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!

• MISCELLANEOUS RAVINGS
• Pflock Ptalk - AND THE MAD COW JUMPED OVER THE MOON
• ANOTHER BRIEF BOOK REVIEW
• LETTERS TO YE OLDE EDITOR

• There was, unfortunately, a Big Error on the masthead of our last issue. For some unknown reason we gave the year as 2002 rather than 2003. Also, we omitted the Whole Number, which was 366. (This is the total number of issues published since we began, in 1954.) The masthead on the present issue, above, is hopefully correct ....

• We sincerely appreciate the Dedication to our Cause expressed by all those who renewed their non-subscriptions to "Smear" after receiving an "X" on the label of the envelope containing the December 1st, 2003 issue. We have decided to give a (shudder!) Second Chance to those who failed to renew. Thus, if you see an "X" on this envelope, you know what we would love for you to do! May the Space People bless you, either way!...

• We have a truly unusual recent UFO report, coming from Kenny Young, the saucer investigator who was the local chairman for our 2002 NUFOC convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. The heading on the story reads "Screaming Sounds Firmly Linked to UFO Sighting" - which may not be accurate, as the screams may have come a few minutes later, from the same rural location.

  After various maneuvers in the sky, the UFO landed, or nearly landed, in an open field near a house from which it was observed for a period of several minutes by the occupants. Two young men later heard the associated screams, which were described as "a desperate, blood-curdling sound of a female voice that kept saying, "Help me, oh my God, help me'." This suggests an abduction in progress, but police who came a little later found no evidence of anything like that. The unidentified object was seen by several people at slightly different times and locations, and this may have included law enforcement officers.

  The date of the sighting was the evening of November 30th, 2003, and the location was near Morehead, Kentucky. One of the key witnesses was a college professor named Dr. Virgil Davis, who teaches at the University of Kentucky. He gave a calm, rational account of what he had seen over a period of several minutes. He did not, however, hear the screams.

  Egads!...

• One night around October 6th of last year, an apparent fleet of seven flying saucers crossed over the city of Heilbronn, Germany, and was visible in the sky for about fifteen minutes. They flew in formation, and exuded an "unearthly, orange-red glow", according to witnesses. The only trouble was, they were merely balloons, made of kite paper, and the flying formation was due to the wind. The perpetrators are identified only as "a group of ufologists". Hopefully no one from MUFON or any other reputable(?) UFO research organization took part in this outrage! (Our thanks to non-subscriber Dean Zevchek for this one)...

• Karl Pflock has passed on to us a fascinating item about an intended expedition to the Inner Earth. A man named Steve Curry, who lives in Utah in the heart of Mormon country, has a long history of organizing difficult, offbeat expeditions of all kinds. In turn, some of the Mormons have a history of belief that human-like creatures exist in the Inner Earth, and there is even a sun down there, and maybe even flying saucers.

  The expedition in question is scheduled to take place from June 26th to July 19th, 2005. Why the long delay is not made clear. Curry will charter a nuclear icebreaker and go to the North Pole area, looking for an opening. There is a capacity for 108 passengers, and the cost will be about $20,000 each. There is, of course, no guarantee that they will find any opening, but in any case it should be an exciting if frigid trip. We do not intend to sign on!

  Legend has it that the late Admiral Richard Byrd flew through the Inner Earth in 1947, and kept a diary of the trip. Only a few years ago, a supposed nephew of the Admiral was promoting this line of belief in California, in tracts and lectures. We knew Harley Byrd, who has since disappeared, but probably not mysteriously...

• We have already told you about how the science fiction TV channel is pushing for the government to release more UFO-related information. Now, in a similar news release, we learn that they are also bringing together the major UFO investigative organizations in a multi-group effort to study the physical evidence associated with some flying reports. "This unprecedented initiative" (according to the public statement) brings together all of the major UFO groups, namely the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS); The Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR); The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON); The National Aviation Center for Amomalous Phenomena (NARCAP); The National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS); and the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). (The Roswell Museum is not included!)

  We can't help viewing all this with a cynical eyeball, as co-operation between major flying saucer groups has been tried again & again through the years, with minimal results. The latest effort was by Robert Bigelow of NIDS; but when the various groups found that Bigelow wanted a loud voice in their activities, due to the money he was providing, the whole thing quickly collapsed. Then we can go all the way back to the late 1960s, when Steve Barnett, then a stary-eyed ufological buff from Utah, tried to form something similar. He didn't even have any money to throw into the pot, and the effort got nowhere. In the years between, there have been countless other attempts. Egotism, adherence to pet theories, and plain nuttiness have been major factors in these well-intentioned failures. (Credit: Karl Pflock.)...

