Using what we call "Saucer Logic", the Woods find good things about Cooper having failed the test. Under the heading "Failed Polygraph Yields Unexpected Benefit", the Woods make some strange statements. While admitting that Tim Cooper lied when answering questions about his sources, the Woods nevertheless state: "This deception is to be expected, based on Cooper's determination to conceal the identity of the other sources... In post-test discussion with Mr. Cooper, we asked him why he showed deception, and he told us that he always intended to protect the identity of his other two sources besides the mailbox Cantwheel source, and would continue to do so.This is consistent with the deceptive results recorded, and polygraph examiner Lane agrees...."

So why did Cooper agree to answer these particular questions, if he knew ahead of time that he would have to lie??

Interestingly, Stanton Friedman, who accepts the original MJ-12 documents as genuine, admits to being "deeply concerned" about many of the new documents. Friedman has discovered a number of authentic declassified documents, having nothing to do with MJ-12 or UFOS, that contain large amounts of text identical to text in the new MJ-12 documents. From this and other evidence, Friedman has come to believe that at least some of the new MJ-12 documents are "parodies". which is a kind word for fake. (more "Saucer Logic" here??)

The Woods' most laughable statement is: "Resolution of the currently released set of documents is a huge task ... Both truths and deception may be seen as authentic, because historical documents represent ideas and not facts. Troubling issues of a document's authenticity sometimes may never be resolved... "

Finally on Page 9 (the last page) they admit: "We now believe, based on the research to date, that some aspects of specific documents that Tim Cooper received are not genuine ..."

Yes, folks! On Page 9 the Woods finally spit out what they should have said on Page One! (Our thanks to Karl Pflock for this material.) ....

Of course, it is doubtful if the framers of the Constitution thought much, if at all, about alien invasion. More likely they had more mundane forms of invasion in mind!

Gersten's complaint to the U.S. District Court in Arizona reads in part as follows:

" ... Unfortunately, the federal government's inadequate policies and practices toward a present and ongoing clandestine invasion, is a violation of its responsibility under the U.S. Constitution. Owing to the federal government's inadequate law enforcement and military defense policies, its failure to observe its obligations under statutory and constitutional law, and its reliance on attitudes that actually impede investigation of this invasion, many residents of the State of Arizona continue to be subjected to unlawful and nonconsensual intrusions of their homes amounting to unlawful violations of their civil, legal and constitutional rights.

Further, the skies of the State of Arizona continue to be subjected to incursions of unidentified and unusual aerial craft which continue to pose a threat with their technologically advanced performance capabilities and their association with the above-described intrusions.

"This proceeding is brought to require the Government of the United States as well as the State of Arizona to comply with its constitutional and statutory obligations to protect the aggrieved residents of the State of Arizona against invasion from these intruders and their aerial craft..."

At the same time, CAUS, with the cooperation of MUFON, is pushing its so-called "ballot initiative". This is an effort to put a properly worded statement on the ballots in each state of the union, so that this Fall's election would be in effect a referendum on the question of whether or not public Congressional hearings on UFOs should be held. We are told that some progress in that direction has been made in Missouri, where the MUFON State Director is a man named Bruce Widaman. Whether this complex process will work at all in other states remains to be seen...

Meanwhile, Barry Greenwood, former director of CAUS, has withdrawn from that organization permanently ever since Peter Gersten sprang into action several months ago.Greenwood publishes a conservative but fascinating zine called "U.F.O. Historical Revue", which can be obtained from him at: P.O. Box 176, Stoneham, Ma. 02180.

• In our last issue we commented on the fact that the two new male co-editors of FATE Magazine seem to be following a policy of printing a wider and wilder variety of articles - including a recent cover story about Witchcraft. This new policy might well offend at least part of FATE's core readership, we felt.

