---

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE SAUCER & UNEXPLAINED CELESTIAL EVENTS RESEARCH SOCIETY

---

EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley, J.S.

NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER Volume 43, No. 6 June 25th, 1996

MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. Box 1709 Key West, FL 33041

• John Ford of the Long Island UFO Network Becomes "Radioactive Man" in a Bizarre Death Plot!
• Miscellaneous Ravings
• Ye Olde Book Bag
• Letters to the Editor

In a recent undated bulletin, which at the time we chose to ignore, Ford complains that a co-worker named Mazzuchelli was severely beaten by "four muscular men" while driving a truck borrowed from Ford. Ford says he believes that the attack was intended for him, and that a plot involving "newspaper sources, county, state and federal officials" is trying to suppress his information about two alleged UFO landings on Long Island. (Other ufologists say that these landings are not authentic in the first place.)

With this background, it is easier to understand an article in the June 14th issue of the New York Post, which tells of the arrest of Ford and Mazzuchelli. Both were charged with plotting to kill key Long Island officials in a scheme involving the use of radioactive material, i.e., radium. Police seized from Ford's home a number of radioactive canisters, plus a huge cache of weapons, a mine detector and a gas mask. Ford admitted that he had been stalking one county official with a high-powered rifle equipped with a telescopic sight!

Literature of the notorious Freemen, going back to 1990, was found in Ford's home. Officials say they do not believe Ford was connected to that group, but Ford's above-mentioned Bulletin ends with the word "VERITAS" (Latin for "Truth"), which is the name of Bill Cooper's pro-Militia magazine.

Recently Ford filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against a rival Long Island UFO researcher & lecturer named Bill Knell, which drove Knell out of New York State to some new location in Florida. Knell too is a gun nut, having been arrested several years ago for selling unlicensed handguns. Knell has also made written death threats against your Saucer Smear editor!

Such is the sorry state of ufoology! See also Smear Vol. 42, No. 7, Page 5, and Vol. 42, No. 9, Page 4. More details about John Ford in our next issue.

Photo, above left, shows the Bellport home where cops seized cannisters of radium, weapons, and Freemen literature. (Photo by Mary McLaughlin, New York Post)

• Researcher Karl Pflock has called our attention to a newly-discovered "flaw" in Ray Santilli's notorious alien abduction film, re the Roswell Incident. The original film reel-can labels bear a stamp ( = seal) as well as some handwritten identification and developing records. The stamp appears to have been applied before the cameraman wrote his instructions. The design of the stamp has now been clearly identified as that of the National Military Establishment, and research shows that this stamp was not introduced until October 1947 at the earliest. Unfortunately the Roswell Incident occurred in late June or early July, 1947 - depending on which expert one listens to. ...

• We have two interesting follow-ups on our item in the last Smear about Uri Geller's spoon bending. One, sent to us by anti-CSICOP skeptic Marcello Truzzi, is from a British music magazine's write-up about Geller, which tells how the reporter witnessed the following:

  "He (Geller) takes the spoon and, with his index finger, gently rubs the handle and - my eyes are not one foot away, as close as yours, dear readers, are to this very page -- the damn thing begins to curl! Yes, it bends until it's all of a right angle. I'm shocked. If this is a trick, it's a damn good one..."

  Then, Dr. Bruce Maccabee of ufological fame writes us about the time in 1980 when the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek told him and a friend about an experience he (Hynek) had with a spoon bender, presumably Geller. Says Maccabee:

  "The man took a spoon from the table, gently rubbed it, and then it seemed to soften and start to bend. The man then put the spoon on the table. What happened next is clearly what impressed Hynek so much that he was willing to tell this story in spite of the expeated disbelief of his listeners. Hynek was adamant that the spoon continued to bend after the man removed his hand. According to Allen the man's hand was nowhere near the spoon as it continued to bend while lying on the table. It was clear to me that Hynek was shaken by what he had seen, since he could see no way in which sleight-of-hand could account for the continued bending..."

