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OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE SAUCER & UNEXPLAINED CELESTIAL EVENTS RESEARCH SOCIETY

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EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Karl T. Pflock

NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER Volume 47, No. 7 August 10th, 2000

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

• MUFON Does It Again!
• Kurious Komments By Kal K. Korff
• Tidbits of Trash (formerly News Briefies)
• Pflock Ptalk - I Want To Believe (NOT)
• Letters To Ye Olde Editor

One aspect of this year's MUFON bash was the retirement of long-time czar Walt Andrus, to be replaced by Deputy Director John Schuessler. We do not know Schuessler well, and can't predict if things will be better or worse under his regime. Walt is now about 80 years old, and his wife is in poor health. (We will see him again in September, as he is one of the speakers at our NUFOC convention in Corpus Christi, Texas.) There was a bit of an inner-circle party for Walt's retirement, but we were unable to learn the location in time to crash! There were, as usual, many interesting speakers at the Convention, and we haven't Space to comment on all of them. John Carpenter, a professional psychologist who does abduction research on his own and for MUFON, talked a lot about an absurd video from a TV show that purports to show an actual case of "missing time". This would be quite a "breakthrough", were it not for the fact that the name of the abductee in the video and the location of the factory where the incident allegedly occurred, have never been released to the public. What nonsense!

Mr. Carpenter is currently MUFON's Director of Abduction Research. He is under a dark cloud at the moment because of detailed information on the Internet that purports to show that he sold 140 abduction cases from his files for $14,000 paid to him by Robert Bigelow's wealthy NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science). This would appear to be a serious violation of professional ethics, whether or not the names, etc. of the abductees were blacked out. There are those who say the names were not blacked out, and a formal ethical complaint about the entire matter has recently been made to MUFON's new Director!

On the lecture program just before Carpenter was Colm Kelleher, Ph.D., of NIDS. Organized by Robert Bigelow in 1995, NIDS boasts several real scientists on its staff, not to mention the semi-mysterious John Alexander of non-lethal weapons fame. NIDS received its first nation-wide publicity re UFOs back in January of this year, when its representatives were the first to investigate the Illinois case involving a low-flying brightly-lit object which Phil Klass still insists was Venus. NIDS has also done a lot of extremely interesting work on cattle mutilations. We were sincerely impressed by Kelleher's high-class & objective presentation, until Klass reminded us later that these scientists, being paid by Bigelow, won't want to disappoint their boss by finding mundane explanations for everything they investigate. For once old Phil has a good point!

And speaking of Klass - he was at this Convention but (naturally) not on the lecture program. He is 80 years old now, and his health has further deteriorated due to a progressive spinal condition. However, he was as feisty as ever, in conversation. He told us that this will be his last convention. Some might say, "good riddance", but we insist that the religion we call ufoology needs a "devil", and on that basis Phil Klass will be, or at least should be, sorely missed.

Other speakers included Dr. Robert Wood, enthusiastically pushing the probable authenticity of all the new MJ-12 documents, and Stan Friedman, who, at the end of his lecture, cautiously showed two examples of MJ-12 documents that are "emulations" as he calls them, i.e., fakes. In all, there are now about 3,700 pages of this stuff! Much of this mountain of paper seems to be genuine government documents that have been altered in a few key respects so as to fit the MJ-12 belief system. William Moore, who was involved with the earliest MJ-12 documents back in the late 1980s, continues to proclaim his innocence of any wrongdoing, as shown by his long letter to the editor further along in this issue.

The lecture Program also included Dr. Linda Corley, who was "discovered" by our co-worker Karl Pflock, and who now seems to be making a career out of her interesting but long-winded taped interview with the late Jesse Marcel Sr., re the Roswell Incident. Long-time ufological stars Bruce Maccabee (also with a doctorate) and Kevin Randle (with a mail order doctorate) were not up to their usual par, from what we heard of their presentations. Stan Gordon of Pennsylvania gave an excellent account ofthe 1965 landing of some sort of un-explained satellite, as well as other UFO and paranormal investigations in his home state. Lt. Col. Gerald Rolwes, in spite of his crisp military demeanor, impressed us with his rendition of the 1977 near-landing of a UFO just outside our military base in Aviano, Italy. (Hilariously, Klass calls this a simple "light in the sky"!) The most ridiculous lecture was the one given by Gregory Avery, who has become upset by various contrails he has seen in the sky. He called his talk "Chemtrails and UFOs Over My Backyard".

