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!

• DIGGING ROSWELL - A Special Report by our Contributing Editor
• NEWS BRIEFIES (formerly TIDBITS OF TRASH)
• Pflock Ptalk - STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
• BRIEF BIASED BOOK BASHINGS
• LETTERS TO YE OLDE EDITOR

The 40th National UFO Conference (NUFOC) is now definitely scheduled for the weekend of September 6th & 7th at the lovely Beverly-Garland Hotel in Burbank, California. Scheduled speakers include Brian Boldman, the "angel hair" expert; MJ-12 researcher Bob Wood; Derryl Simms; Roger Leir; Donna Higbee; Terry Hansen; Rev. Harrison Bailey; and possibly legendary UFO researcher William Moore, coming out of many years of selfimposed retirement rom the UFO field. Also on the program are your somewhat-fearless "Smear" editor, and local convention host(ess) Ann Druffel. More details will be released as time goes by.

Incidentally, Ann Druffel recently had a mignificent write-up in the April/May issue of "UFO Magazine", in their "MUFON Personalities" column. We look forward to working with her as preparations for this grand conclave proceed!

According to Doleman: The dig site wasn't independently located by the UNM staff! Ufologists Don Schmitt and Tom Carey told them where to dig. Volunteers were provided by the SciFi Channel, among them the daughter of controversial Roswell figure Maj. Edwin Easley. Quoting Doleman, "She got pissed when nothing was found, and complained we were digging the wrong way."

Twenty-five "historic materials of uncertain origin" (HUMOS) were found and bagged. Doleman saw three of them: a "weird orange blob"; something like ribless "duck tape" (!); and "fibers", likely from the nylon ropes used to frame the dig area. Doleman is negotiating another contract with the SciFi Channel under which he would examine and - presumably on TV - report on the bagged goodies now locked away. Whee! Roswell lives!

• Book seller supreme Rod Dyke of Seattle, Washington, has gene to the trouble of figuring out the whole number for all of our zines since we began publishing way back in 1954. First there were 75 issues of the old "Saucer News" (some early ones under another title), followed by endless issues of "Saucer Smear" (some early ones under other titles). The whole number (=number since the beginning) for the current issue of "Smear" comes out to be #360. (Count 'em yourself!) Thus from now on, in deference to Rod Dyke's interest, we will carry the whole number on the masthead, in addition to the volume number (=Vol. 50, No. 4)...

• Famed author Erich von Daniken has written books that have sold more than 56 million copies, served time in jail for tax evasion, and spent the past thirty years or so trying to convince the world that our most famous ancient structures were built by creatures from another world.

  Now old Erich is about to open an interplanetary theme park near Interlaken, Switzerland, and the project is backed by Big Bucks companies like Coca-Cola. The park will have domes, temples and pyramids, set bizarrely in the midst of plush Alpine scenery, and is expected to attract a half million tourists a year!

  Von Daniken won't reveal how big the cost is, or just what his own financial interest in it will be. But there will even be a recreation of England's Stonehenge, and of the infamous group of lines & patterns on the desert near Nazca, Peru. The fun will begin in just a few weeks, so stay tuned! (Credit: Tom Benson) ....

• Leu Farish's "UFO Newsclipping Service" always includes a section of articles from South America, translated into English. There are UFOs and cattle mutilations galore, and recently (August, 2002) this very strange story told by an Argentine rancher named Raul Dorado: He was examining his property when he heard a noise like a whirlwind and saw a strange craft descending over him. It whisked away his cellphone and left him temporarily unable to speak. The object nearly landed, only a few feet from the frightened man, and it appeared to be a "flat three-legged apparatus". A medical examination later revealed only one small but mysterious puncture on a finger. His ability to function as a normal human being came back gradually...

• Remember our item in the last issue about an act in the New Mexico state legislature designating every second Tuesday in February as "Extraterrestrial Culture Day"? Well, it was reworded as a "non-binding memorial" rather than an act or law, and as such it was actually passed by the state house of representatives. Where is Larry Bryant now that we need him? He should be jumping up and down with joy!...