  Now we learn that at least one of the co-editors is out of FATE altogether, and former editor Phyllis Galde is back in charge. Ms. Galde will continue to work part time as head of Galde Press, which publishes off-beat books of various kinds. We know Ms. Galde slightly, and she seems to be a pleasant young lady with a friendly attitude toward "Smear" and its humble editor. We therefore look forward to working with FATE in the future, as does our Contributing Editor, Karl Pflock ...

• Recently we were amused to find Nuclear Physicist & saucer expert Stanton Friedman being interviewed on TV during the "breaks" in the comedy science fiction movie "Mars Attacks!" This movie was made in 1996, and stars Jack Nicholson, among others. Presumably the Friedman interview was made separately and broken up into short segments. Stan was articulate and witty, as usual, but it is depressing to see him sinking deeper and deeper into science fiction. (But the money is there!) ...

• Artist/abductee David Huggins of Hoboken, N.J. is working on a play about his lifetime of experiences with alien creatures - including alien women who look very good indeed by earth standards, except for their peculiar grey-like eyes. If this play ever hits Broadway, remember that you read about it here first! ...

• A recent opinion poll conducted by Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) gives some interesting results: In answer to the question, "What Are UFOs?", 32% admit they don't know. 25% say alien spaceships; 19% favor "normal events that are misinterpreted"; 12% believe in secret government projects; 9% say hallucinations; and a mere 7% favor time travellers from a different dimension. (We more or less agree with these people.)

  Unfortunately, this adds up to 104%. Maybe some people voted twice!

• The results of another interesting opinion poll appear in an article in the September 1999 MUFON Journal.The Journal article is co-authored by Bob Wood, who is (eek!) MUFON's Director of Research, and Dwight Connelly, the current Journal editor. Bob Wood is, of course, the same gentleman who is attempting to authenticate the current batch of MJ-12 documents, as discussed earlier in this issue.

  Anyhow, the opinions expressed by the 577 people responding to MUFON's questionnaire are, as one would expect, all over the map - from wild to conservative. Most people seem to feel that there should be "less bickering and backbiting". (We agree! Leave the bickering and backbiting to "Smear"!)

  Of interest is the order in which leading UFO authors and researchers were rated. From most popular to least popular they are: (gasp!) Budd Hopkins; Stanton Friedman; Linda Moulton Cow; John Mack; Jacques Vallee; David Jacobs; Timothy Good; Whitley Strieber; Ray Fowler; Jenny Randles; Kevin Randle; Richard Hoagland, Bruce Maccabee, Jerry Clark, and Michael (?) Lindeman.

  Richard ("Dick") Hall is not even mentioned, though he has a regular column in the MUFON Journal, called "Perspective"...

• A detailed account of the glorious San Antonio NUFOC convention will appear in our next issue, due out some time in November. Till then, continue to keep your Eye on the Sky!

• This year we have been receiving more (free) UFO & relatedbooks than ever before - either because more are being published, or because "Smearls" reputation is growing. (But our own UFO book, co-authored by Karl Pflock, is still in limbo as of this writing!)

  To get rid of the backlog, we are going to start reviewing more books more briefly - starting with "Best UFO Cases - Europe". This 170-page softcover tome, published in 1998, was sent to us just recently by Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), located at 151 East Tropicana Ave., Suite 400, Las Vegas, Nevada 89119. The price is $19.95.

  The author is a legitimate German scientist named Illobrand von Ludwiger, who is associated with MUFON as well as NIDS. There are forewords by John Schuessler, Bruce Maccabee and Richard Haines, as well as a brief article about the author. Many, many European UFO cases are discussed, most of them unknown to the average American ufologist. The work, though uneven, is very thoroughly done, and the author is to be congratulated. We most enjoyed the last section, in which there is an intelligent, relatively unbiased discussion of the various competing theories that have been put forward to explain the UFO phenomenon.

  There are also many illustrations as well as charts & graphs - still of uneven quality and interest, but nevertheless representing a very legitimate piece of work. This book is worth obtaining....