• Returning again to the Passing Parade, we note that famed author Charles Berlitz died on December 18th, 2003, at the ripe old age of 90. He was a grandson of Maximilian Berlitz who was the founder of a successful group of language schools. Charles served for several years as a U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and was the author of many books on language, plus several others on various world-wide mysteries. He owed much of his success to "The Bermuda Triangle", published in 1974, which sold over five million copies in hardcover, in several different languages.

  Berlitz was one of the early promoters of the Roswell myth. His 1980 book "The Roswell Incident", co-authored with William Moore, brought a vast amount of attention to an alleged spacecraft crash that occurred way back in 1947. A year later, Berlitz again collaborated with Moore to write "The Philadelphia Experiment-Project Invisibility". This involved a supposed military experiment in a Pennsylvania naval yard which had terrible unexpected consequences. The book was less successful than the one about Roswell, because the evidence was much less abundant.

  Your "Smear" editor was friends with both Berlitz and Moore, and for many years he was the only ufologist on good terms with both of them. (They ended up hating each other because of royalty disputes.) Berlitz lectured a couple of times at our National UFO Conference (NUFOC) annual conventions. He lived out his later years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was connected with the Graves Museum there. This is the museum to which your editor donated a large number of valuable pre-Columbian antiques in 1992. At his lectures, Berlitz always made sure to bring a heavy suitcase full of books to sell from the podium- even though he must have been an extremely wealthy man'. Charles Berlitz was very educated, urbane, witty, and European. He is said to have spoken a number of languages, himself. We don't know for sure, as we always conversed with him in English...

• The news item at the left is presumably a spoof, but we honestly don't know the source or date...

• In our last issue we wrote a bit about a young man named Chris Barker, who is a grand-nephew of the late, great Gray Barker of Clarksburg, W. Va. Chris located us on the Net (yes, "Smear" is on the Net, though we are not), and we had a long, interesting phone conversation with him. He promised to send us some photos of Gray together with your editor, in the old days, but alas - no photos have arrived, and we have heard nothing further from Chris. We don't know what went wrong, but we are quite disappointed!...

• This story is admittedly far removed from the UFO topic, but nevertheless may be of interest to our readers: One night last December, security cameras at Hampton Court Palace, near London, England, caught on film something that might be a ghostly visitor of some sort. It seems that someone or something kept leaving open one of the palace's five doors. This led to a series of surveillance photos of a man in a very strange costume, reaching out for the door handle! A palace spokeswoman insisted that the story was not a joke. They do have guards in old-fashioned costumes on duty at the palace, but their costumes are nothing like the one worn by the mysterious figure.

  The picture carried in newspapers at the time shows a man whose face appears unnaturally white compared to his outstretched hand. The area around him is strangely blurred. We don't want to try to reproduce the photo here, as there is not enough contrast to make it turn out well...

• Maverick ufologist Larry Bryant of Alexandria, Virginia, has recently petitioned his state court for a "Writ of Mandamus", to make them cease the practice of using churches for polling places. The principle, of course, is separation of Church and State, but this specific instance of it is so obscure & unimportant that the American Civil Liberties Union refused to be of help to him.

  Bryant is better known for his endless FOIA requests regarding flying saucer secrecy, and in that area he has had limited success. He has also gone after substandard nursing homes - a worthy pursuit - and no doubt has gone off on other tangents at various times. Our hat's off to Larry Bryant, the champion of Obscure Causes!...

  For those of you in search of new thrills, a brand new museum has opened in Portland, Oregon. It is billed as "the world's first museum of alien studies", whatever that means. Portland is a long way from the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico, so there shouldn't be any competition.

  In Portland, in additional to the usual photos, articles and models, there is a '3-D thrill ride, an adrenaline-producing video rollar coaster adventure, guided by a group of mischievous, oddly-attired aliens" It sounds like they are one-up on Roswell!

  Details can be obtained from the museum's director, a man with a Ph.D. in theology named Lawrence Johns, who can be reached on the (cursed) Net at: johns@athenapolis.com. Good luck in reaching him!...

• A search is under way for a location for this year's National UFO Conference, which will be our 41st annual event. Stay tuned!...

• The photo below shows a strange but not unduly mysterious creature, snapped while wandering the halls at the recent UFO Crash/Retrieval conference in Henderson, Nevada, near Las Vegas ....
  