• In an interesting footnote to ufological history, we learn (via "The Anomalist" & Karl Pflock) of the death of Norman Muscarello at age 55. Does that name ring a bell with any of you old-time saucer fiends? Norman was the fellow who made the initial UFO sighting that led eventually to John Fuller's best-selling book, "Incident at Exeter". At one point, the Muscarello story made national headlines. The sighting was on September 3rd, 1965. Norman was hitch-hiking toward his home in Exeter, New Hampshire, when at about 2 a.m. he noticed mysterious pulsating lights which moved toward him ominously and then disappeared suddenly. He ran off in a panic, and the same UFO reappeared, casting an erie red glow on a neighboring house. He eventually got a passing motorist to take him to the Exeter police station, where he told his story. He then learned that similar sightings had been called into the station house from nearby Hampton Beach.

  There followed a period of frenzied attention from the media, but Norman never made a dime from his story. Eventually the publicity died down, Norman MuscarelIo went on to serve three tours of duty in Vietnam, and he then lived a pretty average life thereafter. His younger brother remembers him fondly, according to the article...

• Well-known pro-Roswell writer & lecturer Captain Kevin Randle writes, on the Net: "My National Guard unit has been activated so that I am now full time in the Army... As for Stanton Friedman, who once asked if I have ever been on active duty as an intelligence officer, the answer then, as it is now, is yes."...

• We often chuckle at the strange opinions expressed by UFO bookseller Bob Girard, usually on Page 3 of bis monthly catalogues. (Karl Pflock calls this "the whining page'!) In his March 2003 rant, Girard has outdone himself in a diatribe against President George W. Bush, whom he calls "Dubya". If there is a legitimate point here, as there well may be, it is completely obscured by the excessive rhetoric. We quote his ravings in part:

  "...Dubya is a committed tool of the corporate cabal. He willingly faces the public as a functionally illiterate moron, ignorant of even the basics of history, psychology and economic theory, an emotionless weasel incapable of feeling or of showing compassion. Do not underestimate his performance, for he knows quite well what his role really is: spokesperson for the vicious, greed-driven capitalists who will stop at nothing to achieve the prize which so many generations of greed-and-blood-stained skulkers before them worked so patiently to prepare. Completely under the manipulation of 'advisors' and perhaps under some kind of spell cast by the 'voodoo priestess' who serves as a visible prime mover of the agenda (now controlling her second generation of U.S. presidents], Bush Jr. is far more dangerous than his stupidity makes him appear... Carefully prepared ruin and social upheaval, waiting a thousand years for its moment, is suddenly at hand..."

  We wonder how Girard expects to sell books when he deliberately pisses off so many people!

• There's a new book out re-hashing the possible link between the death of Marilyn Monroe and flying saucers. Believe it or not, author Donald R. Burlson of Roswell, New Mexico (where else?), has come out with a title aptly called "UFOs and the Murder of Marilyn Monroe".

  The famous actress is generally believed to have died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills in her Southern California home. But Burlson argues that she was actually killed by U.S. government officials because "she knew too much about the Roswell UFO ccver-up".

  We don't swallow this one, but we do believe there's credible evidence that Marilyn was intimate with both former president John Kennedy and his brother Robert - but fortunately not at the same time!

• From the Net we learn (via Tom Benson) of an International Conference to be held in Russia, to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the "Tanguska Event" of 1908. Admittedly there is still no consensus regarding the cause of this tremendous explosion, which could have been a meteorite fall, a gas outburst, or even an alien spaceship. The Conference, scheduled for late June and early July, will take place in Moscow and other Russian cities, and even includes a side-trip to the epicenter of this mysterious event of long ago.

  Apparently this is not a typical UFO convention at all, as the sponsoring organizations include such groups as the Astronomical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; The Shternberg State Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University; and the Federation of Cosmonauts of Russia. But tourists are encouraged to come along. The total cost is said to be about $1,300, but undoubtedly this does not include the money necessary to get to Russia in the first place. Are any "Smear" non-subscribers interested in going? We don't promise to meet you there!...

• Next comes a refreshing new slant on Britain's long-running crop circle phenomenon: An article in "UFO Magazine" by Nick Redfern contains a long quote from a confessed circle maker named Matthew Williams. Not only has he confessed, he was once caught in the act, and charged with causing criminal damage to a field in Wiltshire, England.

