"More than numbers is needed to prove that UFOs are spacecraft. It becomes apparent that the substances (sic) of the UFO phenomena is more solid than the substance supporting the ancient astronauts. ...

- CAPTAIN KEVIN RANDLE (Ret.) writing in his 1988 book, "The October Scenario", Page 94.

• Re-hash of the 34th Annual National UFO Conference
• Dark Rumblings at MUFON Headquarters
• A Mild Adventure Into The Night
• News Briefies
• Book Reviews - Plus One Calendar Review
• Letters to Ye Olde Editor

The all-day program featured talks by Rick Hilberg, a co-founder of the NUFOC; Robert Galganski, an engineer who has studied the Roswell Incident; Stanton Friedman of Roswell and MJ-12 fame; abduction researcher Dr. David Jacobs from Temple University; Physicist & Gulf Breeze advocate Dr. Bruce Maccabee; and Dr. Mindy Kopolow, a clinical psychologist who has studied in detail the abduction and post-abduction experiences of fourteen UFO abductees (known in the psychological field as "experiencers".)

Mainly because her material and approach were new to us, we enjoyed Dr. Kopolow's presentation the most. Mercifully, she apparently was able to make her study without losing her scientific objectivity, as so many do. When asked if she had reached any personal conclusion as to the cause of the UFO abduction syndrome, she said that she has not. To us, this was the right answer, and we applaud her for it!

Following the day's program, there was a banquet dinner, at which Robert Galganski was given our coveted NUFOC "Ufologist of the Year" Award, for his work on the Roswell case, as published recently in the MUFON Journal.

Then came the high point (?) of the evening, in which your humble but fearless "Smear" editor gave his usual lecture - consisting of a position statement followed by a run-down of several UFO & other weird incidents he has experienced during the course of his lifetime. Alas, he also confessed to having participated in the hoaxing of a short UFO film many years ago; but if you weren't there at the banquet in person, you have no "need to know" regarding the gory details. (Just kidding!)

In spite of the unfortunate and ill-timed deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa that same weekend, a crowd of nearly 200 was on hand for the convention, and the local sponsors (Weatherby & Ban) came fairly close to achieving their goal of breaking even financially on the event. In fact, when informed that Diana's death might affect our attendance, one of the less sensitive speakers (who shall remain nameless here) replied, "Diana WHO?"

All in all, it was a pleasant and successful event, marred only by persistent technical difficulties that made the slides used by some speakers difficult if not impossible to see on the screen!

And now, as usual, your editor, who is Permanent Chairman of the NUFOC, has the annual task of finding an individual or group that is willing & able to sponsor next year's convention in their local area. If there are any volunteers among our vast "Smear" readership, please get in touch with us as soon as possible, as it takes many months to properly work out all the many pre-convention details.

Meanwhile, our sincere thanks to Weatherby & Ban for a job well done!

ABOVE: Robert Galganski receives the Ufologist of the Year Award from Don Weatherby at the National UFO Conference.

Says International Director Walt Andrus: "The Kent Jeffrey article infuriated the membership in general, since it was too long, full of apparent errors in reasoning, and debunking in nature. Members want to hear about UFO sighting reports, not arguments between writers."

Our highly subjective interpretation of the above: "Publishing a 14-page anti-Roswell article in a supposedly pro-UFO magazine is worse than calling the Virgin Mary a whore. The mistake won't be repeated. We of MUFON will try harder to give the members what they want to read, irregardless of where the real Truth may lie." Bravo, Walt!

Shockingly, Walt Andrus also admits: For the second year, the number of subscribers/members (in MUFON) decreased, which definitely demands an immediate evaluation.... Twenty-eight years ago the MUFON UFO Journal was the voice of ufology, but with all the added competition,both printed and in the eleotronic media, it no longer holds that distinguished position.