Also on the program were Ted Phillips of Landing Trace fame and John Greenewald Jr., speaking on Freedom of Information Internet Documents. But, shamefully, we did not hear either of these two speakers.

All in all it was a successful Convention, and much credit should be given to Bruce Widaman of Missouri MUFON, a genial gentleman, who bribed us with a MUFON hat when we ran into him in the hotel hall. He seemed to be worried that we would "smear" the Convention in print, but as you can see above, we have said nothing but positive things. Well, almost nothing.

Larry Bryant, a spokesman for CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy), has finally made the Big Time. He is quoted in the July 10th issue of Time Bagazine as saying, in regard to his latest information-seeking lawsuit: "Whatever the court decides in this case may affect how all Earth governments and society treat the UFO problem". Larry is currently suing the governor of Virginia for failure to investigate UFO abductions. Larry is shown above in a relaxed moment at the recent MUFON convention.

Korff is basically a skeptic, and has written books for Prometheus Press knocking the shit out of Billy Meier of Switzerland and Roswell of New Mexico. His autobiography will hint at the possible involvement of Stanton Friedman in the faking of the original MJ-12 documents; he will discuss a little known (if true) incident in which he almost took over the APRO organization, many years ago; and he apparently has a detailed explanation of how and why most of the crash/retrieval stories collected by the late Len Stringfield are simply untrue. He will also reveal new, negative information about the Betty & Barney Hill Case and the classic Rex Heflin photos.

Among the researchers who will be mentioned in the book, favorably or otherwise, are (in this order): Jerry Clark, Jim Moseley, Karl Pflock, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Bill Moore, Phil Klass, Bob Sheaffer, James Oberg, Stanton Friedman, Len Stringfield, (eek!) Wendelle Stevens, the Lorenzens, and Brad Sparks. We feel honored to be placed ahead of Dr. Hynek, but somewhat miffed at being placed after Jerry Clark! Anyhow, we'll look forward to this book. K.K.K. says he is working on six other books at the same time, so don't hold your breath for this one! (Our thanks to rearcher Herb Taylor for this item.)

• TIME IS RUNNING OUT to make your plans to attend the 37th annual National UFO Conference, to be held Sept. 23rd-24th in Corpus Christi, Texas, under the local sponsorship of Doris Upchurch. For complete details, run (don't walk) to the nearest phone and call Ms. Upchurch at 361-937-2381.

• Several other UFO conventions are planned for this Fall, but the most colorful might well be the one taking place on October 14th in the town of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. Featured speaker is none other than the ubiquitous Stanton Friedman. We can just picture ole Stan mushing in with a dogsled overflowing with a multitude of overpriced books & pamphlets. MUSH!...

• Our readers all know that "Smear" has long trashed the Roswell Incident as an interplanetary event. Now the August issue of England's "Fortean Times" does the same to another classic 1947 sighting - the one by private pilot Kenneth Arnold. What did Arnold really see, rather than 9 spaceships in formation? According to a detailed analysis titled "Flight of Fantasy", Arnold most probably saw a formation of American White Pelicans. Is this a malicious cover-up or merely sacrilege? We haven't Space for the details, but you can judge for yourself by reading the article.

  Unfortunately, "Fortean Times" - a 70-page professionally-done magazine - sells for $90 for twelve monthly issues in the U.S.A. The American address is: Eastern News Distributors Inc., 2020 Superior St., Sandusky, Ohio 448?0. The magazine is also available at large newsstands...

• The only people we interviewed at length at the recent MUFON convention were fellow cigarette smokers who were sitting outside the hotel for long periods of time. One of these was Elaine Douglas, who, together with the notorious Ed Komarek, was one of the founders of Operation Right to Know (ORTK). A few years ago this group organized several pro-UFO public demonstrations, including one in front of the White House, which we attended. Now the organization has disbanded, apparently due to lack of interest. The money in the group's treasury has been distributed to various researchers, including possibly Peter Gersten of CAUS.

  Elaine has moved from Washington, D.C. to Moab, Utah, with a fellow named Ron Regehr, who is one of the people trying to make sense (or nonsense) out of the supposedly significant document in General Ramey's hand, re the Roswell Incident...