  These two experiences parallel the one that your Smear editor had with Geller in Miami in 1992, as described in our last issue. Once again we tell you that we don't believe this was a psychic feat, but it does demand an explanation. ...

• Also from Marcello Truzzi and the Internet we learn of the newly-formed James Randi Educational Foundation, a tax-exempt organization devoted to debunking claims of the paranormal, etc. We can't see any purpose for this, other than a tax dodge, since it goes without saying that anyone willing to work with Randi must be already 102% convinced that the paranormal is just one aspect of "pseudoscience, superstition, quackery, nonsense and misinformation", to quote Randi's release.

  In college we learned that science is a systematic search for truth, rather than a rigid belief system which angrily rejects any challenge from new information. But Randi is happy in his supreme arrogance, and has even had an asteroid named after him, quite recently, by scientists sympathetic to his viewpoint.

  Incidentally, Randi states that "the Foundation is generously funded by a sponsor in Washington, D.C. who wishes, at this point in time, to "remain anonymous". We can see why!...

• Dr. Timothy Leary (far right, below), who told young people to "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out", died recently at his California home at the age of 75. We met him once in New York City, long after the golden age of the 1960s was over. He mentioned something about having become interested in UFOs during his time in prison.

  Robert Anton Wilson is a noted writer & humorist, a close friend of Tim Leary's, and a loyal Saucer Smear non-subscriber. He is shown in the picture (2nd from left) at a gathering at Leary's home this past April, together with Leary; psychologist Frank Baron (far left); and Buddhist Matthew Brenner (second from right).

  
  Of Leary, Robert Anton Wilson writes to us as follows:

  "I've seen Tim Leary twice recently and he remains a marvel - absolutely the funniest and happiest dying man I ever saw. This, I think, is only partially due to his high hopes on the cryonic gamble (having his head preserved for future identity reconstruction). Partly, I think it's just Tim. Either he was born with special genes or he has learned to use LSD more positively than any other researcher, criminal or heretic on the planet. (In the dark ages, like now, `researcher, criminal or heretic' all mean roughly the same.) He stayed high and happy all through his prison years, too. In both prison and dying, he has cheered me up more than I have cheered him up."

• ... Even though Smear is not exactly a scientific journal (pause for laughter!), we want to pass along to you a fascinating item from a recent issue of the New York Times. It seems that a team of physicists has finally proven that an entire atom can exist simultaneously in two widely separated places. If this sounds like a violation of common sense, it is; but such is the world of quantum physics, where things routinely happen that would make no sense in the "real" world. Details about this new breakthrough can be found in the current (June) issue of "Science", which is, we must admit, somewhat more authoritative than Smear....

• Once again we wish to call your attention to the 33rd running of the annnual National UFO Conference (NUFOC), this year to be held on the weekend of October 5th & 6th in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Ours will be the first convention to feature all three of the currently-recognized experts on the Roswell Incident, namely Karl Pflock, Stanton Friedman, and Kevin Randle. Dr. Frank Stranges has recently been added to the program, and will act as Master of Ceremonies. James Moseley and Brad Steiger will be the speakers at the banquet on Saturday night.

  The National UFO Conference is sponsored by a group called "The Permanent Organizing Committee of the NUFOC", consisting of: James Moseley, Permanent Chairman; Rick Hilberg; Al Manak; Antonio Huneeus; Tom Benson; Tim Beckley; Al Greenfield; Ed Komarek; and Bill Moore. Unfortunately, we have lost touch with Moore for the past several months, and are hoping to re-establish contact. ...

• Two notes, in closing: Your editor will be out of town for most of July, at the Greensboro, N.C. MUFON Conference and elsewhere, so THERE WILL BE NO NEW Smear UNTIL SOME TIME IN AUGUST. Do not panic!

  And, we have just learned that we are invited to lecture in London, England, in April of 1997, at a convention sponsored by "Fortean Times" - a wonderfully professional British zine which seems to be well financed (unlike Smear!) More details later.