Much of the blame for the Journal's negativity and decreasing circulation has fallen on its editor, Dennis Stacy, who has always been very unpopular with the New Age wing of the ufological movement. We, on the other hand, like Stacy as a person and as an editor, for the same reasons that others dislike him: He is fair and open-minded, and a damn good writer!

But Stacy is tiring of the MUFON job - much work and criticism for relatively little money - and he will resign after completing the November issue of the Journal. As of this writing, no new editor has yet been appointed.

Our friend Antonio Huneeus, International Coordinator of MUFON, has been offered the position and is considering taking it at least for a short time. If he does accept it, we sincerely wish him well!

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STUPIDEST QUOTE OF THE MONTH:

From Richard Hall, writing in the Sept/Oct. issue of "UFO Magazine":

Other impressions obtained during the late June, early July outpouring include:

Karl Pflock, former employee of the CIA and Department of Defense Republican administrations, in an interview from Roswell embracing without qualification the Air Force report on the Roswell case. That, coupled with his recent public announcement that he is collaborating with James W. Moseley (who has treated UFOs as a joke and constantly disparaged the work of serious ufologists over the years) tells me all I need to know about Karl Fflock.

The phenomena seen are said to be: round opaque globes of varying sizes; unnatural fog; strings of segmented lights which weave and blink; and elongated lights in the shape of poles. There have, in general, been fewer sightings in recent years than there were in the 1980s, and the phenomena usually are further from the viewers than they used to be - for whatever reason.

We do hope to go back to Pine Bush some day, to see more people and hopefully more phenomena!

• There was a very favorable article about your "Smear" editor in the magazine section of the New York Sunday Times, on September 7th. It is entitled "E.T., Give Up", and describes your editor as "a slight, bespeckled man... a subculture legend who has served as the Walter Winchell of UFOs since 1954".

• Rumor has it that the notorious Todd Zechel suffered a stroke about six months ago, and has been in bad shape physically ever since then. Do any of our readers have more details about this?

• Sir Eric Gairy, former prime minister of the island of Granada, has died at the age of 75. He was a hero to ufologists some years ago when he spoke at the United Nations about UFOs, and he even inspired some UFO stamps, if we remember correctly.

• Charles Berlitz, famed author of "The Bermuda Triangle" and co-author with William Moore of "The Roswell Incident", was rumored to have disappeared mysteriously. We found him living at a new location in Florida.

• Through painstaking effort, Dr. Bruce Maccabee has succeeded in convincing us that, contrary to the recently-released CIA Report, there was no significant increase in UFO sightings after the secret U-2 spy planes started flying. Maccabee's thesis is contained in a long paper entitled "(The) CIA's Explanation is Preposterous", dated June 3rd, 1997.

• MUFON has recently devised a legalistic form called "MUFON Hypnosis Release", the obvious intent of which is to help the organization avoid lawsuits resulting from attempts to "regress" people back to their alleged UFO abduction experiences. The form is particularly explicit in,regard to minors.

• Dr. Steven Greer of CSETI claims to have more than one hundred "first-hand military, intelligence and military contractor witnesses" to UFO/Extraterrestrial events. Most of these people are apparently old and/or sick, so he wants to professionally record their testimony as soon as possible.

• Bob Teets of Headline Books (P.O. Box 52, Terra Alta, W.Va. 26764) is coming out in November with a much-needed book called "UFOs & Mental Health - Book One: A Briefing on the Phenomenon". Says Teets: "This phenomenon displays enigmatic properties not readily explained by extant human inquiry, but it also seems to include elements suggesting human complicity or even human origination. (Italics ours.) The implications of human and allegedly of `non-human' involvement can often lead to a menacing awareness in people's lives. And that's why I think it's important for the mental health community to have an objective briefing of this phenomenon..."