• Aging Bigfoot investigator Erik Beckjord, whom we've known all too well for a long time, has made it onto a wire service story for the first time in several years. Now he's claiming that the creature in the famed Patterson Bigfoot film is seen in one frame of the movie as wearing a cylinder of some sort, about the size of a beer can. Others think this is not a cylinder but a zipper, and in fact one man is claiming that he's the guy in the monkey suit! Egads!...

• Dorris Van Tassel, widow of the famous contactee & Giant Rock convention host, is now offering George Van Tassel's exotic paintings for sale on the Internet, for an asking price of $50,000 each! We corresponded with Dorris for a few years after George's death, but never heard of anything like this. We didn't even know that George was an artist!...

• Panic has set in among downtown merchants in Roswell, N.M., as the famed International UFO Museum & Research Center is seriously considering moving to a 25-acre tract of land about ten miles west of the city. Amazingly, the Museum brings in 250,000 to 300,000 visitors per year, and the numbers are continuing to increase! But Max Littel, treasurer and co-founder of the Museum, says that they definitely need more Space. They also need ten million dollars with which to buy the tract of land!...

• In our last issue we ran a short item stating that, due to the illness of Bob Brown (the coordinator), the summer convention of the International UFO Conference has been canceled. Now we are told that Bob Brown is not the coordinator and the person who is ill is his wife Teri. The bottom line remains the same: The next International UFO Conference will not take place until March 4th, 2001. It will again be held in Laughlin, Nevada, where it has been held several times in the past...

• Millionaire Joe Firmage, together with the widow of Carl Sagan, have announced that they are organizing a 21st Century media network under the title of Project Voyager. They have already raised an amazing $23 million in "seed money". Although flying saucers are not mentioned at all in the publicity, the duo feel that "there is a world-wide appetite for compelling entertainment that reflects our deepening understanding of cosmic evolution and our place in its great story."

• On a lesser scale, Dr. Steven Greer, the mad medical UFO scientist, announces the formation of Disclosure News Programing (DNP). This group is specifically geared (or Greeted) to promote and encourage key UFO-related disclosures from high-ranking people in a position to Know. (We have heard all this before!)...

• On a still lower note, former psychologist Dr. Richard Boylan has started a space-age summer school for children who have been genetically modified by aliens! Boylan claims these so-called "star kids" are not only brighter than others, but they can have strange superpowers such as levitation, invisibility, and teleportation. Whee!...

• Finally, scientists at Princeton University (our old alma mater) have conducted sophisticated experiments the results of which seem to prove that under certain circumstances, light can exceed its own speed limit. Einstein's work showed that the maximum speed of anything in the universe can't exceed the speed of light in a vacuum, which is 186,000 miles per second. But the Princeton experiments sent a pulse of laser light through cesium vapor so quickly that the pulse left the chamber before it had even finished entering it! The pulse traveled 300 times the distance it would have covered if the chamber had contained a vacuum. Weird!

Over 2,400 years ago, the Greek dramatist Euripides summed up what should be ufology's watchword: "Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe." Unfortunately, the opposite is all too often true. Time and again, we see The Will To Believe - and DISbelieve - overwhelm objective fact, solid countervailing information, and what should be warning flags about witness credibility, alleged evidence, etc. I've succumbed all too often myself. About the most egregious example of which (shameless plug follows) see my forthcoming tome now and firmly entitled "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe", coming to you from Prometheus, spring 'O1. Watch this space for exact publication date, price, and other exciting stuff. Now, then, where was I?...

Ah, yes. Belief is no substitute for critical thinking. Sure, every advancement of knowledge begins with a hunch, a dream that something might be so, a working hypothesis. It is another matter altogether to allow such hunches and dreams and hypotheses to becloud thinking, permit accomodation of contradiction and falsehood, set aside "inconvenient" facts, and undermine that rare commodity common sense - to let the dream become more "real" than reality.

When we're chasing flying saucers, the courage of our convictions can be a strong shield against the slings and arrows of our detractors and give us the strength to carry on. However, it is all too easy to let our convictions harden into intellectual arrogance or froth into feel-good faith that blinds us to the facts we'd rather not see and logic that demonstrates how wrong we are - all too easy to morph from ufologists into ufooligists.

This pitfall is a threat to ufologists of all stripes - "pro"-UFO and skeptic alike. Unrecognized certitudes close the door to real knowledge and understanding. If we're serious about ufology (as opposed to ourselves), we must continually check our premises, our frames of mental reference to be sure we're not proceeding from either "They must be, therefore they are:" or "They can't be, therefore they aren't!" The will to believe cuts both ways.