• Your Smear editor had a prejudice against "The Jim Ragsdale Story" even before reading the book, because a strange thing happened: We expected a free review copy from the publisher, which is the International UFO Museum and Research Center (P.O.Box 2221, Roswell, N.M. 88202), but instead of that, we received and paid a bill of $17.45 for this 40-page soft-cover tome. As if that weren't bad enough, our copy of the book disappeared mysteriously from our files (no shit!), so we ended up paying for a second copy: $35 for this little item is indeed stiff!

  Jim Ragsdale is one of the legendary Roswell witnesses, who died of cancer in 1995. Just five days before his death he made a video tape, which not surprisingly is available from the Museum for $29.50. A Ragsdale T-shirt is also available for a mere $13.95.

  In briefest outline, Ragsdale and a girl friend were camped out in a desolate area near Roswell on the night of July 4th, 1947, when they saw a 20-foot-diameter flying saucer crash very nearby. At the time of the crash they were "lying in the back of my pickup truck, buck naked, drinking beer and having a good ole time", according to Ragsdale. The name of the young lady is for some reason not given in the book, but is known to be Trudy Truelove. Does this sound like a joke? Well, it's not supposed to be!

  Both Jim and Trudy scooped up and kept fragments from the crash site, but both eventually lost these treasures. So did the late Walter Whitmore, who collected material from another supposed Roswell crash site. He put it in a large brown envelope, put the envelope in his safe,and then eventually took the envelope out of the safe and lost it. These guys had as bad a run of luck with their fragments as we have had with their book!

  Ragsdale claims to have seen the bodies of four aliens inside the craft. All were dead, and were less than four feet tall - thus contradicting the body sizes given in Ray Santilli's autopsy video and elsewhere. Jim Ragsdale also claims to have tried in vain to pull the helmet off one of the bodies. Not mentioned in the book is his tall tale of having buried about a dozen golden helmets from the craft somewhere nearby on the desert. This gives his unique version of the Roswell crash site an added alure, to say the least!

  Besides Jim Ragsdale and Walter Whitmore, there is testimony in this little book from several other Roswell witnesses and investigators. Stanton Friedman interviewed Ragsdale previous to the video being made, and states, "He was believable". Karl Pflock also did an interview, and amazingly his negative remarks are included in the book. Says he:

  "...Mr. Ragsdale's reported trysting place 35 or so miles north-northwest of Roswell was more than a little unlikely - better suited for coyote and rattlesnake rendezvous than human ones. The account of what took place was internally contradictory, and claims of various mysterious post-incident events had all the earmarks of bar room tall tales. ... Jim Ragsdale's story, as interesting and entertaining as it is, remains just that - an interesting and entertaining story - one more such in a rich mind and funnybone tickling New Mexico tradition."

  We'll go along with Pflock on this one. The only good thing we can say about this book is that the illustrations are top quality. No shit!

  
  
• .... Also due out at any minute is "Strange Encounters - UFOs, Aliens & Monsters Among Us", written by Smear non-subscriber and long-time UFO researcher Curt Sutherly. This book is published by Llewellyn, who also publish "Fate" and other magazines. The book includes "fifteen gripping stories", according to the advance publicity, which goes on to inform us: "If you want the truth about these mysterious sightings and who's attempting to cover them up, then this book will wholly engross you." 272 pages, softbound, selling for a mere $5.99. The mailing address of Llewellyn is P.O. Box 64383, St. Paul, Mn. 55164.

  Sutherly has kindly put us in touch with the Celestial Visions School of Metaphysical Arts of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he and your Smear editor have been booked to give lectures on the off-beat on September 21st of this year. Sutherly will discuss his book, and your editor will talk about some of his personal UFO and psychic experiences, and will answer questions about some of the leading ufologists he has known through the past 42 years...

• Finally, there is another book by MUFON's medical researcher, John F. Schuessler. This one is called "UFO-Related Human Psychological Effects". It is not available yet, either, but will sell for $15 plus postage & handling. Schuessler's address is: P.O. Box 58485, Houston, Texas 77258-8485.