• Next we turn to "Encounter", a first-person contact/abduction narrative written by an attractive young Australian woman named Kelly Cahill. We had the pleasure of hearing her spiel at a special "brunch" at this year's MUFON Symposium near Washington, D.C.

  The story is in a 240-page paperback first published in Australia in 1996 and now available in the U.S.A. from HarperCollins of 10 East5)rd St., N.Y.C. 10032.The central event occurred on the night of August 7th, 1993 when Kelly and her husband (now ex-husband) saw a large landed craft while driving through the countryside. The events that followed were weird and frightening - especially to Kelly because of her strict religious beliefs, which have since changed. Some of the "missing time" that night has been recovered, but the whole sequence of events is still not clear to Kelly, and hypnosis has not helped.

  Worse, Kelly has had unpleasant experiences both before and after the encounter, including various physical illnesses, plus strange scars on her body, poltergeist phenomena in her house, visitations in her bedroom by soul-snatching entities, and at least one unmarked black helicopter hovering over her home for no apparent reason; etc.

  One might write it all off as the symptoms of a fantasy-prone personality, but her husband was with her on the night of the contact/abduction, and there were also three people there in another car, who experienced some but not all of the same weird events.

  These people were total strangers to the Cahills, and were located later by UFO researchers only with difficulty. There may also have been a third car present.

  The book is well written, and presumably sincere. This kind of story can't simply be laughed off. As Kelly Cahill says in the closing paragraph of the book.- "You can never know anything until you have experienced it."

• In 1947, before there was the Kenneth Arnold sighting or the (alleged) Roswell Incident, there was the Maury Island UFO sighting - complete with falling slag and many truly mysterious aftermaths. It's a complex & classic story, retold now in great detail in Kenn Thomas' paperback from IIluminet Press, called "Maury Island UFO - The Crisman Conspiracy".

  The main characters, at the beginning, were Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman, but the story touches upon legendary characters such as Ray Palmer, Richard Shaver, Jim Garrison of the Kennedy assassination investigation, and other shadowy figures of that era. Almost half of this 290-page book consists of appendices, if you get the idea! Greg Bishop of "The Excluded Middle" calls the book "Information rich to the point of saturation", and we believe him.

  Kenn Thomas is a well known and respected conspiracy writer; but, quite frankly, your "Smear" editor has never had much patience with conspiracy. It's too confusing, and too hard to know whom to believe! But for those with the stamina to wade through it, this is a worthwhile book. IllumiNet Press, the publisher of many interesting UFO-oriented books, can be reached at: P.O. Box 2808, Lilburn, Georgia )0048.Kenn Thomas is the editor of a conspiratorial zine called Steamshovel Press, which is available from: P.O. Box 93715, St. Louis, Missouri 63121.

McMinnville, Oregon, May llth, 1950, about 7:30 p.m: Paul Trent and his wife spot a UFO of the classic flying saucer kind. Trent snaps two photos that have become icons of ufology and stumped Condon Committee investigator William Hartmann, who was forced to conclude, "This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses."

In 1969, arch-"skeptics" Robert Sheaffer and Phil Klass thought they had exposed the case as a hoax, asserting that shadows on the eaves of a garage appearing in the photos demonstrated that the pictures had been taken in the morning rather than the evening. Told this, Hartmann recanted and refused to be confused by the facts when optical physicist Bruce Maccabee demonstrated that the shadows were not inconsistent with conditions on the evening of May llth. (Hartmann seems to have been more concerned to avoid having his ufologicai past interfere with his career as a planetary astronomer than about the truth of the matter.)

Maccabee's lengthy reinvestigation, begun in 1975 and in part conducted in cooperation with Brad Sparks and (!) Robert Sheaffer, all but eliminated a hoax, but not quite.Since then, Sparks has continued working quietly and has come up with some remarkable new findings which, if confirmed and bolstered by further work, bid fair to remove any basis for reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the photos. In which case, the issue will become: Where did that dang saucer come from? Who built it? Who was flying it?