  What's interesting, however, is that Redfern believes that all but the simplest crop circles are man-made, and he has gotten to know a lot of the people who create them. But far from being a cynic, Williams thinks that these man-made circles create an atmosphere for genuine paranormal events to occur. Says he:

  "My experience and research have shown me that hundreds of people I have spoken to have had what appear to be genuine paranormal experiences inside man-made crop circles. These range from witnessing balls of light to UFO encounters. I have even met people who claim to have met alien-type humanoids in the circles. The scope and variety of just what people can expect to experience from crop circles is complex...but suffice is to say that the circles bring out external paranormal forces and seem to help people tune into their hidden abilities..."

  

• Here's one of the most unusual UFO stories of all times: People in Lardal, Norway reported seeing a fireball explode in the night sky and fall slowly down to earth. But investigators think they have solved the mystery, after the charred body of a cat was found at the foot of an electrical mast. They believe that the unlucky cat must have touched a live wire somehow. What people saw was the cat exploding and falling off the mast! (Our thanks to Dean Zevchek for this one.)...

• Long-time "Smear" readers will remember David Huggins, the Hoboken, New Jersey artist who claims to regularly meet various kinds of creatures from another dimension while he is in a dream state at night. Some of his paintings are (gasp!) sexually explicit, but this one is milder. It is called "Just Talking". David is in the foreground conversing with a gray, while an insectoid creature and a naked alien lady lurk in the background. The painting itself is in full color...

Anyhow, Rick has taken 42 cases from various sources of that era, including our own "Saucer News", which began publishing in 1954. Annoyingly, he still refuses to skip even one line between stories, telling us that blank space is a waste! This habit makes the booklet harder to read! And there are no illustrations, except on the front & back cover.

In another annoying habit, Rick fails to number the 42 cases in the headings, but puts the item number (only) at the end of the write-up, as a reference to a source list on the back page of the volume. Awkward!

In his introduction, Hilberg mentions a brief UFO sighting he himself had in late 1960. He then proceeds to his 42 items. #2 is one we don't remember, and it's quite different from any sighting we do remember, from that decade or any other. It seems that two boys in Amarillo, Texas, were fishing when they spotted an object that they at first believed to be a balloon. As it came closer they were able to discern that it was shaped like a saucer and about 18 in. in diameter. It passed close to them and then glided slowly over a small nearby hill, where it actually landed! They noticed that the top and bottom sections of the disk were separated by a space (wasted space here!); the bottom part was stationary, while the top part was spinning, and had a little peak sticking out of it. It was blue-grey in color and had no visible connections or openings.

To make a long story short, one of the boys touched it, and the object "felt slick and hot". He bent over to pick it up, but the top section started to revolve, so he let it go. With a whistling sound it took off, spraying the boy's arm and face with some sort of exhaust. Later his arm and face had small warts and redness. No mention is made of any follow-up or adult witnesses.

For more of this sort of thing, send the usual eight bucks to UAPA, 377 Race Street, Berea, Ohio 44017....

Also on hand is another 60-page masterpiece from Tim Beckley' Global Communications (Box 753, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903), price not given. This is an 8 by 11 inch offering, and it is entitled "Planet X and the Coming of the Guardians". The author once again is "Commander X" who is either Beckley himself or one of his stable of underpaid hacks

This booklet asks several reasonable questions, assuming the text is even remotely based on fact. The back cover screams: "DIRE WARNING'. WILL A WANDERING PLANET STRIKE EARTH SOON? Is Our Planet Doomed- Or Will UFO Guardians Destroy 'Planet X' On Our Behalf?" Our answers to these questions would be no and no!

We do give credit to Beckley for grinding out thought-provoking stuff like this for lo these many years!

One of our fans has recently sent us this rare, obscene photo, showing your "Smear" editor giving the Ufologist of the Year award to John A. Keel, apparently at the 1967 National UFO Conference in New York City. That was way back, when we were still speaking to each other!

"Smear" before last, "reformed Adamskiite" Chris Allan touted former Center for UFO Studies chief investigator Allan Hendry's debunking of the statistics in the famed Project Blue Book Special Report #14, asserting Hendry had proved them "virtually worthless".

Actually, this effort in Hendry's generally outstanding and sadly little known and less read 1979 "UFO Handbook" accomplished nothing of the sort. To say it did is like saying "no evidence of the existence of the popularly-termed 'flying saucers' 'was found" in the results of the Battelle Memorial Institute study presented in #14 - as the U.S. Air Force claimed in its press release misrepresenting the then conveniently classified report's data.

