| EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
|
NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER Volume 49, No. 1 January 10th, 2002 |
MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. Box 1709 Key West, FL 33041 |
MUFON maverick Larry Bryant has become the very first person to order our glorious new UFO book, "Shockingly Close to the Truth'." Larry amuses us by calling your Supreme Commander "Commander-of-Sheep", but that's okay! There's nothing wrong with sheep, unless one becomes too friendly with them, as the late contactee Orfeo Angelucci did! (See our Book for the shocking details about this!)
We stated in our last issue that the price of our priceless tome is $25.00, but we forgot to include the cost of postage, etc. Thus future buyers will be asked to pay us $28 rather than $25.
Incidentally, Larry Bryant has just published a book of his own, oddly called "UFO Politics at the White House: Citizens Rally 'round Jimmy Carter's Promise". This book apparently consists of hundreds of letters received by former President Carter, in regard to his own well-publicized UFO sighting (probably Venus!) and his supposed promise to bring forth the Truth about flying saucers during his presidency (which he obviously did not do). We aren't clear as to how Larry obtained these letters. Anyhow, the book can be ordered for $14.95 from the publisher: Invisible College Press, 3703 Del Mar Dr., Woodbridge, Va. 22193.
Well, it turns out that Nashville did not work out after all, but we are now definite for the lovely Civic & Convention Center in Ms. Pheneger's home town, which is Lima, Ohio. The dates are October 5th and 6th, which is just one weekend before Pat Marcattilio's annual UFO/ET/Alien conclave, which will be held as usual in Bordontown, New Jersey (near Trenton). We intend to be at both of these events, and we hope that many of you will join us.
Speakers at the NUFOC will include Stanton Friedman, Bruce Maccabee, Karl Pflock, and of course your humble "Smear" editor - vigorously pushing his above-mentioned UFO book, co-authored with Pflock. Other speakers and details will be announced shortly. Wheeee!
In our last issue we printed part of a letter from C.A. ("Carol") Honey, who was a close associate of the late contactee George Adamski, during Adamski's later years on this planet. We literally ran out of Space before we could give you Honey's address. He has something called Tract #252, which explains his final falling-out with George, and he will send it to you free or nearly free if you write to him at: 2456 South Woodlark Rrive, Ontario, California 91761-6530...
The book is called "William Cooper: Death of a Conspiracy Salesman, and is edited (or written?) by the ever-mysterious "Commander X", who works very closely with Beckley. Your "Smear" editor is mentioned several times therein, so we may have to actually read it and review it in our next issue.
A mere $19 will get you this memorable tome. Also available, for $30.00, is Cooper's infamous classic conspiracy book, "Behold a Pale Horse", written several years ago. Both can be ordered from Global Communications, P.O. Box 753, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903...
Brown supposedly had very little training as a pianist,
but when her invisible dead companions showed up, they either moved her fingers on the piano
for her, or dictated the right notes to play. Musical experts were divided in regard to the
value of her talent. Said one: "If she is a fake, she is a brilliant one, and must have had
years of training. Some of the music is awful, but some is marvelous. I couldn't have faked the Beethoven."
We heard a lot about Rosemary Brown in the 1970s from the late psychic researcher Stewart Robb, who was obsessed with classical music. Robb, whom we visited many times at his home near Los Angeles, was also an expert on Nostradamus and other paranormal matters.
What is Rosemary Brown doing in "UFO Newsclipping Service" or "Saucer Smear", you might ask. Let's face it, folks; Things are slow in ufology these days. Most of Farish's December 2001 issue is devoted to crop circles and other overseas matters, as there just isn't enough going on, here on this side of the Pond!
Farish's monthly zine can be obtained for $55 per year by writing to: #2 Caney Valley Rrive, lumerville, Arkansas 72127...
Last time I left everyone hanging (?) in eager anticipation of the tale of Antonio Villas-Boas and his alleged and allegedly unwilling sexual liason with a (not-so-natural?) blond alien seductress. I apologize for any frustration this may have caused loyal nonsubscribers trust this issue's column will bring all hands welcome relief. But first...
As revealed by the glorious announcement in the last "Smear", Jim Moseley's and my "Shockingly Close to the Truth! Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist" (Prometheus, March 2002) soon will be soaring to the top of bestseller lists everywhere. Why even now, more than two months before publication, we've already hit #1,785,218 on the Amazon.com chart! By the time you read this, we'll probably have hurtled up to at least #1,653,113, or perhaps even have crashed through the #1,500,000 barrier!
