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| EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
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NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER Volume 49, No. 2 February 20th, 2002 |
MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. Box 1709 Key West, FL 33041 |
In contrast to Pflock's, our basic view is that the UFO phenomenon, whatever it may be, is a permanent part of the earth's environment, and doesn't just come & go. But the frequency of good sightings, and the public's interest in same, certainly does ebb and flow'. In our opinion there's no doubt about that.
Recent opinion polls indicate that public belief in and interest in the UFO subject is not as high as it was just a few years ago. We know that all the major UFO organizations are in financial trouble, and several meeting groups have folded. The latest such group to come to our attention is the Institute for UFO Research, founded by Dr. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming. This abductee-oriented outfit is now giving up their annual conventions after many years, due to increased costs and falling attendance.
On a lighter note, we have an item off the Net telling us that UFO sightings have doubled in Malaysia in the past year, and one man there claims he was abducted for eleven days after meeting a square-headed alien. The Centre for Malaysian UFO Studies states that six sightings were reported in 2001, as opposed to a mere three in the year 2000.
That's all well & good for that far-off country, but what about the U.S.A? "Filer's Files" in the MUFON UFO Journal often contains items of more than passing interest, but no one seems to care!
We can think of three good reasons for the present negative situation, and they are:
There is, however, one very recent case which has rekindled our own interest to some degree - even though it is not directly related to UFOs at all. This case follows, below:
The article concerns an incident in Holland in August of last year. Nancy Talbott and another crop circle researcher named Robbert Broeke actually witnessed, over a short period of time one night, two or three beams of light which clearly came down upon a nearby field. The next morning there was a relatively simple crop circle in that field!
Thus, they did not actually see the formation being formed, but it is a reasonable assumption that it was indeed related to the beams of light. There is an apparent photo of this beam of light on Page 1 of the Journal, mindlessly repeated on Page 3, and then it turns out that this is merely an "artist's illustration" - not a photo of the actual event. Even so, if we can assume that Talbott and Broeke are both sane and honest, this is quite a coup!
We still wouldn't get too excited about this, except that Nancy Talbott is no runof-the-mill crackpot. She has real degrees, and seems to be objective. We have heard her lecture, and she is very good.
But are crop circles even related to flying saucers? Your guess is as good as ours. But anything is better than nothing in these dreary ufological times!
Now we have recently gotten in touch with a gentleman named Kenny Young, who lives near Cincinnati, Ohio, and he has agreed to hold the NUFOC in that area - date and details to be announced later. This will be a one-day affair - Saturday only - and it will probably take place on a weekend in October. We will let you know, just as soon as more information is available. Hopefully there will be no more changes!
We also wish to announce that the 2003 NUFOC will be held in the Los Angeles area, sponsored by Ann Druffel and a group of ufologists with whom she is involved. Again, details are not yet available, but what we like here is that it will be a two day affair, with one day devoted to discussion of all sides of the UFO abduction question, and with the other day devoted to "nuts & bolts sightings. Ann is the author of the recent book "How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction", which has received many good reviews, and even a fairly favorable review from "Smear". Ann Druffel is a very nice lady whom we have known slightly for many years, and we look forward to working with her, when the time comes.
"UnConvention" is an annual affair sponsored by England's prestigious "Fortean Times" Magazine, which we read with great gusto. Pflock's topics will be the Betty & Barney Hill abduction case, and also our co-authored book "Shockingly Close to the Truth'." Shockingly, your "Smear" editor has not yet been invited to participate, but we made it in 1997, when the "UnConvention" featured the theme of Fifty Years of Ufology.
On the other hand, as we've bragged several times by now, your editor is a featured speaker at this year's Roswell Festival in early July, whereas Pflock, having written the ultimate anti-Roswell book, is somehow not on the program at all. However, he lives in New Mexico, and perhaps can be persuaded to make an informal appearance. Wheee!