  In the introduction to the book, Teets goes on as follows:

  "...What I will commit to is a notion of a quantum reality that far surpasses the strangest offerings of science fiction and of science `fact'. In truth, the UFO phenomenon may not be so much about what's out there, as it is about human consciousness and all of its associated mysteries and foibles. But the out there is an influencing factor as much as any other. Such a broad outlook may well include the possibility of `nonhuman' intelligence' interfacing with us, the intelligence clearly capable of manifesting in varying ways, sometimes in exotic flying machines, sometimes in a non-linear-non-local mode, sometimes in spiritual ways, and sometimes in more archetypal ways, including even in the guise of familiar angels, demons and other critters..."

  Folks, this is heady, 4-D stuff, and quite frankly we are surprised and delighted that Teets - a former journalist who now publishes a UFO newsletter - is such an intellectual person. We seriously agree with his approach and wish him well!....

• Next there is a very attractive 128-page soft cover tome called "Saucer Attack - Pop Culture in the Golden Age of Flying Saucers", written for the Kitchen Sink Press by Eric and Leif Nesheim. it consists of text plus large & beautiful full-color plates, showing the covers of a great many UFO-related magazines, books, etc. from the 195Os and 1960s - a period which the authors believe to have been a more innocent but more paranoid age. The book sells for $16.95 and is available from General Publishing Group, 2701 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, California 90405....

• Finally, we want to present our first-ever review of a calendar. This one is for 1998, and was prepared by MUFON's Antonio Huneeus. It is a 12 by 14 inch effort, with twelve large photos or drawings of UFO-related matters, each facing one of the actual calendar pages. Then, in the calendar itself, the date and year of various UFO events are given, with a brief description of the incident in question. At the bottom of the pages, 12 UFO "Hot Spots" are mentioned. Roswell, N.M., Gulf Breeze, Florida, and Pine Bush, N.Y. (which is near the Hudson Valley sighting area of the early 1980s), are described briefly, as well as several other areas. The whole calendar is a sophisticated mixture of graphics and information, presented in a unique manner.

  This calendar sells for $11.95, and is available in the United States from Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 115 West 18th St., New York, N.Y. 10011. It is also distributed in Canada, Australia, England, and elsewhere - possibly including selected nearby planets. Buy it!

• Researcher CHRIS ROTH writes:

  "Two `Smears' have arrived since I last sent a proper letter. Once again, as I mentioned in my card, it's a delight to read Kent Jeffrey coming out of the closet as a Roswell skeptic. Who is left as a true true believer in Roswell, among those closely involved with the research (not counting discredited mail-sorters)? It looks like it's down to Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman. Interestingly, they are the two researchers that have spent the most time researching this subject. This could be for one of two reasons: One, it could be that prolonged study of the subject has led them to the best and most correct conclusion, while others such as Kal Korff, Karl Pflock, etc. just haven't been at it long enough for the scales to fall from their eyes. Or it could be an example of what the sociologist Leon Festinger and his colleagues found when they infiltrated a millennialist space-brother cult, as described in their book `When Prophecy Fails' - that is, that the greater the personal investment (of credibility, finances, energy, and time) one makes in a belief system, then the more reluctant one is to abandon it, despite all evidence that it is false But Friedman at least, one would think, has made enough contributions to ufology of various kinds that he would still retain considerable stature if he would start facing the music on the Roswell myth."

• Our (very) old friend PHIL KLASS writes:

  "The August 5th issue of `Smear' is another blockbuster - especially with Bill Moore's letter admitting he now has some doubts as to whether the Roswell Incident involved a crashed saucer. Moore is not being truthful when he claims he is 'unable to shed any further light' on the authenticity of the MJ-12 papers...

  "Yes, I know that lUR (International UFO Reporter) - carried a brief `for the record' non-commital `review' of Budd Hopkins' book `Witnessed'. But if Hopkins is correct - that this is the most important UFO case of all time - the book (and the case) surely deserves an appraisal by one of the world's greatest UFO experts, i.e., Jerry Clark. The fact that Clark himself has `ignored' Hopkins' book - especially in view of Clark's earlier involvement in the Linda case controversy in lUR in sharply criticizing Hopkins' critics - reveals what Clark really believes but is reluctant to say in print.