• Researcher ROBERT TODD has a novel letterhead, which reads: "Roswell UFO Rehab Center - Home of the Magestic 12 Step Roswell UFO Recovery Program". He writes to us as follows:

  "`Ufology' most certainly is a religion,and Roswell True Believers are an especially fanatical sect of that religion. To bastardize an old adage, you can always tell a true believer, but you can't tell him much. Only an idiot would engage in a `dialogue' with true believers. My only hope is to get another side of the story on the record, where objective third parties might be able to find it.

  "Have you noticed how the major UFO publications have made no mention whatsoever of (my magazine) `Cowflop'? Doesn't anybody find that the least bit curious? With only certain exceptions, which can be counted on one hand with room to spare, the UFO `press' is nothing more than a propaganda machine. It's responsible for more misinformation and outright lies about UFOs and the supposed government `cover-up' than all the government agencies combined!...

  "As for Col. Howard McCoy, at the time of the Roswell Incident, he headed the technical intelligence department at Wright Field. There is absolutely no question that, had an alien spacecraft really crashed in New Mexico, McCoy would have been informed of it. He was the Deputy Commanding General, T-2, Air Materiel Command, and it is a virtual certainty that he or his people prepared General Twining's Sept. 23, 1947 letter expressing AMC's opinion on flying discs, for General Twining's signature. But that letter also denies the existence of crash-recovered exhibits, as does the 1947 companion study prepared within the office of the Air Force Director of Intelligence in the Pentagon.

  "This is exactly what I was talking about in that portion of my letter you quoted in the current edition of Smear. The supposed `experts' invent one ridiculous rationalization after another to explain away the documents that prove to any rational human being that the Roswell Incident did NOT involve one or more alien spacecraft, but resulted from mythomaniacal Major Marcel's misidentification of weather balloons, and the metallic radar targets they carried, as debris from an alien spacecraft!.."

• TOM CAREY, who has quite a different slant on the Roswell case, has this to say:

  "...I met Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. the last time that I was down in Roswell, and a nicer, clearer-thinking straighter-shooting person there cannot be. If Todd has provoked him to fire off a nasty letter in response to one of Todd's endless inquiries...it is more a reflection of Todd than of Marcel. So Jesse Marcel Sr. overstated-how many air medals he received or the number of flying hours he had under his belt. So what? I believe the term is called `splitting hairs'. Two air medals - not five!! WOW. That's good enough for me!..

  "Roswell `losing ground year by year'? By whose measure? Debunkers, I have concluded, will accept no amount of evidence as proof of anything. There will always be an unattainable threshold which can never be met.... Based upon the facts at hand regarding Roswell, the `pro' position is the more reasonable position, while the `anti' position is based more on a faith that it can't be, therefore it isn't, irregardless of what the facts indicate. Sorry, Mogul just does not fit the known facts of the case, but to some it doesn't matter'

• DR. BRUCE MACCABEE honors us with:

  "In your most recent `Smear' you mentioned my `diatribe' about Col. McCoy's statement made during the Air Force Science Advisory Board (AFSAB) meeting on March 17-18, 1948. You mentioned only the part of my `diatribe' which discussed McCoy's wish that a saucer would crash. However, your aging vision (I presume) failed to notice the OTHER thing McCoy said, referring to the saucer sightings during the summer of 1947: `This can't be laughed off. We have over 300 reports which haven't been publicized in the papers, from very competent personnel (including).. .Air Force, Airline people with broad experience.

  "...In closing, I would like to comment on the A&E special TV show which portrayed me as a careful, critical scientist rather than a `hard core Believer'. I demonstrated to them some careful, critical analysis which proves some UFOs are real and also some analysis which proves that many photo/video sightings can be explained. The whole slant of the show was toward the idea that UFOs are a myth, perhaps generated by the likes of Ray Palmer and the contactees. Therefore, to avoid contradicting their own opinion about UFOs and sightings, they used only the portion of my interview which would appear to the viewer as being critical of the UFO subject."