Not all results of such careful, thoughtful, and genuinely scientific work lead to happy endings for those of us here in Camp UFOs Are Real. For example, a relatively recent discovery and follow-up investigation may topple Kenneth Arnold's June 24th, 1947 sighting, THE Flying Saucer Sighting, from the ranks of the great unknowns (gasp). Sparks - heh, heh - are flying already!

This is where the "Five Percenters" shine. They are not driven by a priori beliefs. They don't ignore inconvenient facts. They don't pander to either the True Believers or the True Unbelievers. They pursue the facts wherever they lead and don't shrink from the answers that result, whether they like them or not.

Gee. Real objectivity. Real research. Real science. What a concept! (To Be Continued)

• Famed former UFO researcher WILLIAM MOORE writes:

  "... Actually, your 3.1-D scenario runs very close to my present thinking on the (UFO) subject, although as I see it, such turf is strictly reserved for us intellectual types who have already paid our dues and are content to now sit back and enjoy the show..."

• And, JEROME CLARK writes:

  "Thanks for the kind words about the new IUR (International UFO Reporter) and also for the nice treatment of the new Coleman/Clark opus in the current 'Smear'..."

• Famed author BRAD STEIGER writes:

  "I know how precious space is in 'Saucer Smear', so I really appreciate the amount of inches that you granted to a review of 'The Source: A Journey through the Unexplained', the book I co-authored with Art Bell. However, you sort of missed the point of the final chapter, which hopes to tie all these seemingly disparate phenomena into a philosophical/Metaphysical unity. Hence the title, 'The Source'.

  "If your principal grievance with the book was that Sagan and Satan appeared in the Index but there was no mention of either you or 'Saucer Smear', then I should be vindicated with 'UFO Odyssey' (co-authored with my wife Sherry), in which both you and your august publication are mentioned in a most favorable light ... I believe that if you take the time to read the concluding pages of 'UFO Odyssey' you will remind yourselfof how much our philosophies really do have in common..."

  Editor's Note: Brad Steiger correctly implies that we failed to read the last chapter of "The Source", which contains two lovely paragraphs that we partially agree with: (Page 248)

  "Could this Source be what all human cultures and traditions have come to label their concept of God? Could it be a supernatural Supreme Creator Being that manifests images of angels and demons in order to shepherd our species, the product of its own divine creative energy, to an eventual unity with its sublime and perfect wholeness?

  "Or have we, in our frightening evolutionary trek from hairless ape to astronaut, created these deities, monsters, and merry woodland spirits from our own imagination to assuage the desperate loneliness that we have felt staring into the vast and seemingly endless expanse of the night sky?"

  
  Brad has kindly sent us a copy of "UFO Odyssey", published by Ballentine Books and written by Brad & Sherry Steiger. We'll review it in our next issue.

• JOHN FORD, former head of the Long Island N.Y.) UFO Network, writes as follows:

  "I am writing to you from the facility at Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center, not from the County Jail at Riverhead, N.Y. On May 6th I entered an insanity plea to the charges, on the advice of council. Since May 10th I've been here in Mid Hudson, where I will be confined for the foreseeable future.

  "The reason I entered the insanity plea was not because of mental illness on my part, but because it allowed me to avoid the prospect of a very long jail sentence. I was facing 25 years to 75 years mandatory jail time for the charges I was facing. I had six B class felonies in the indictment to face. If I had the misfortune to be convicted of just one felony, I would be facing some very long jail time. The prospect of spending a couple of years in a state mental hospital is a lot easier to do than spending time in a maximum security prison.

  "I know that it makes my case a lot harder to believe that I was innocent of the charges made against me, but I was innocent.