  "...Your report (in your Sept. 1st issue) on your recent telephone interview with Richard C. Doty, Bill Moore's long-time MJ-12 partner, reveals that Doty is up to his old tricks - spinning tall tales. Doty was kicked out of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) on July 15th, 1986, during his assignment in West Germany, for 'misconduct', i.e., `falsification of reports'.

  "Doty told you that he `believes that there was an MJ-12... that the information in the MJ-12 documents is generally true...' This contradicts what Doty said in his letter of March 3rd, 1988, to Barry Greenwood, published in the June 1988 issue of Greenwood's `Just Cause newsletter: `I know of no secret Government investigation of UFOs. I have never heard of MJ-12 or any secret Government agency that investigates UFOs.'

  "...As for Bill Moore's claim that he `reported to the Government on the activities of APRO', in reality Moore reported to Doty, who had anonymously submitted a bogus UFO incident letter to APRO - which was the start of the Moore-Doty partnership."

• Regarding Kevin Randle's letter in our Sept. 1st issue, researcher ROBERT TODD has this to say:

  "...Ramble claims that documents are missing from the lying little Major Marcel's personnel file. Perhaps, perhaps not. But he deliberately ignores the fact that the documents that ARE in the file, and the information that IS in those documents, shows conclusively that Marcel was a liar. It isn't a matter of missing information, as `Wrong Way Ramble' knows all too well. It's a matter of the information that IS in the file contradicing Marcel's claims. That's a fact, no matter how `Wrong Way' tries to distort the picture... `Wrong Way' has been deceiving the public for years, along with a number of other 'respected' Roswell `researchers' who, if they're not making a killing off of Roswell, certainly have improved their lifestyles thanks to the Myth of the Century, or The Mother of All Myths, as it's known in the Persian Gulf region...

  "Ramble also finds `it interesting that Mogul officials were required to provide high density air traffic areas with information about the launches of their balloons. In other words. the pilots and others at Roswell were aware of the balloon arrays because the FAA demanded that the launches be announced'...

  "This is wrong, wrong, WRONG! First, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) didn't come into being until 1958. Apparently `Wrong Way' is referring to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA). But that aside, one of the reasons the New York University (NYU) balloon launches were moved to Alamogordo Army Air Field (AAAF) was because of the airspace restrictions placed on the development effort in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area by the CAA. No formal arrangements were made to notify anybody in the New Mexico area because it was assumed (no doubt with a wink and a nod on the part of NYU personnel) that the balloons would not drift off the White Sands range. It wasn't until balloons started landing all over the place in June and July of 1947 that the CAA got involved and arrangements were made to issue notifications...

  "I discussed this issue several times with Prof. Charles Moore, who headed the NYU balloon team at AAAF, and he states unequivocally that they made no notifications in either June or July of 1947, and that they didn't `get legal' until September of 1947. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to think anybody at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) knew anything about the NYU balloon launches from AAAF.

  "It is so utterly typical of `Wrong Way' to distort the facts deliberately, to keep the Roswell cash cow healthy and mocing along. And it is utterly typical of Jerome Clark to swallow such cowflop whole, and then cheer about it!..."

• Long-time researcher ALEXANDER MEBANE writes:

  "...I can recommend Patrick Huyghe's `Field Guide to Extraterrestrials' as very sensibly written, unlike a piece on the same subject by Joe Nickell in the Skeptical Inquirer. Huyghe has looked into the facts of cases, and realizes that most of these absurdly-different reports cannot rationally be dismissed in the obvious (Nickell) way, as `mere imaginative fabrications'. If these critters aren't truly real (obviously impossible) - yet can't be truly unreal, either, it seems to follow that they must be `quasi-real': real-looking simulacra of fanciful `aliens' born from the imaginations of non-human beings, who would seem to enjoy frightening us with these absurd but alarming `bogey-men'. (The advent of the abductions vastly strengthened this conclusion, by providing hundreds of witnesses to such things who were unquestionably not `just making it up'.) Can you think of any other way to account for this ridiculous multitude of bizarre `aliens' presented to us in the past half-century?