The UFO sighter, named Joe Wilson, gave a fragment to Hughes, who has conducted various tests on it over the years. In simplest form, it can be said to contain "unusual metal alloys", but we can't imagine why it should be worth ten million dollars. Hughes says he has already been offered 7 million by someone, and is holding out for more dough, apparently...
An Ethics Committee was to be formed to investigate the charges against Carpenter, which included breaking the confidence givento him by these abductees, and charging fees for his hypnotic sessions with them. Little if any mention was ever made of this matter in the MUFON UFO Journal, and the whole subject was deliberately left to be forgotten by the rank & file of the organization.
Well, we have belatedly been informed that there really was an Ethics Committee, consisting of Walt Andrus, Herbert Prouty, Thomas Whitmore, and Tom Deuley. Their report was issued on April 24th, 2001, and amazingly it concluded that "the charges brought against MUFON member John Carpenter were not found to have sufficient relationship to MUFON or to be sufficiently established by credible evidence...Therefore he continues as a member in good standing with MUFON."
Basically, the Committee was simply unwilling to hold Carpenter up to the organization's own ethical code, as given in their Bylaws! Carpenter nevertheless resigned, and the whole matter was swept under the table, so to speak, and duly forgotten!....
Interestingly, the current Mothman craze has brought a measure of fame to longtime cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who just happens to have recently come out with a book called "Mothman and Other Curious Encounters". The book details 26 specific sightings of a giant bird-like creature in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967. The sightings came just before the collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River, which killed about 47 people and led to speculation about paranormal activity. However Coleman's approach, unlike Keel's, is strictly "nuts and bolts".
Loren Coleman is a long-time social worker and cryptozoologist, associated with the University of Southern Maine. He has written several previous books, and has even been a "Smear" non-subscriber from time to time over the years.
Last year your "Smear" editor made a trip to Point Pleasant with researchers Tom Benson, Antonio Huneeus, and ethers. Your editor was also there about 1968 with Gray Barker, but saw nothing out of the ordinary except Gray Barker himself.
Rumor has it that John Keel has finally achieved a fifty grand payoff from the movie company. He richly deserves it, as he is one of the great science fiction writers of our Time!
On the other hand, our friend John Alexander of NIDS (National Institute of Discovery Science) was favorably impressed by the mood of the Mothman movie, and in his review written for the NIDS website he states in part:
"Readers of this website are probably aware of the research conducted by NIDS at a secluded ranch in eastern Utah. During that period of observation and research multiple witnesses, many highly-qualified, reported strange occurrences that parallel those of Point Pleasant. There were numerous UFO sightings, a point underplayed in the movie, encounters with very unusual creatures, extensive poltergeist activities, interactions with balls of light, a sense of apprehension and fear prevalent in both humans and animals, and mysterious sounds with no known origin..."
We've got to find a way to see "The Mothman Prophecies"!....
Note to Bob Pratt concerning the hairy dwarf cases in South America: Check out Keyhoe's "Flying Saucer Conspiracy" and the Lorenzens' "Flying Saucer Occupants" and "Encounters with UFO Occupants". The ill-tempered, sharp-clawed little buggers seem to have been all over the northern reaches of the continent in 1954. While these cases were rather widely publicized and there Was a major landings-and-occupants flap going on in France at the time, apparently no hairy ufonauts in need of manicures were spotted there or anywhere else outside of South America, then or at any other time.
It's possible we may have been visited by differently constructed humanoids from several planets or realms, and that some of them are exclusively partial to one neck of the earthly woods. However, it's more likely this hairy issue is a reflection of cultural influences at work. It is well established that every culture has its own set of perceptual filters through which it interprets the world. When confronted with something strange and out of the ordinary, these filters seek to make sense of it by imposing a "normalizing" frame of reference.
In the hairy dwarf cases, the beings were doing the same things as less bizarre beings seen in other parts of the world: collecting soil and plant samples, buzzing hapless motorists, using peculiar rays to paralyze those who stumbled upon them, hopping into their vehicles and whizzing away, etc. But they were short, nasty Bigfoot-like critters from outer space. In some instances, they seemed bent upon snatching a witness or two, apparently never succeeding (whew!)