  Dr. Maccabee can't have it both ways: If he believes the part of McCoy's statement about the "over 300 reports", he has to accept the part that clearly implies that no spacecraft debris was found at Roswell! - Editor.

• Psychologist GEORGE HANSEN delights us with:

  "In your last issue you mentioned Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science and lamented the lack of information from John Alexander, who is connected with it. `Science' Magazine's help wanted ad for the Institute noted the involvement of a `world-class science advisory board'. This may provoke a few chuckles from those in the know.

  "An interview of Bigelow by Michael Lindemann was posted on electronic networks, and in it Bigelow was quoted as saying `John Alexander's background is perfect to act as a liason between the Institute and people in the science community'. A bit of background may put this in perspective: Alexander obtained his `doctoral' degree from Walden `University', a school that describes itself as `non-traditional' and which advertises in the back of airline magazines. It turns out that his degree is in something called `thanatology', the study of death (an odd topic for someone developing `non-lethal' weaponry).

  "The details are amusing. His Ph.D. was obtained under the direction of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who had established Shanti Nilaya, a healing and growth center in southern California. One of her closest associates was Jay Barham, a spirit medium known for making sexual advances during seances. At one seance, the light was turned on and everyone, including Kubler-Ross, could see Barham naked. The medium was defended by claiming that an entity had cloned Barham's body (a detailed expose appeared in New West Magazine, July 30, 1979). Not long after, John Alexander began his `academic' work under Kubler-Ross. Needless to say, the now `Doctor' Alexander is not known for his scientific contributions.

  "Those who have already dealt with Bigelow's Institute will probably agree that Alexander is an ideal liason. Even a brief contact with him should alert a `world class' scientist to the Institute's real status."

• Researcher LEE WALSH writes as follows:

  "...I didn't know that Ellen Crystall's book had gone into a second printing. I may have mentioned this to you before, but I was raised in a small town called Maybrook, N.Y., only a few miles from Pine Bush. It was the Sunday School picnic place, a very tiny place. At no time were there any UFO reports coming from that town! There was nothing there in 1974, when I returned for 4 months, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing there now... .I have read Ellen Crystall's `Silent Invasion'. I know Pine Bush. It was part of my everyday life for over 30 years. There is no UFO/alien story there. Period!"

• And, SHEILA FRANKLIN (alias MIA ADAMS) writes:

  "...I hope you are doing well. I am sure the interest in me will wane when Budd Hopkins comes out with his new bock about Linda (Napolitano). It takes more than a few critical assholes to get me down. Remember that I have been through the rings of fire and remained in tact, if not better."

• And Roswell researcher KARL PFLOCK writes:

  "I'm cut to the quick that Sheila/Mia Franklin/Adams doesn't know who I am. I thought my infamy had penetrated every nook and cranny cf UFOdumb! On the other hand, perhaps it's par for the course for someone who seems not to know who she is - Mia/Sheila Adams/Franklin? (Just poking fun, as I was in my earlier missive. But why the nom de plume if you're going to `out' yourself almost before the ink is dry on your book?)..."

• Famed UFO abductee CHRISTA TILTON writes:

  "...I enjoyed the June 1st `Smear', as always, although I found the letter I received from Monty Cantsin more amusing! It's my bad Karma coming back to haunt me, because of my letter to Bill Moore! Of course, Bill knew I was ribbing him, plus flirting as I always did with him. Mr. Cantsin's letter to me (enolosed) is much different. I have to wonder who in the UFO community gives this Sicko any credit? He obviously lives in an insane asylum - if not a physical one, a mental one in his mind! Anyway, read, print, or throw his letter to me away. And while you're at it, why not drop his missives from `Smear'? No one really cares what he thinks or who he is...

  "What do you really think of Mia Adams and her story?..."

RADIO GAGA

Astronomers using the radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia thought they had important evidence of alien life when they picked up a distinctive radio signal at 2.3 to 2.4 gigahertz every evening at about dinner time. They later discovered that the signal was coming from the microwave oven downstairs.