So if you want a First Edition, First Printing, Collector's Copy, Autographed by the Authors, you'd best hurry and get your pre-publication order in - to ME! Well, you could place your order with Supreme Commander Moseley, but he's already got a leg up, and...
You see, Jim and I are having a little competition to see which of us can bag the most advance orders for our masterpiece, and since he got off to a head start with the big splash ad and begging bowl bit in the last issue of "S.S.", I've got some catching up to do. So...
All orders placed with ME (not Jim) that are postmarked on or before January 19th, 2002, will go to the swift and lucky for $25 per copy, shipping and handling included. All ordering thereafter must add $3.00 for s&h, a total of $28 per copy. Please make your check out to Karl T. Pflock, and send your Rush orders to ME (not Jim) at this Semi-Confidential address: Post Office Box 1569, Bernalillo, N.M. 87004-1569.
Not only will you be adding a Classic to your library (order a few extras for your Closest Friends, too), yoU'll be helping keep a starving ufologist alive and working. It's getting harder and harder to get along on what our Esteemed Editor and Publisher pays me for this column (free copies of "S.S." have very little nutritional value!) Remember: $25 for all orders through January 19th, and $28 thereafter. Hurry!
We're rocketing toward #1,700,000 on the Amazon hit parade. Don't miss out!
Now then. back to Lust North of the Pampa... Uh, oh. Did it again! Out of Space - till next Time'.
Pflock on Corso
In my book Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe and in a 1997 MUFON UFO Journal review of the late Lt. Col. Philip Corso's The Day After Roswell (TDAR), I exposed the fact that Corso had pulled a bait and switch on Sen. Thurmond (R-SC).
Corso, who had worked for Thurmond for two brief periods in the 1960s and '70s, had given the senator an outline of his memoirs, grandly entitled I Walked With Giants (My Career in Military Intelligence), asking him to pen a foreword for the book. The senator did, and much to his chagrin, his brief, plain-vanilla comments-laudatory of Corso, but containing nothing specific bout the book itself-found their way into the first printing of The Day After Roswell.
When I saw the senator's name and foreword in the bound galleys of TDAR I was sent by Simon & Schuster, Corso's publisher, I contacted his office. Thurmond's staff was stunned, and in short order, the senator contacted S&S, told them what had happened, and demanded that his foreword and name be removed from further printings of the book and not be used in any way to further promote it. The embarrassed publisher quickly complied.
The Oct.-Nov. 2001 UFO magazine (U.S.) carries a fatuous attempt to rehabilitate Corso and, by implication, UFO's publisher, William J. Birnes, who coauthored TDAR with Corso: "Honor Restored: The 'De-Pflocked' Facts About Philip Corso," by Don Ecker, the 'zine's director of research. Ecker recently posted the text of this gem on UpDates, conveniently not including the illustrations.
The most important of these is a Simon & Schuster release form signed by Senator Thurmond, allegedly giving his permission for Corso's publisher to use his foreword in TDAR. The form as reproduced in UFO has the words "Roswell Book" typed in the blank left in the boilerplate text of the form for a book title, with the other blanks, for "undersigned" and "author," left, well, blank.
I made a copy of Ecker's piece available to Senator Thurmond's chief of staff, and a few days ago I received in return copies of several very interesting items. One of these is the release form in the senator's office file, on which ALL the blanks in text are, well, blank. No "undersigned," no "author," but, most important, no book title, not even the generic "Roswell Book."
This clearly is the same form reproduced in UFO, as the senator's signature and date of signing match-but it is as it was when the original left the senator's office, BEFORE someone (gee, wonder who?) typed in "Roswell Book." Hmmm...
Along with this revealing document, I received the complete outline for I Walked With Giants, wherein nary a word about UFOs or Roswell (incident or town) is found. A perusal of this outline and a reading of the senator's foreword leave no doubt in any reasonable mind that the latter was intended for the outlined proposed memoir, not the ufoological (NOT a typo) dream to which it was appropriated.
Other than the inclusion of many of the non-UFOconnected tall tales and pulp-fiction prose that appeared in and animated TDAR, the only resemblance between the proposed book and what finally saw print is Corso's Walter Mittyish ego strutting across the pages.
