Saucer Smear
OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE SAUCER & UNEXPLAINED CELESTIAL EVENTS RESEARCH SOCIETY
EDITOR AND STILL
SUPREME COMMANDER:
James W. Moseley

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
Karl T. Pflock

NON-SCHEDULED
NEWSLETTER
Volume 49, No. 9
November 10th, 2002

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

We welcome your correspondence, pro or con, well-reasoned or otherwise, but please keep in mind that while Saucer Smear is on the Dreaded Internet, your humble editor is NOT! So, if you wish to receive a personal reply to your letter, or wish to have any chance of seeing it printed on Our Glorious Pages, please print it out, put it in an envelope, affix a stamp thereto, and SNAIL mail it to:
James W. Moseley
P.O. Box 1709
Key West, FL 33041

It's simple and loads of fun! Ask your grandma if you don't remember how to do it!

We thank you!


A TALE OF TWO CONVENTIONS

Again your fearless "Smear" editor has been convention tripping. On the weekend of September 28th we attended the 39th running of the National UFO Conference (NUFOC), this year held in the posh Kings Island Resort Conference Center, near (but not very near) scenic Cincinnati, Ohio. The local host was a well-known area researcher named Kenny Young, to whom we duly owe thanks for a job well done. (Your editor is Permanent Chairman of the NUFOC.)

In addition to speaking at the convention on the subject of (guess what?) our new book, we also lectured the previous evening to the local CSICOP coven, and we gave the Ufologist of the Year award to John Timmerman, who has worked tirelessly for many years on behalf of CUFOS and the Ufological Cause in general. (See photo at right.) In a complicated mix-up, John was actually supposed to receive this award way back in 1985, but the transaction was never officially performed - or whatever.

Other speakers at this year's conference included Rick Hilberg; computer experts Don Weatherby & Wendy Ban; Jerry Black; Terry Endres; Derrel Sims; Donnie Blessing, political candidate Stephen Bassett, and of course John Timmerman. Of these the most persistently verbose was Mr. Bassett, who has actually gotten onto the ballot in the 8th district of Maryland as a flying saucer candidate! Much less verbose was a local radio personality named Bill Boshears, who showed up not at all, in spite of promises to do so!

Your editor did not mingle with the masses as much as usual, due to bronchitis, from which we were cured by magic (legal) pills kindly provided by the Hilbergs. (See photo of them below.) A researcher who was perhaps the most colorful of all the attendees was not actually on the NUFOC program, but lurked in the hallway thereabouts. He is Bruce Forrester Jr., formerly known as Klark Kent (alias "Man of Steel"). Bruce is selling, among other weird devices, something called the Multi-Wave Oscillator. The propaganda sheet tells us that it is "a remarkable healing and rejuvenation device used primarily on cancer patients". Yet at the bottom of the same page it says in caps: "This device is not for any healing or medical purpose. All persons buying or using this MWO must be in good health." So why buy it? Ask Bruce, at P.O. Box 55, Bellbrook Ohio 45305. Say Jim sent you!...

Moving on - the Fall running of Pat Marcattilio' s twice-yearly conclave took place on October 12th & 13th, as usual in the in creasingly run-down Days Inn of Bordontown, New Jersey - near Trenton. This time the event was entitled "The Great UFO & Earth Mysteries Congress of 2002".

The show was indeed better than usual - with a somewhat larger attendance and better-qualified speakers, at least four of whom have real Ph.D.'s. Drs. David Jacobs and Bruce Maccabee are well known to UFO fiends, but the other two, Ers. Paul LaViolette and Tom Van Flandern are new on the saucer circuit.

LaViolette seems to be saying, among other things, that the signals sent out by pulsars are artificial, which we question; but Van Flandern made a very good case that the notorious Face on Mars, and other markings thereon, really are artificially constructed. But not to worry; it happened over two million years ago, and thus the creatures that did it are long dead, hopefully. And Van Yiandren has no use at all for Richard Hoagland, who (as he stated pointedly) has no doctorate at all!