Now, by "popular demand", Rick Hilberg has lurched forth with a sequel, predictably entitled "A Gray Barker Reader II". It includes the next five columns, from late 1958 and early 1959. The one we liked best, and actually read completely, was the May 1959 column, in which Barker goes into a lot of thrilling (?) detail about one of his trips to New York City from his home in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

Barker stayed with your humble "Smear" editor in nearby New Jersey (we were close friends for many years), and we went together on one of our several co-appearances on Long John Nebel's famed all-night radio show on WOR in New York - a "clear channel" fifty thousand watt station that was heard in 38 states, according to John. The program had really hooked many thousands of people, most of whom were middle aged to elderly shut-ins and insomniacs who were attracted to the offbeat - though most of John's shows were about more mundane subjects than flying saucers.

What we like most about Barker's commentary is not so much the mention of well-known ufological figures like George Adamski and Albert K. Bender, but the dredging up of UFO researchers who are now all but completely forgotten - like August C. Roberts, Dominick Lucchesi, Carlos Mentira, Douglas Hancock, Lee Childers (also known as Prince Neosom of the Planet Tythian!), Mike Mann, Reinhold Schmidt, Leon Davidson (who is still alive, the last we heard), and several others.

The tone of the whole column is that we all knew Important Things about a Real Mystery, and thus there is a genuine air of excitement about the whole thing. Barker's writing is not all that great (he reached his peak in a book called "The Silver Bridge"), and after all these many years it's hard for us to remember just how much of his material is true. There is obviously a good deal of "literary license", whatever the exact meaning of that phrase may be. Nevertheless, this is wonderful nostalgia for us older ufologists, and the book is well worth the humble price - eight bucks. Send same to UAPA, 377 Race Street, Berea, Ohio 44017.

The latest Mad Cow Disease scare (yawn) inspires me - with thanks and apologies to Dave Perkins - to give over my first column of '04 to an alleged Expert on the subject, the infamous and much maligned Kurt Peters. While Kurt enlightens, I'm going to make a couple of cheeseburgers for myself and my other house guest, Commander-Doctor Zork, Reticulian Space Navy Exo-Veterinary Corps. Take it away, Kurt!

A recent report from the semi-mysterious National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS) attempts to link animal mutilations with the emergence of Mad Cow-related and human "prion" diseases. NIDS "speculates" that mutes are part of a monitoring operation conducted by "an extremely knowledgeable organization" to determine the extent of spreading prion diseases. Moreover, the mutilated carcasses are left behind as a "brutal warning" that "the human food chain is compromised". Shudder!

Although the term "UFO" appears nowhere in the report, we're told the unknown perpetrators are so advanced that "the evidence points away from the (U.S.) government". Hmmm... Who, pray, is better equipped, more sophisticated, and able to act on a global scale unapprehended for 35 years than a government that's kept Roswell under wraps even longer?

The NIDS report also correlates outbreaks of prion diseases and mutes and plots parallel timelines for their spread. It goes on to assert that the huge 2002 wave of mutes in Argentina was "an emergency monitoring program" to test for prion diseases there.

But the really scary claim is that, through a massive invasion of our food chain, these diseases allegedly have jumped to humans in a big way, with hundreds of thousands of Alzheimer's sufferers actually being misdiagnosed victims of a human variation of Mad Cow Disease. Eeek!

All this reminds me of Phillip Duke and his "theory" that AIDS was developed by aliens to decimate the human race in preparation for the Big Takeover. While NIDS is careful not to go that far, it does state that prion diseases are "the perfect stealth killer". But if "someone" knows we humans are on the brink of extinction and actually cares for some nefarious or benign reason, how long will they monitor the situation before doing something? As for the warning supposedly embodied (heh, heh) in the mute carcasses, how effective can it be if, like Crap Circles, only a handful of us can "read" it?

For those with a taste for entrails reading, the full report is available on the NIDS website: www.nidsci.org. As for me... Hey, Karl, Zork! Any chance of talking you guys into fixing another burger for me?

• We were surprised & pleased to hear from PHIL KLASS after quite a long Silence. He writes as follows:

  "Enclosed is my check to help underwrite the cost of 'Saucer Smear', which I find more interesting than its three competitors to which I have paid subscriptions.

  "Reference Jerry Clark's e-mail comment to Karl Pflock, it reminds me of Clark's August 1978 comment about Ufologist W. Todd Zechel, in 'UFO Report': 'At this moment in history, it's distinctly possible that W. Todd Zechel is ufology's major figure'. In a letter from Jerry Clark dated September 12th, 1978: 'Those of us who know him personally...know him to be a man of great personal decency and uncompromising integrity.'

  "Within a year Jerry Clark would drastically revise his assessment of one of the biggest 'con men' in ufology, as my investigation had revealed. In his letter of July 23rd, 1979, Clark wrote: 'Zechel and I have long since parted ways and for many reasons I no longer consider him an individual of "great personal decency"...' A year later (July 15th, 1980) Clark wrote: 'You and I have disagreed about many things in the past, but you were dead right about Zechel. If I'd listened to you, I'd have saved myself a hell of a lot of heartache...'"