Also included in the package were the senator's June 5, 1997, press release about the matter ("Right Foreword, Wrong Book"), and his June 11, 1997, letter to Simon & Schuster Deputy General Counsel Eric Raymond, demanding the removal of his misappropriated foreword from TDAR.
I will not engage in further debate on this matter, but will be glad to provide copies of any or all of these documents to anyone who's interested enough to cover the cost of copying and mailing. Those who'd like the full details of the Right Foreword, Wrong Book Caper will find them in Chapter 16 of my book.
-Karl Pflock
The present volume devotes a chapter each to ten of the most interesting UFO situations of the modern era. Strangely, a covering form letter from Llewellyn mentions "fifteen of the best of these (UFO) stories", so it would seem to us that someone here has forgotten how to count. No matter; The book is well-written, and runs about 200 pages including a long appendix cataloguing reports of triangular UFOs in recent years.
An "Afterword" discusses some of ufology's well-known researchers, including your humble "Smear" editor, who is described on Page 160 of the "Uncorrected Proof" as a "godfather" in the UFO field. (We do not have the final version of this book, which presumably is re-edited and contains additional photographs. ) There are also many other favorable references to your editor, here & there throughout the book!
On Page 167, Sutherly states his own opinion (similar to ours) about UFO origin, which is: "There is, and always has been, reason to believe that the UFO phenomenon is representative of something far more complex than spacecraft and visiting extraterrestrials. This leads into areas of religion, philosophy, and metaphysics - the combination of which can have a lasting, and disturbing, impression on the human psyche..."
Actually, the most interesting story we read was in the Preface, where a friend of Sutherly's with the pseudonym "Raymond" is driven out of the flying saucer field entirely by a series of bizarre incidents in his vicinity. Sutherly, too, gave up research for awhile, but then got back into it. We wish we knew who "Raymond" is or (shudder!) was!
This softcover book can be purchased for a mere $12.95 from: Llewellyn Publications, P.O. Box 64383, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55164-0383.
Next we were going to tell you about a purported children's UFO book called "Almanac of Alien Encounters", from prestigious Random House. However, we have run out of Space and will discuss this unexpectedly interesting book in our next glorious issue of "Smear'!
"In your review of Brenda Denzler's recently published 'The Lure of the Edge', you misread her use of the word 'myth', which you infer means she takes a negative view of ufology. In point of fact, early in the book (pages 2-3, specifically) she writes that she is referring to 'myth' in a scholarly, rather than a popular, sense. The popular definition, as we all know, is 'something that isn't so. ' Denzler, on the other hand, sees myth in a larger context, as a word to denote, on one hand, a phenomenon that inspires a movement and, on the other, the movement inspired by the phenomenon."The book, quite an excellent one, is actually positive in its depiction of ufology, which it treats as intellectually serious and as addressing real questions. In other words, unlike the excitable soul who writes Prometheus' advertising copy for Moseley and Pflock, she rejects the notion that ufology is a 'cult-like movement'. Thus, hers is not a book that those who want - or need - to believe that all nonhostile students of the UFO phenomenon are raving irrationalists will like much."
"I've plowed through George Hansen's complex and wide-ranging book, which certainly has its merits, but I can't see any sense in his UFO perspective. Though he quite justifiably points out 'trickstery' in the hoax-plagued UFO field and others, he insists throughout on speaking only of 'the' Trickster - as if all manifestations were attributable to some unique God of Trickstery'. This is not a sensible way to talk. As for UFOs, on p 248 he declares that some are indeed real, though not 'nuts-&-bolts' alien vehicles. So far, so good - but what, then, are they? No hint here of my own diagnosis (deceptive 'shows' by supernatural tricksters). It appears, instead, that this parapsychologist wants to call UFOs things somehow produced by unconscious human 'psi' powers - Jungian 'physical projections'. This cannot be called a persuasive suggestion!"As for the abductions, he seems to take it for granted (like nearly everyone who has not looked into the evidence) that 'obviously, no such thing can really happen,' and he seems to suppose (p. 140) that all the testimonies must really be 'iatrogenic', fictions invented by the investigators, and implanted by them into the minds of the hapless 'abductees '. So, as a ufologist, this earnest and learned writer must unfortunately be called out of his depth. (Except, of course, for the Linda Cortile case, where I find myself compelled to agree with him that it can't be real, and that the very praiseworthy Budd Hopkins must have been duped by a diabolically convincing 'tricksteress'.)... "
"...Your information on Bill Cooper is fascinating. I never knew the man and never believed what he said, but I got the feeling that a lot of people did..."I must say I thought Mr. Pflock was a bit snide in referring to reports from South America of 'powerful, hairy dwarves with long, sharp claws' (which I've never heard of) as being 'likely the product of culturally influenced perception'. Pretty shitty, Jim."