Other new speakers included our olde friend Daniel Cohen, author of countless science books, who gave a fascinating account of his falling-out, many years ago, with CSICOP in general and arch UFO debunker Phil Klass in particular. We were, however, astounded by a story Dan told about your "Smear" editor having asked him to research hybrid babies, back in the 1960s. It never happened, and no one was looking for hybrid babies back in those days'. On the other and, we were pleased to learn that Dan, together with other skeptics and non-skeptics alike, believes that James Randi's "million dollar offer" for proof of the paranormal, is pure bunk, i.e., not sincere!

Most interesting of the new speakers was psychic Ingo Swann, who rarely makes public appearances. Most of his talk was in the form of answers to questions from the audience; and though we couldn't hear many of the questions in the back of the hall (as no microphone was used for them!), we did like Ingo's answers, which were a sublime mixture of modesty and arrogance. Ingo was on the government's payroll for many years, and he taught the art of Remote Viewing to several selected people. Says Ingo, "I was the original remote viewer, and still the best". No doubt he is right about this (though we doubt if remote viewing is reliable enough to be useful to the military). The funding for Swann's experiments eventually dried up, partly because the government feared they would try testing telepathy, which if really successful, would expose all of their own evil thoughts! Egads!

Other speakers included your "Smear" editor (again pushing The Book), and Chris Styles, speaking on the classic Shag Harbor (Canada) UFO crash, which has never been solved in spite of much effort over the years. Sunday morning featured two New Age speakers named White Eagle and Reverend Jayne Howard, and these we skipped as sleep seemed more important.

In all these years Pat MarCattilio still has not mastered the art of timing his presenters and keeping them on schedule. Thus when Dr. Maccabee hung it up late on Sunday evening, there were barely a dozen people left in the lecture hall. But presumably they were enjoying themselves, and maybe that's all that matters!...

Incidentally, next year's NUFOC (our 40th!) will take place in the Los Angeles area and be hosted by famed New Age and UFO author Ann Rruffel. More details will be provided as the fateful date grows closer. We are hoping to drag William Moore of MJ-12 fame from retirement for this event, and there are likely to be other surprises. Stay tuned!


TIDBITS OF TRASH


FIASCO IN FLATWOODS - Special to "Saucer Smear" from Mike Gensler

A fun bit of fluff took place in Flatwoods, West Virginia, on September 12, 13 and 14. Though Mike Merchant and I were not on hand for Thursday night's candlelight vigil at the site of the 1952 Flatwoods Monster encounter, we did blow into town on Friday with the hope of answering the question: How can they drag out a Flatwoods Monster festival for three days when NUFOC's upcoming convention is only a one day affair??

The answers to this question are as follows: (1) The Festival marked both the 50th anniversary of the Flatwoods Monster encounter and the 100th anniversary of Flatwoods itself; (2) Artist Frank Feschino had gone to great lengths to mark the Monster moment (but more on that later); (3) Stanton Friedman was present and needed plenty of time to hawk his wares and hear himself talk.

We arrived at the geographic center of West Virginia and checked in at a new, sprawling Day's Inn conference center. A stuffed black bear was on hand to greet us in the lobby, along with a pile of publicity for the Festival - fliers, local papers, and a cover story in West Virginia's "Goldenseal" magazine. I was delighted to see this wave of public attention, and even more delighted to see that the local steakhouse had a Flatwoods Monster platter on its menu.

I left this pocket of Cozy civilization and, accompanied by Camera Eye Digital owner Mike Merchant, headed for the heart of Flatwoods itself. We drove around a bit and saw no signs of a festival other than a number of yard sales. It seems that half of the residents of Flatwoods had adorned their yards with piles of marketable debris, hoping to take advantage of the festival traffic through town (one assumes). But traffic was minimal on Friday. A handful of locals had set up lawn chairs on Main Street and were watching a bluegrass band perform in front of an old general store.