  "Is it `unfair' to label Jesse Marcel a liar, as stated by both Randle and Clark?. . .Consider this: Both Marcel and Rickett described large, thin shards of some strange gray material stronger than anything on Earth - unbendable and unbreakable - which they said were abundant and conspic- uous in the Foster Ranch debris. (No one else made any mention of seeing anything of the sort.) By now it seems clear that these witnesses must have agreed with one another that the incident deserved to be made more remarkable than it was, and so they effectively `embroidered' it by adding this `extraterrestrial' detail..."

  Lex Mebane goes on to theorize that the famed Kenneth Arnold sighting may have been a hoax cooked up by Arnold and his friend Ray Palmer for the first issue of FATE Magazine. - Editor.

• CHRISTOPHER ALLAN of England writes as follows:

  "Whatever one thinks of the latest Air Force Roswell Report, there is one footnote in it that is significant. On page 76 appears the phrase `Friedman has not honored repeated requests for an audio recording'. This refers to Stan Friedman's initial interview with mortician Glenn Dennis in August 1989.

  "I have heard before that Stan has refused others' requests for this recording. So the question must be asked: What is Friedman covering up? This is from the man who insists the government has suppressed the great `truth' about UFOs for 50 years....

  "Do we have here a `Cosmic Watergate' in reverse?.. Is this printable?!"

  Yes, it is. - Editor.

• Kindly K. E. Sackett of Wayne State University writes as follows:

  "Why do you habitually snipe at James Randi? A sniper should be accurate. Psychos, excuse me, psychics who challenge him agree in advance to the experimental setup that will be used, under the eyes of independent judges. It's their problem if they can't deliver. An honest-to-Pete demonstration of the paranormal would be worth far more than the reward Randi offers - and I believe James Randi would be more delighted and fascinated than anyone if real evidence of the paranormal ever surfaced..."

  No, Randi would not be delighted. We know a lot about Randi, and he just isn't a nice guy! - Editor.

• RALPH COON, producer of "Whispers from Space" - the film about Gray Barker - writes as follows:

  "...You will be happy to know that most people side with your criticisms of the film - it's too long, and it wanders off on too many unrelated tangents; so I've decided to cut out all your scenes and let a real ufologist like Richard Taylor tell the story! But you know what? I like it as it is, and I bet Gray would too; so fuck all of you!

  "And thanks for not keeping your word that if I wasted my time going to the Roswell Festival this year that you'd help me contact Gray with my Ouija board that I bought at the Toys-R-Us in Burbank. I've been trying to reach him on my own but no luck!..."

• Computer expert MAX PETERSEN writes as follows about the recent book co-authored by Col. Philip J. Corso:

  "...Corso, or his paid writer, really messed up the early electronic computer history facts that I should know about, because I happened to have worked with the ENIAC inventors, Eckert and Mauchly. When one sees so much stuff that is not true in Corso's chapter about computers, one wonders how much truth exists in his other chapters concerning stuff which I have no first-hand knowledge about!..."

• Researcher & author SHEILA FRANKLIN writes:

  "I enjoyed seeing you and the Ohio NUFOC Conference. It was very homey and more like a fun house party than an austere, cold situation with unapproachable speakers. I thought Galganski was especially good, for his first time out, as was Mindy Kopolow (who does believe in abductions)!..."

• HANK WORBETZ of North Miami, Florida, writes:

  "It took Dr. Hynek fifteen years to catch up to your profound insight. I wish to congratulate you for being the first in the UFO community to recognize that the phenomenon has an Earth origin, and the fact that we co-habit the Earth with another intelligence..."

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