Those who are - usually unconsciously - looking for reasons to believe (or not) have no difficulty finding "evidence" that convinces them. The real trick, as ol' Rip (he lets me call him Rip) saw so well, is knowing what not to believe, knowing how judiciously to sort through things with nary a kneejerk and distinguish the gold from the ufool's gold.

• Distinguished British ufologist HILARY EVANS writes:

  "Dear Jim,

  "I particularly enjoyed your June 15th issue, where you revisit the Bennewitz Affair. I think you should discard your customary modesty and recognize that - thanks to your experience, your contacts and your innate good sense - you are in a unique position to put such matters into a meaningful perspective, and cut a swathe through the confusion generated by the misinformation and disinformation of other parties. You probably have more knowledge of the nooks and crannies of the American UFO scene than anyone now alive, and you would be doing us all - and ufology in general - a big service if you would share more of it with us.

  "With admiration and respect, Hilary"

  Our sincere thanks for these kind remarks! - Editor.

• Former ufologist WILLIAM ("Bill") MOORE writes:

  "Several quick comments, which you may publish if you wish:

  1. "Rick Doty is either mistaken or misinformed when he says I 'was paid' for such services as may have been rendered to AFOSI et al., in the early 1980s. While it is true that money was offered on several occasions, I never once accepted a penny of it. Therefore I can say with a clear conscience that everything and anything I might have done in this regard was entirely out of my own pocket.

  2. "Regarding the Bennewitz Affair in general - two things which have never come to light and which might prove most interesting to ufoology are the roles played by doctors J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee. It is not generally known that Dr. James Harder was involved (at least early on, although perhaps not later). I personally know that Hynek was still under contract as a USAF consultant at the time, and Vallee had very close ties with the CIA and others (although what his obligations to them may have been, I do not know). For those still hoping to uncover some hidden treasure in this whole mess, here is a good place to begin. Many of Bennewitz's bizarre views on abductions seem to have come to him as a result of Harder's involvement. Hynek's hitherto unknown forte had to do with providing Bennewitz a carefully crafted means of 'decoding' the supposed 'alien' transmissions he was intercepting. As for Vallee, numerous clues pertaining to his particular specialty can be gleaned by a careful rereading of his book 'Messengers of Deception'.

  3. "While it may be true that Doty spent the final months of his Air career overseeing a non-com club at Kirtland, my understanding of the events surrounding this (based upon my own careful investigation into the circumstances) is considerably different than the version offered by Olde Mr. Krass. However, since none of this had anything to do with the Bennewitz Affair, and since I do not feel it proper to discuss events which were essentially none of my business, I shall have nothing further to say on that subject.

  4. "Janet Smith's strange assertion that Bennewitz was 'squirreled away in Canada for his own protection' is a new one on me. I certainly have never heard, nor have I ever said any such thing ....

  5. "Finally, I find it extremely interesting that George Hansen sees fit to question Doty's credibility on the basis of Phil Krass' ad hominem exposes. Why, I wonder, doesn't Mr. Hansen see fit to question Mr. Krass' credibility? Certainly Krass' record of distorting facts and misreporting events goes back far further than anything Doty may have said or done, and his many transgressions in this area are widely recognized and easily documented.

  6. "If Charlie Moore (no relation) is right about Socorro, it would indeed be a major breakthrough. But can he prove it?"

  Editor's Note: In a letter too long to fit in this issue, researcher George Earley makes a persuasive case that neither the Lunar Module nor a Surveyor lunar probe was involved in the Socorro incident. Contact him at drrearleys@aol.com and he will be glad to email you the same material he sent to us.

• And, PHIL KLASS himself writes us as follows:

  "So Bill Noore is increasingly suspicious that I created the 'original' MJ-12 papers which he, Stan Friedman and Jaime Shandera made public in late May of 1987. Shortly thereafter when I obtained a copy of their MJ-12 papers, I made copies which I sent to FBI headquarters. My accompanying letter said that if the MJ-12 papers were authentic, their release was a very serious security violation. And if they were bogus, as I suspected, they were a violation of Federal Statutes against creating bogus U.S. Government documents.