Inside the general store, inflatable green aliens ($2) were stacked up in front of a window, flanked by issues of "Goldenseal" ($5), Flatwoods Monster lanterns ($25), and "I Survived the 50th Birthday of the Flatwoods Monster" T-shirts ($7). Around the corner from all of this commerce was a smaller room wherein Frank Feschino had set up a Flatwoods Monster museum - a series of wall displays on posterboard (blown-up copies of Project Blue Book reports, maps of area sightings, clippings about the Flatwoods monster encounter, and Frank's own rendering of the Monster as described by star witness Kathleen May), tacked to the walls. Yellow "caution" tape ran parallel to the displays, presumably to keep the crowds away from the art. Merchant gave Frank credit for putting a great deal of effort into the "museum", while I commented that the whole thing looked like a junior high school science fair project. When he was done laughing, Merchant said, "I sure hope he gets an A!"

Meanwhile, things were getting tense outside. The bluegrassers had commandeered the stage and weren't surrendering the microphones to the square dance band. The controversy appeared to be more significant than any debate about the Monster. We took in some old time Appalachian music, then retired to the hotel (where we watched "The Night America Panicked", an old made-for-TV movie about Orson Welles' famous 1938 broadcast of "War of the Worlds".)

Saturday morning brought rain, which was troubling because we had come all this way to view the Flatwoods parade and damn if we wanted anyone to rain on it! In the meantime, we strolled through the museum again, only this time Frank Feschino and Stanton Friedman were on hand, along with Kathleen May and a film/photography crew who ran around acting like they were from CNN and had just landed the hottest scoop on the planet. Merchant was casually filming the affair when he was ordered by one particularly pretentious prick to turn his camera off!

Bad vibes began to build up; then Stanton Friedman started regaling a local woman with statements about his extreme credibility as a saucer researcher. "I can handle skeptics", he said, and "I can see them coming. I have answered 40,000 questions in the course of my career..." blah blah blah... We pictured Stanton hitting on women at the Days Inn lounge ("Hey, babe, have I shown you my MJ-12?") and any plan I had to chat with Friedman at length was cut short by his absurd self-adoration, along with the fact that he had the nerve to sell photocopies of Project Blue Book Report #14 for a mere $23! (Friedman lectured on Thursday evening, and was apparently the only out-of-town speaker - Editor.)

In contrast to Stanton was the well-intentioned folklore geek Frank Feschino, who stated that his research into the Flatwoods Monster had unearthed some startling new evidence, but the only outcome of these revelations seemed to be Frank's own paintings (limited edition, $20). There was no new evidence about the objective existence of the Monster itself. Instead, Frank had re-interviewed key witnesses and came up with his own notion that the "monster" was actually a ship of some sort. Fascinating. Several locals scoffed at the museum display, apparently still convinced that Ms. May actually saw a barn owl on that 1952 night, while an all-too-open-minded woman took in Frank's paintings and exclaimed, "Seeing really is believing". I can't imagine what she thought she saw, or what she walked away with in terms of a Belief.

The rain stopped and the festival climaxed with a parade - a marching band, the local baseball team, antique cars, bikers, honking trucks, and, at the head of the parade, Frank Feschino in a trailer with Kathleen May, his own life-sized painting of the Flatwoods Monster, and a bevy of kids in alien costumes. Everyone loves a parade, it seems, and my favorite parade offering was this bit of literature thrown at me by the occupants of the Flatwoods Baptist Church float: "Fifty years ago, some claim they saw a flying saucer land in Flatwoods. Others say it was a meteor, still others say it was nothing at all. But this one thing I know, that one day soon, coming in the clouds, Jesus Christ will call his children home." It seems we all have our pet myths to promote, eh?

Though the festival was fun and cheery in a very quaint way, there was something a bit sad about it. Maybe it's the sagging urgency of UFO lore or folklore in general; maybe it was the low attendance; maybe it's that feeling you can't avoid in West Virginia - that here is a beautiful land forgotten by both time and economics...maybe it was Stanton Friedman! Oi vey!

Editor's Footnote: Good ole Stan Friedman! He is the best there is at what he does best: He is a saucer salesman! Kind of like a vacuum cleaner salesman, and as such, he has no equal. His roles as saucer researcher and (former) nuclear physicist are secondary!