In recent years, el chupacabras, "the goatsucker", emerged in Latin America, first in Puerto Rico, then spreading to Puerto Rican and other Hispanic communities in the U.S. and on to Cuba, Mexico, and scattered areas of Central and South America. The chupacabras is the hairy dwarf of the '50s as interpreted by Stephen King. And, like the dwarves, it shows up only in Latin countries and communities.
Is there something in Latino culture that conjures up such tales or, less skeptically, causes Witnesses innocently and unwittingly to ascribe certain features and behavior to odd, frightening, and out of place creatures? There's a Ph.D. in comparative/ cultural anthropology or social psychology waiting to be earned here. When you do yours, don't forget to give me credit for inspiring you.
Egad! Once again I've failed to titillate loyal Smearians with the X-rated tale of Antonio Villas-Boas and the Space Babe, but yet again I'm out of Space - till next Time.
Many of our readers will remember David Huggins, the New Jersey abductee and artist, who has
had a series of many, many incidents throughout his life, in which apparent extraterrestrials
interact with him. In the incident depicted here, the naked man lying on the table and the
clothed man standing by the table are both David Huggins. To his left in the painting is
"Crescent", an alien woman with whom he has had Sex many times. The other creatures shown are
also aliens. The idea here is that David is being transferred from his present, older body to
a new one which is the naked one on the table. This incident happened about three or four years
ago, he says.
Huggins has lectured several times about his experiences and done many paintings.
Included is a discussion of Fatima (one of our favorite mysteries); The Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942; "FOO Fighters"; Roswell (of course!); the Flatwoods, W.Va. monster (1952); Albert K. Bender & the Three Men in Black; sizes and shapes of UFO occupants; Lonnie Zamora (1964); he Condon Report; and a great deal more.
This book was authored by someone named Eric Elfman (a pseudonym?) who has written previous children's books and obviously did his homework on this one. One of his previous efforts is called "Almanac of the Gross, Disgusting, and Totally Repulsive". Egads!
This book, allegedly written (or edited) by "Commander X" has just about everything a conspiracy fiend could ask for - The Illuminati; The New World Order; World Trade Center Disaster; UFOs and MJ-12; JFK Assassination; Gun Control; The Constitution; Secret Societies; and MORE! Much has been said about how Cooper wildly changed his opinions on key issues over the years; but as Beckley so aptly puts it at the bottom of Page 8, "that's water under the dam". (This book really contains a flood of good information!)
As detailed in the above-mentioned December "Smear", we knew Bill Cooper quite well from various barroom scenes at Beckley's western conventions a few years back; and whatever Wild Bill may have done to others, we personally had no quarrel with him.
The title of this collector's item is "William Cooper: Death of a Conspiracy Salesman - Survivalist? Patriot? FANATIC!" It sells for $19 from Global Communications, P.O. Box 753, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903. Also available for $30 is Cooper's classic "Behold a Pale Horse", written back in 1991 and now difficult to obtain...
Book One: Human Origins", written in 1997 by a man named Lloyd Pye. The author obviously has an
extensive background in biology, but he has his own bizarre & revolutionary views about human
evolution. In brief, he appears to believe that humans originated on another planet, and merely
co-existed with primitive hominoids on earth. He points out various flaws in Darwinism, such as
the fact that one species never evolves into a totally different species. Pye is hardly the
first to find embarrassing (to orthodox science) problems with Darwinism, but most
scientifically-oriented people would still prefer that belief system to its rival - Creationism,
which is the view that humans were created by God, as the Bible tells us. Pye calls
his system Rationalism, as opposed to Darwinism and Creationism.
Pye is interested in Bigfoot and all such creatures. In 1999 we heard him lecture regarding two anomalous skulls found in a mine shaft in Mexico many years ago (see photo). At that time Pye was spending a great deal of money trying to prove scientifically that these skulls are alien or hybrid. It is our understanding that he never obtained such proof. - If still in print, the book can be obtained from: Adamu Press, P.O. Box 8100, Madeira Beach, Florida 33738.