  "I guess my days of being free are over for now. I must remain here for at least a couple of years. During that time please keep me informed about the latest scoop in the UFO field. Please send 'Saucer Smear' to me here at: Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center, P.O. Box 158, New Hampton, N. Y. 10958...."

  "The truth is out there.,,

  Ford was accused of having plotted with others to murder certain politicians in the section of Long Island, N.Y. where he then lived. - Editor.

• Researcher DEAN ZEVCHEK writes as follows, regarding the August 3rd, 1965 Rex Heflin UFO case:

  "In the recent issue of 'Smear', you mention that Kal K. Korff plans to 'expose' a number of UFO cases including the famous Rex Heflin case. Well, I'd really like to see how on Earth he's going to pull a Phil Klass debunk on this rock solid sighting, which even contains photo backup of the event as well. Sure, all the skeptic hacks have, and probably will continue to bellow 'doctored photos', but it turns out this was not just a single person sighting by Mr. Heflin himself!

  "In March of 1996, I wrote to the TV Show 'Sightings' to notify them of my uncanny coincidental discovery in hopes that they would do further investigation of the Heflin case, or at least mention it on the show. That letter is enclosed. You see, my sister-in-law as a child and her father, saw the very same object as Heflin did - the exact time, place, and area.

  "...So before Mr. Korff attempts to spew any debunking rhetoric, I suggest he contact my sister-in-law for an interview (name & phone number below). It's bad enough when a supposed expert accepts blatantly fake photos for the real thing, such as Bruce Maccabee falling hook, line, and sinker for Mr. Ed's Gulf Breeze garbage; but here's the reverse instance, where apparently Mr. Korff is going to tarnish a couple of the best legitimate UFO photos ever taken, in my opinion! ...

• Long-time Cleveland, Ohio saucer investigator RICK HILBERG writes:

  "Nice issue of 'Smear'.I really have to agree with Pflock when he writes that much-needed historical research is one of the bright spots of today's ufology. As a matter of fact, much more intensive research is needed before memories fade and 'old time' ufologists pass on, with their files literally being tossed out by heirs.As a matter of fact, I recently found boxes of clippings from the flap years of 1964-1966. I am seriously considering using them in conjunction with my files of the UFO literature, to do a monograph on this important period..."

• (Soon to be) DR.CHRISTOPHER ROTH writes;

  "I hadn't heard the 'PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA' = 'TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS' anagram, but I do remember one I learned many years ago: 'RONALD WILSON REAGAN' = 'INSANE ANGLO WARLORD'...

  "And where will you be spending New Year's Eve? I imagine Key West will be mobbed. Do you have plans for a getaway? Perhaps, even when mobbed, it's the place to be..."

  We'll be here. Tourist rooms will be going for up to $500 per night, all that week! - Editor.

• Ace cartoonist MATT GRAEBER writes:

  "Darn good issue of 'Smear'. I particularly enjoyed Senor Carlos Mentira's comments on your relentless attacks on James Randi. Obviously Carlos is right. It's not anyone's business but Randi's if he has a sex life. Moreover, quite a few people in the land of the paranormal are obnoxious and perhaps a little demented too.

  "But let's stick to the facts and forget about being unkind to unkind individuals - even though it is a lot of fun to rattle their cage a little from time to time. So, even though this may sound a bit contradictory, keep up the good work!"

• Publicist GENE BUCK, writing as "Friends of Blennerhassett" (whatever that may be), tells us:

  "We are highly upset at your attitude toward Mr. James Randi! When I say 'we', I refer to all the constituents who have written or called our offices, calling you a communist cell, or words to that effect.

  "Many of my collegues agree also that you are abusive and not charitable when it comes to Mr. Randi, who, though he is not always as correct as he would like to be, is nevertheless correct sometimes, and that's the most we can expect from anyone, especially anyone having to do with this UFO crap.

  "Why don't you go soak your heads - both of them? We dare you to let this letter see the light of day in your scandal sheet!"

Saucer Smear Index

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