Pflock Ptalk - FUN SAUCER MYSTERY FACTS (FIRST IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES)

by Karl Pflock, Our Contributing Editor & Fifth Columnist

We begin with a consideration of what Kenneth Arnold, The Man Who Started It All (damn/bless him!), repeatedly told press and public about the shape of (his) saucers.

Even the greenest saucerer knows Arnold didn't coin the term "flying saucer". As he told the "Missoula (Montana) Sentinel" on March 9th, 1950 (reported on March llth), "When military officials asked me how they flew, I told them that they seemed to be bouncing around...like a saucer skimmed across the water. The press started calling them flying saucers."

So it was that the public had an almost instant mind's eye image of the shape of saucers: They were round, disk shaped, or close to it. Saucer scoffers have made much of this, asserting this bit of journalistic hyperbole caused people to see things as disk shaped when they weren't, creating a bogus mystery phenomenon. I don't buy this, but that's a matter for another column.

For his part, Arnold made it very clear his saucers weren't round. From the "East 0regonian", July 17th, 1947: "In describing the discs, Arnold maintained that they aren't circular. he ones he saw were semi-circular with a shallow V-shaped trailing edge."

And then there was his April 7th, 1950, interview with famed radio-TV newsman Edward R. Murrow (from a transcript published by CUFOS in 1984):

"MURROW: Here's how the name 'flying saucer' was born.
"ARNOLD: These objects more or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very rough water.... and when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion.
"MURROw: That was an historic misquote..."

You can say that again, Ed! Now we turn to a mystery that's shockingly close to home:

On the night of April 27th, 1950, one of the Classic sightings took place high in the air over Indiana. Aboard their DC-3, TWA pilots Robert Adickes and Robert Manning encountered a huge saucer, glowing like molten steel. After zooming up from behind, the UFO flew formation with their airliner and performed various amazing maneuvers. The stewardess and most of the 19 passengers also saw the saucer before it sped away into the night!

Donald Keyhoe interviewed many of the witnesses (see his "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" and article in "True", August, 1950), but five of the passengers, their addresses and first names unknown, remained in the shadows - among them a man named Moseley!

Smearmeister Jim Moseley interviewed Adickes in 1953 (see our "Shockingly Close to the Truth!") But did he know more about the case himself than he's ever revealed, to Adickes, to me, or even to Gray Barker?

When are you going to come clean, Jim Moseley?


MISSIVES FROM THE MASSES:


PULLING BY PLONKER: Two martial arts experts in Taiwan have set a world record by pulling an 11 ton lorry 12in (30cm), using their penises. The masters of Chi Kung performed the test of strength before a large crowd in preparation for their attempt to pull an aeroplane by the same method. A week later, the masters were joined by four others, and they used their penises to pull the truck 3ft (1m) with 80 people on board. Metro, 23+30 Oct; Brisbane Courier Mail, 31 Oct 2000. FANTASY ISLANDS: The New Zealand government may have to recognise the Jedi (the movement that leads the struggle against the Empire in Star Wars) as an official religion. Fans have launched an email campaign to encourage people to claim Jedi as their religion on the country's latest census form. If 8,000 people back the campaign, officials must recognise it. Sunday Times, 11 Mar 2001.


We guarantee that every dollar you donate to "Smear" will forever remain out of the hands of terrorists, anarchists, Free Thinkers, and other Undesirables! Every cent of your Donation will go to our own personal use, for necessities such as Scotch, Gin, Rum, and Coca-Cola. Make your check or money order out to the editor personally. Two E's in Moseley, please, though one will do!
Saucer Smear Index
Saucer Smear Mailbox
Please note that letters for Smear editor James Moseley should be snail-mailed to PO Box 1709, Key West, FL 33041, insofar as Cdr. Moseley is proudly computer-illiterate and determined to stay that way.

Own a genuine artifact of ufological history!
Line your birdcage for pennies a sheet!
Back issues available for the last 46 years!


HTML version by S L M