Let's consider the facts.

Battelle assessed 2199 object sightings (a total of 3201 cases) received by the USAF from June l, 1947, through Eecember 31, 1952. As Air Force contractors, they were surprised and disappointed to find the percentage of Unknowns - UFOs - correlated directly and dramatically with the quality of witnesses and data. The better the saucer spotters and case data, the greater the percentage of Unknowns, and vice versa: 33.3% of excellent (71 of 213) and 24.8% of good (188 of 757) sightings, an average of 26.7%. were Unknowns (259 of 970); whereas only 13% of doubtful (103 of 794) and 16.6% of poor (72 of 435) sightings, an average 14.2%, came up UFO (175 of 1229). The overall average of unknowns was 19.7% (434 of 2199) - 21.5% of all cases analyzed (689 of 3201).

Attempting to "prove" these pesky UFOs were just a statistical subgroup of the Knowns (birds, planes, balloons, etc.), the investigators selected six reported characteristics - color, number, duration, shape, speed, and light brightness- and performed "chi-squared" tests on them. To their chagrin, in five of the six tests (light brightness came up ambiguous), they found that "the probability is less than 1% that the distributions (Known and Unknown) are the same". In other words, the odds against the UFOs being misidentified "mundanites" were, ahem, astronomical!

Hendry asserted that the content of the data as selected was such that use of the chi-squared test was inappropriate. Thank the gods, I'm no statistician, but given the limited number of characteristics Battelle picked for testing, Hendry probably was correct. However, all this means is that we ought not to hang our hats - or saucers - on this one set of results.

Instead, the more than just statistically significant proportions of Unknowns in Battelle's excellent-good box cries out for subjecting a broader set of characteristics to chi-squared testing and re-analyzing the whole body of the Battelle data using modern computers and statistical tools. The data are still available. Let's crunch and chi-square them and see what we get. Let's "re-do" all elements of the Battelle study, including the attempt to "build" a saucer model, and then add a few. Sounds like a job for the UFO Research Coalition, doesn't it? Count me in. How about you, Chris, and you, Mr. Hendry?

• Ace Flying Saucer Iecturer and (former) Nuclear Physicist STANTON FRIEDMAN writes as follows:

  "As usual, the February 5th 'Saucer Smear' had a lot of laughs. I just loved that saucer trike I am in. C. D. Allan complains that I didn't mention Hendry's negative comments about Blue Book Status Report #14. I don't happen to agree with him. I also didn't mention Dr. Bruce Maccabee's comments in the FUFOR edition of #14. I kept pushing #14 because so many in ufology don't seem to be aware of it, because its data negate many of the anti-UFO arguments, because it is the largest official study of UFOs ever done (3201 cases), and because it has categorizations, quality evaluations, & statistical comparisons. The better the quality of the case, the more likely it is to be an UNKNOWN. Duration was longer for UNKNOWNS than for KNOWNS. 240 charts, tables, graphs and maps adorn #l4. My edition includes the press release which demonstrates that the Secretary of the USAF was lying in his teeth about it! - 0nly $25, including priority postage!

  "Mike Gensler claims that PU (anonymous Prominent Ufologist) gave a fine synopsis of my work. The point of my letter was to demonstrate that PU was totally off base. My list of about 20 professional groups to which I had spoken pre-1969 (censored by Jim M.) showed that I had certainly done more than speak to college students and at UFO Cons. My comments about the Hill-Fish star map work surprised even Karl Pflock and proved that I was indeed involved. My list of investigations proved that the claim that I hadn't done any was false! I did not present a list of awards - only one, not even bragging about getting Jim's Ufologist of the Year Award twice. I didn't present credentials. I won a debate because the members of the Oxford Debating Society voted afterward. My team got 60% of the vote!

  "Matt Graeber's calling me ufology's most vocal cover-up huckster is appreciated. Showing blacked out and whited out classified documents impresses a lot of people, if not Matt. A little laughter never hurt. Kevin Henderson says I get paid for my performances. This is true most of the time. Ask MUFON and Jim and the Aztec Conference and Pat Marcattilio about their speaker fees. I will be giving two talks, 'Star Travel? Yes!' and 'Critiquing the Roswell Critics' in Bordontown, New Jersey, on April 5th and 6th, for Pat..."