In one of your letters you wrote this PS: "Do you want me to try to get people for you thru 'Smear'? Since you don't seem to charge, maybe you don't want any more people. RSVP."I'm always looking for more readers for my e/zine, the Ray X X-Rayer, especially through the "Dreaded" Internet. The cost is the same to send one issue or a thousand electronically; that's why email subs (rayxr@aol.com) are free. As you can see from my new "letterhead" I'm now promoting the free ezine angle. As for snail mailers, I'll behappy to send them a free sample copy. They can write to BoXholder,PO Box 2, Plattsburgh, NY 12901-0002 and mention they saw it in "Smear". After the sample copy they can decide if it's worth a dollar per issue for the hardcopy version.
"I was delighted to hear that you had received the complementary copy of my book that I asked the Press to send you, and that you had reviewed it in your newsletter. When I actually read what you had written, however, I was a bit perplexed. Either you did not actually read the book, or else you missed my explanation of how I used the word 'myth'...Your comment in the review presumed that my use of the word myth was pejorative. It was not."I was also perplexed and bemused by your criticism of the book's technical apparatus. The Appendix is a very important part of what I have to say in the book. Just because it is called an 'Appendix' does not make it some kind of useless fluff taking up paper and ink and needlessly increasing the cost of the book, as your review implied. And in some quarters the extensive footnoting and bibliography are viewed as signs that I did a thorough job of researching my topic - in short, these parts of the book are viewed quite favorably. I am surprised that someone with your longevity in the UFO field would suggest that thorough research and documentation are of little worth .....
"I appreciate your comment that there is 'some well-written text' in the book. I tried to make it very readable and accessible to a reasonably literate audience. I presume that most of those reading it will not be very familiar at all with the UFO phenomenon or its history - and I definitely wanted to present all of that, as well as the scientific and religious aspects of the phenomenon, in a way that readers would find both informative and entertaining. And I was pleased to be able to include a reference to 'Saucer Smear' in the book. How could I write about the history of the UFO phenomenon in the United States without mentioning your work, after all?!"
We admit that we were more than a bit too harsh. - Editor.
"...I'm surprised by your comments on page 3 of 'Smear' about 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings'. Surely no one watching these movies would be intended to conclude that magic wands, magic rings, etc. really exist. Everyone knows that these films and books are fantasies, not propaganda to promote irrational superstitions. I'm among the many Americans who find them inspiring in these frightful times, because they are exciting epics of adventure and courageous struggle against monstrous evils! Lighten up a little!..."
ROB SWIATEK of The Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) writes:
"I must confess I find your fifth columnist's recent, multi-part articles ("THEY WERE HERE") most puzzling. What's all this frippery about UFOs leaving in the '7Os? When I read this, I about jumped out of my Fund for UFO Research running shorts! His odd speculations might have merit but for the fact that UFOs continue to be seen! If memory serves, there were several excellent cases in the '80s and '90s that puzzled a whole lot of us - maybe even you. Or is this just another instance of wishful thinking on Karl's part, the old will to believe? Far from UFOs leaving the scene, I think it more likely that UFO investigators have left - to their computers, seaside condos, girlfriends. 'Anything except field investigation' seems to be their credo. Maybe Walt Andrus should look into this, in much the same manner retired generals are impanelled to investigate military fiascos..."
"...I am amused to see how Dick Hall and others are trying to paint Karl Pflock as one of the 'skeptibunkers'. I've had enough disagreements with Karl to know that he'll never be elected a CSICOP fellow! A particularly low blow is when Hall writes that '(Karl's) adoption of Jim Moseley as his 'standard' of serious UFO research tells us all we need to know about him'. Congratulations to you both, Karl and Jim. If you got old Dick this riled up, you must be doing something right!"