"...To set the record straight, there are a few comments I have after reading your recent write-up 'The Life and Death of Former Ufologist William Milton Cooper'... As far as I am concerned, 'our pleasant relationship' with Cooper did not end 'abruptly' when I suggested 'he pay taxes on the money' he received from his lectures' at my various conventions. I merely continued to file the appropriate W2 'free lance' forms required by the IRS for anyone making over $600 as an independent contractor. Cooper made way more than that on several occasions.Cooper had never told me in advance that he would not speak if I filed the necessary papers at the end of the year. If he didn't want to pay taxes that was his business, but I certainly wasn't planning to pay them for him. He balked at the last minute from one of his presentations, but we never really had a falling out. We spoke on the phone maybe once after that. His material became even more radical as time went on. Our conventions aren't about paying or NOT paying taxes or about arming your neighborhood. Basically, there just wasn't anywhere to take our relationship.
"Regarding the outbreak of 'violence' at one of our conventions, I will take Cooper's side on this. The other party (Erik Beckjord - Ed.) is known for his abrasive attitude and inability to get along with others. I never saw Cooper drunk, thought I do believe the night of the 'fight' - or perhaps it was another evening; I don't recall - saw the other individual spending some time in the local poky for driving under the influence.
"There are some who feel Cooper was 'assassinated' because of his last statements regarding the World Trade Center disaster and the theory that the CIA was somehow involved. Well, you know how rumors get started!"
"I assume you've learned of the untimely death of Bill Cooper. The 'Arizona Republic' is our source, after seeing the reports all over the Internet. "We will miss a true flag-waving American. We fortunately have a signed copy of his 'Pale Horse' work, and a ton of memories from all the Expos we attended'."His shooting has all the earmarks of Ruby Ridge and the David Koresh deaths! Keep in touch..."
"Thank Cod it wasn't a couple of UFOs that crashed into the twin towers and Pentagon, irradiating NYC and DC with anti-matter - or whatever the hell it is they use for fuel. That would have been a nasty mess, and, consequently, ufologists all over the US and abroad would now be hunted down like towelheads, and held incommunicado as material witnesses until our government could discover just what planet they came from, and deport them."Being all too close to Wright Patterson AFB, who knows if I could have managed to talk my way out of being charged with who knows what. As it is, I've stopped wearing my Sam the Sham turban when going to the post office, and I now wear a bright orange hat, which not only keeps me out of jail, but protects me from duck hunters, as well."
"...I'm enjoying reading Ron Story's 'Encyclopedia of ET Encounters'. The title is a bit misleading. I particularly like the topics on pages 214-217 on 'geomagnetic explanations', etc.... I'm sure the professionals like you and Paris Flanmlonde can find much lacking, but for a semi-informed amateur like me, I' d give it **** out of five. I think Story did a very good job presenting many different viewpoints..."
"...I think it is important for you to know that 'Smear' is the only UFO publication for which I pay, as a matter of principle - all other UFO-related publications are a waste of money. Moreover, I can attest to the fact that it makes superior bathroom reading material and is recyclable, thus preserving the environment...Keep up the good work and best of luck with the publication of your book...I encourage all of your readers to purchase it otherwise, the terrorists win!"
"...I have discovered an amazing fact, while going through some old files. I found some issues of 'Smear' from 5, 6, 7 years ago, and I discovered that you can randomly choose any issue from any year, and the same people rant on and on about the same thing'. You would think that sooner or later someone would have an original thought or opinion, but what do I know!..."
"...I'm intrigued by you referring to yourself (in 'Smear') as 'we' I know you are rich - but royal also?..."Ours is, hopefully, a use of the editorial "we". - Editor.
Saucer Smear Index
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