  "Now, if I had created the MJ-12 documents myself, as Bill Moore suspects, why would I call them to the attention of the FBI - inviting their investigation and a possible long prison term for myself? One possible explanation: I had just retired and was having trouble getting by on my very modest pension and Social Security benefit. IF I were convicted of creating bogus government documents, these economic worries were over. A Federal prison would assure me of food and shelter for the rest of my life!"

• CHRISTA TILTON, abductee & author of "The Bennewitz Papers", writes:

  "Best regards to you and 'Smear'. Thank you for taking me off your 'X' list long enough to read the Bennewitz material. Very interesting and diverse.

  'Whatever Cindy Bennewitz told you on Paul's behalf is most likely wrong. You see, Paul and I became quite close during the time Moore and Doty were harrassing him. He would call me all the time, and he even offeted to fly me out to Albuquerque to meet with him personally. Cindy knew nothing of this.

  "I wrote 'The Bennewitz Papers' because I had permission. I was never called by Paul after the fact about anything I had done. It was always on a personal note. He once told me I was probably one of a very few people he could trust. I have the material Paul wrote early on. I could have published it, but chose not to because I was fearful for my own life. This UFO field is a truly psychotic one indeed. So I've been protecting him also.

  "I've gone on with my life and finally got my Doctorate... Thank you again for your long-lasting friendship."

• Researcher BOB DURANT writes:

  "Sneering at Tom Carey and his colleagues who are diligently attempting to read the Ramey memo, Matt Graeber writes: '...someone like Dr. Ron Westrun (of MJ-12 document endorsement fame!)'.

  "Graeber can't tell an N from an M. The professor's name is WestruM, not WestruN, Matt!

  "WestruM has never published a word about MJ-12. That was another professor, the linguist Roger Wescott. If Graeber can't distinguish an M from an N, no wonder Ron and Roger seem alike to him.

  "And Wescott never endorsed the MJ-12 documents. He compared the writing to that of Roscoe Hillenkoetter, and found no obvious difference."

• JON BIERMAN of Missouri MUFON writes:

  "I read your comments of the last few months regarding the Missouri UFO Ballot Initiative and although MUFON Missouri was unable to obtain the requisite number of signatures to bring the Year 2000 UFO Ballot Initiative before the people of Missouri, the most difficult portion of the work (which sets the stage for bringing the initiative at the next referendum) has now been accomplished.

  "As you can imagine, getting the Missouri Secretary of State to approve the language and form of a petition calling on the U.S. Congress to hold hearings on UFO Secrecy is not the easiest task. It took a great deal of perseverance (and pro bono legal work on my part) and now that the job is complete, the approved paperwork will be resubmitted the next time around with plenty of time to obtain the needed signatures.

  "This work is extremely important to me because I want to know if MacDonald's is really using hamburger supplied by cattle rustling aliens and I expect the government to tell me. Also, Alien women are hot!"

• Researcher JOHN ANDERSON writes:

  "Re your latest newsletter, I heard Dr. Frank Stranges talk one time at Pat Marcattilio's convention at Days Inn, Bordentown, N.J. He has had years to refine his Pentagon - Val Thor experiences to a fine cutting edge. He knows his subject well, he knows all the speaking cues, he knows his audience, he maintains eye contact, voice control, word emphasis, and holds his audience in rapt attention.

  "Over the years I have reached a conclusion about him: He could sell an Eskimo a refrigerator, or perpetual fire to an Amazon rain forest native... Dr. Stranges is a real smooth audience-appealing operator, fortified by his Val Thor contact experiences."

• Parapsychologist GEORGE HANSEN writes:

  "I was shocked and appalled that you spelled Pat Marketillio's name correctly in the last 'Smear'. What happened???"

  The answer is that we are buttering him up, now that he has offered us a (reluctant) invitation to speak at his next glorious conclave in Bordentown, on the weekend of October 7th-8th. - Editor.

• Famed UFO researcher GEORGE D. FAWCETT writes as follows:

  "...Two certified library archive librarians are working full time to absorb the 50,000 UFO items (worth $250,000) that we gave to the International UFO Museum at Roswell in 1998. The librarians feel it will take them ten more years to complete the job. I still have 7,000 items in North Carolina that I am using on my second book, currently at a standstill due to a number of family members who have died of heart attacks and/or strokes over the past four months. Whether I finish my book or die (whichever comes first), all these materials are already willed to the Museum. I hope you have a pleasant visit to the MUFON Symposium in St.Louis."