Petit-Rechain photograph produced all sorts of claims by UFO scientists. One his case was probably one of the bet- even claimed they could see the effects Tter UFO sightings brought to the ta- of a magnetic field in the image! Of ble. Unfortunately, we have just a bunch course, the show was shot before the of anonymous reports. At one point we photographer had publicly announced have a claim made that somebody took that he hoaxed the image, which makes a picture of the event. The photograph one question the “scientific analysis”. It has never surfaced indicating there was Callahan also repeats his claims about also invalidates Kean’s statement that, “In no photograph or that the photograph the CIA shutting down the investigation. the history of UFO studies the Petit-Rechain showed that the event was not that ex- Unfortunately for Callahan, Dr. Bruce photograph stands out as one of the most traordinary. Missing from the story is that Maccabee and Ron Pandolfi were also at convincing pieces of evidence of a sighting only a few people confined to a small area the meeting. They confirmed to Reality to date.” Her statement was not based on saw the UFO and those in the tower saw Uncovered that no such thing occurred any independent investigation but on nothing. and Maccabee was able to publish the her blind acceptance of what these UFO information with no interference! This proponents told her! Kean turns this into a theory that states was all missing from the story. Once the FAA purposefully discourages pilots again, Kean blindly accepts the story told Even more amusing was Nick Pope stat- and personnel from reporting UFOs. Ad- by Callahan without bothering to check ing they had a similar incident in the UK ditionally, if they do make public reports, up on the claim. So much for relying three years later. He is referring to the they are ridiculed. Finally, the govern- upon “factual information” and ignoring Cosford incident, which was caused by a ment will make any explanation in order “conspiracy-minded” claims. russian booster rocket re-entry. There was 20 also another sighting about that night, to be greater chances that we are going to Book Reviews which has been determined to be prob- capture even more solid data. But, we also ably a helicopter. I am not even sure why have to be extremely careful to hold it to Buy it! (No UFO library should do people find Pope credible at all. the absolute highest standards. without it) Yet, Kean drops those “high standards” UFO Sightings: The evidence - time and time again in this program and Robert Sheaffer in her book. The only thing she has ever proposed was that the US government This is a good skeptical UFO book that take over UFO investigations. If the tax should be in any UFO library. It basical- payers would not fund SETI, what makes ly is an updated version of his previous her think they will fund a boondoggle for book, The UFO verdict. Some of it is most UFOlogists? of the same old stuff about eyewitness Enter Doug Trumball reliability and perception. There is also KEAN: It’s the accumulation of overwhelm- worthwhile commentary/analysis about oug Trumball was the only thing I ing evidence from pilots, generals, govern- many of the UFO events that Robert in- Dliked about the show. He at least pre- ment officials, that prove, in my opinion, vestigated. I found his section on UFO sented how UFO research should be done. that we have an actual physical phenom- photographs highly informative. Trumball also demonstrated skepticism enon that has not been explained. Borrow it. (Worth checking out of towards UFO photographs stating that he has never seen a UFO photograph that In every case that was presented, impor- library or borrowing from a friend) he could not duplicate photographically tant information was ignored/not men- Project Moon Dust - Kevin Randle or digitally. Kean should have had him tioned that could shed some light on analyze the Petit-Rechain photograph these events. This means the evidence is This book is a mixed bag. A highlight is before making her statement. It might not as good as claimed. Her claim about his evaluation of the Cash-Landrum inci- have saved her the embarrassment of be- the “accumulation of overwhelming evi- dent. My motto here is find the source ing completely wrong when she declared dence” is flawed because, as Brian Dun- of the helicopters and you will verify the the photograph one of the most convinc- ning stated, “you can stack cowpies as story. Nobody has been able to do this, ing pieces of evidence in UFOlogy. high as you want, they won’t turn into a which means there are problems with bar of gold. Good evidence is composed of the story as told. The low light is his ap- Closing statements of credulity good evidence, not lots of bad evidence”. pendix, where he desperately tries to convince the reader that the govern- ean and Pope closed the program The sales pitch ment documents denying they had Kwith some comments that deserve to any crashed spaceship debris does not be quoted and answered. y not presenting an opposing opin- necessarily mean they did not recover a Bion, the producers and Kean were crashed spaceship at Roswell. able to sell their product to the unin- formed viewer. Like those late night Bin it! (Not worth the paper it is commercials, designed to get you to written upon - send to recycle bin) purchase their product using gimmicks, the show withheld information that Conspiracy of Silence - Kevin Ran- demonstrated their product was flawed. dle While this show may satisfy all the UFO proponents, its failure to present all the Too much of this book is about Randle POPE: Potentially, it has incredible things to evidence makes it no better than a UFO trying to breath life into the Roswell teach us. hunters episode. Move over Bill Birnes, story. His section, “The truth about Frank Leslie Kean and Nick Pope want some of Kaufmann”, shows how he went to great In over sixty years of UFO research, the your limelight. lengths to convince himself and oth- only thing that has been learned is peo- ers that Kaufmann was telling the truth. ple misinterpret things they see in the When I bought this book back in the late sky and others like to exaggerate/make 1990s, I marked it up with highlighting up stories. What does Pope propose to and commentary. Looking back on the do to collect data that will teach us these comments on those pages and what we incredible things? Not once has he ever know about Frank Kaufmann today, I can suggested a new way (like Trumball’s) to see that I and other skeptics were accu- approach the problem. He is too interest- rate in our assessment. ed in selling himself and his books.

KEAN: It’s really an exciting time to be in- volved with UFO research and there seems 21