"...My explanation for my ongoing blacklisting, which on the surface makes no sense whatsoever, is that these MUFON people are in fact only following orders from above, and that the CIA which funds and controls MUFON continues to do everything in its power to suppress my research. Especially my book and articles on the AIDS-ET Connection Hypothesis. Evidentally because it is very uncomfortably close to the truth!"MUFON's negative reputation is becoming better known. Our local MUFON group, formerly meeting at the Ahmanson public library in Omaha (Nebraska), under the direction of local MUFON Director Jack Kasher Ph. D., who is no longer a professor at UNO, was recently directed to meet elsewhere. Just one negative is that, according to Dr. Kasher, MUFON policy requires, despite numerous objections, that the local meetings be recorded. The result is that people are afraid to say anything. You have to be pretty bad to get kicked out of a public library!
"At this time MUFON is part of the problem, not the solution. Anyone who supports MUFON is in bed with the enemy!
"Should anyone associated with MUFON object to any of my statements, I offer to apologize and retract them all, if MUFON's editor, Mr. Dwight Connelly, will just consider my work for possible publication. Not necessarily publish anything, just consider for possible publication..."
"What's happened to the once vigorous and contentious 'Saucer Smear'? Where has the flying saucer controversy gone? It seems like most contributors are writing to promote their latest UFO book. EVen 'Smear's' 'humble' editor is promoting something called 'Shockingly Close to the Truth!'"Your report on the death of Bill Cooper in the past two issues is a case in point. Where once we would have seen a broad spectrum of views, we now get timid glimpses of the man. Tim Beckley writes, as if for the IRS, explaining his association with Cooper as purely in accord with the tax laws! The only bite to the whole tale being negative comments about Erik Beckjord's interaction with the late Mr. Cooper, by the Editor himself.
"I hate to do this, but in all fairness someone should stand up for Beckjord. Surely he comes out second best in the descriptions of Cooper/Beckjord. I think the evidence points in the other direction. Certainly Cooper's shoot-out with the police far surpasses Beckjord's record, though impressive, of brushes with the law. And while Erik has allegedly been belligerent at times (my personal experiences always being cordial), it would appear that Cooper had the more violent character. No one seems to give Beckjord credit for his prominence in the UFO field, something he has managed without providing any real contribution. He is better known, admittedly mostly as a nut case, than many longtime 'researchers' of flying saucers. Hear about the 'Face on Mars' and you think of Beckjord. Perhaps nothing is better than something in the UFO field, if you get my drift!..."
From Bob Girard's monthly book list
Moseley, James, and Pfl0ck, Karl. SHOCKINGLY CLOSE TO THE TRUTH: CONFESSIONS OF A GRAVE-ROBBING UFOLOGIST
Prometheus, 2002. Advance notice: scheduled for publication March 15.
I thought you'd like an early listing for this title, which is about 6 weeks away at this point. James Moseley's baptism of fire in the UFO movement, a 1953 cross-country trip in which he interviews 100 experts and eyewitnesses, is described here, as is his work as a saucer journalist responsible for the long-running Saucer News (begun in 1954, and continued even today as his Saucer Smear newsletter). If ufology has ever had a moral compass, then Jim Moseley has been that device. For a half-century he has managed to straddle the fence which separates the nuts-'n-bolts saucer crowd from the simply nuts saucer contactee crowd, and has also managed the much more difficult balancing act of straddling the numerous loose-cannon personalities who have come and gone (and in some cases, regrettably stayed) as part of the saucer game, without ever falling victim to any doctrine, belief or even temptation (well, except, perhaps, that little matter of the Straith Letter). Moseley unburdens himself here, assisted by Karl Pflock, and presumably there are more than a few laughs to be had, surely a lot of time-traveling back to the John Nebel days at WOR, and even a bit of grave-robbing in Peru! Reserve now at $24.95
INSTANT HISTORY:
After the museum of Bohuslan in western Sweden declared a stone maze on a small island outside the town of Grebbestad a historical monument and erected a sign describing it as a "mystical and fragile historical remnant", Thomas Karlen and Peter Witt said that they made the maze in two days during the summer of 1974 when they were eleven. Dagens Nyheter, 4 Sept 2001
Saucer Smear Index
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