• Our olde friend CHRIS ROTH writes:

  "...Miller Johnson's suggestion in the latest 'Smear' that Mothman sightings might be misperceived barn-owl sightings leads to another problem: As Whitley Strieber has shown, owl sightings are often screen memories for alien abductions!

  "I am zeroing in on finishing my book chapter, 'Ufology as Anthropology: Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult'. I promised a completed draft by the end of the month, and that still looks possible. I will be sending you a draft around the same time for your reactions and comments, or, depending on availability of your time, for your files.

  "Today at our local library is the monthly meeting of the local UFO interest group, UFO2U, and I will be there - the first time I will have attended a UFO-group event since moving to Milwaukee. I feel a bit like a recovered alcoholic hesitating at the door of the liquor store. But then again, one little drinkie-poo never hurt anyone!"

• Researcher BRUCE M. FORRESTER JR. writes:

  "Enclosed is a series of e-mails which resulted in my being dismissed from the Ohio State MUFON elected posts of Secretary, Treasurer, and Newsletter Publisher and Editor. Ohio State MUFON boss, Bill Jones, fired me because I wanted to invite the 'ground troops' to our exclusive 'Executive Council Meeting and Lunch'. Bectel corporate attorney Bill Jones is a good man and he is doing a fine job of whipping those By-Laws into tip-top shape, even if he is not exactly a charismatic leader.

  "So, feel free to make use of this material as you see fit. It might make for some juicy copy in the 'Tidbits of Trash' section (whoops! I mean the 'News Briefies')!'

  We have no comment on this interesting situation in Ohio MUFON. - Editor.

• ART WAND (not his real name, of course), writes:

  "Dale Rettig's letter in your Feb. 5th issue made me jealous. I've taken enough psychedelics to qualify for a psychiatric discharge from Society, but never made contact with anything more exotic than a tree. Then I smoked some good old-fashioned weed and discovered Crap Circles, evidently created by a mysterious creature called Bigass. There have been numerous sightings of Bigass in Washington,D.C."

• The semi-mysterious HARRY LIME writes as follows:

  "The Sixth Annual Aztec, New Mexico UFO Symposium was held on the weekend of March 21st-23rd, and was a delightful mix of small-town fun and Serious Ufology. Fears of bad weather (unfounded) and War kept paid attendance down to 75 or 80, about half that of last year. This was unfortunate. Unlike Roswell's annual non-crash fest, this event benefits a good cause, the town's public library.

  "Many were disappointed that 'Smear's' own Jim Moseley was unable to be on the program, but the show went on, featuring ten ufological celebrities. Some of the 'acts' were more interesting than others. Ufological audio historian Wendy Conners, who took Moseley's place on the program, played some fascinating and some boring tapes of such luminaries as Edward Ruppelt and, appropriately, Frank Scully. Bruce 'Gulf Breeze' Maccabee talked of the Hidden Truth about Project Twinkle, and occasionally tickled the ivories. (I preferred the latter.)

  "Event co-chairman Ted Loman presented a soporific film of his own production, featuring bogus saucer crashes, bogus witnesses to same, and bogus experts such as Wendelle Stevens. 'Smear' Contributing Editor Karl Pflock told us why he thinks the notorious 1952 Florida scoutmaster case was not a hoax. 'Historian' and ufological upstart Richard Dolan, author of the highly uneven 'UFOs and the National Security State', blathered about artificial intelligence and UFOs.

  "Stanton Friedman's inevitably not-so-new pitch was devoted to attacks on those who dare to question the reality of his beloved MJ-12. Yawn! Let us hope Jim Moseley can make next year's event and Friedman cannot!"

• Finally, researcher JOHN BARLOW writes, strangely:

  "I know that in the past you had an antique shop which you've lost plus apartments which are gone. Now apparently you've sold your home. And there's this cryptic comment in a recent 'Smear' that you'll soon be joining Gray Barker. All of this has really, sincerely, left me a bit worried about the Commander. I suspect you've been a lifelong alcoholic and possibly a smoker. Is all of this finally taking a toll on your health? I'm worried...

  "All of this may mean that the civilized world that you and I grew up with may be vanishing, if it ever existed. Profanity is rampant and commonplace. Women urinating for the camera is now the thing on video...Technology seems to be increasing while social mores decline. The list of these declines is endless..."

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