  Zechel is still out there somewhere, but he has largely retired from ufology. - Editor.

• WILLIAM (BILL) JONES, a real wheel in Ohio ufology, writes:

  "We want to see you continue with 'Saucer Smear' for many years to come. Every copy I receive goes to a large, ever growing UFO collection at the Ohio State University. It is a permanent non-circulation-designed collection that will help preserve our literature for research purposes for years to come. Keep us in mind for duplicates or unwanted UFO journals, newsletters, magazines and monographs. The help would be appreciated... Keep up the good work!"

  Jones can be reached at: Box 139, 829 Bethel Road, Columbus, Ohio 43214. - Editor.

• Non-subscriber SCOTT BOND writes:

  "...I have enclosed a check for this year's Free Will Offering of the Monetary Kind. Put it to good use and keep them 'Smears' rollin' along. I look forward to each and every one...

  "On a more serious note, I was truly appalled at the low turnout for this year's NUFOC convention. I'm sure this was very discouraging to you as well as my fellow nonsubscribers, but - the Last NUFOC of All?? If you don't already have one, please start a 'Say It Ain't So, Commander' file and put this letter at the top of the pile. I firmly believe you should go out with a Bang, even if it's a modest one, rather than a whimper! NUFOC has been a fixture in The Field for far too long to just let it die away without an official Last Hurrah. You are, after all, a living link back to the halcyon days of the forties and fifties when we were all watching the skies, and strange, weird and perhaps even wonderful futures seemed just around the corner! One more time for old time's sake - what do you say?..."

  We are hunting for a 2004 NUFOC site, but have nothing yet. - Editor.

• Our faithful correspondent CHRIS ROTH writes as follows:

  "In your last letter you wondered aloud as to when the next UFO flap was going to be. Coincidentally, soon after came the enclosed news story (from last Nov. 20th) which in my estimation is the first UFO sighting to make the national media in quite awhile though in these days of terrorist hijackings no one is calling it a UFO sighting, though that, by definition, is clearly what it is'. Note in the 3rd paragraph: '....Somewhere, somehow, someone monitoring a computer screen saw something disturbing on a clear blue late fall morning in the nation's capital' - i.e., a radar blip which caused NORAD to scramble planes over the White House. They're releasing very few details at the moment; who knows if it was or wasn't as anomalous as the famous blips over the White House in 1952!

  "Thanks also for the latest 'Smear'. It's sad to see Phil Klass departing from the Field. A golden age, or at least some kind of silver age, is ending in ufology. I've often thought future historians of the UFO topic will speak not only of the famous flaps of the '50s and '60s and the Golden Age of the contactees, but also of a Silver Age of the abductees in the '80s and '90s, and will wonder why the phenomenon seemed to evaporate after that. What happened last November 20th is an indication: Actual unidentified flying objects appear on radar near the White House and absolutely no one bothers to theorize that they're spaceships! You see, this would be the historical moment for any real aliens to arrive. They'd never even be noticed!..."

• Veteran UFO researcher GEORGE EARLEY writes:

  "...I wonder if anyone has done the math on John Lear's ufological claims: 10% of 275 million (our approximate current population) = 27.5 million people! How many Enterprise-type spacecraft with how many Enterprise-size transporter chambers would we need to pick up that many folks each and every day? And how many alien crew beings would be required to operate all these space vehicles? Doesn't anyone at any saucer gathering ever question anything?? (And saucer buffs wonder why John Q. and Mary Public display so little interest in the topic!)..."

• "COMMANDER Y" (real name known to us) writes as follows:

  "Well, another year of 'Saucer Smear' has come and gone. Enclosed you will find my non-subscription pledge for AD 2004. Alas, I too have fallen victim to the 'Bush Prosperity Boom' plaguing the country, so I'm sending what I can afford...

  "It has occurred to me that if our defense/technology companies can't see their way through a relatively low-tech systems modernization on time and on budget, how in the Hell could they ever be expected to actually re-engineer recovered alien spacecraft? That Kecksburg saucer, for example, would have been pretty busted up. After all, it tore into numerous trees and burrowed its way into a sizeable crater during its unscheduled(?) visit to southwestern Pennsylvania in 1965. So even if there were an Owner's Manual on board, who the hell could read it!?!?...

  "While I didn't reveal any secrets in my reference to the 'modernization' project, above, it's probably best to burn this letter once read'. Well, that may be going too far, but not by much. My employers have a decided lack of tolerence for humor of any sort, much more so when they have highly visible projects that are missing deadlines and are over budget. In the unlikely event any of the above is deemed suitable for reprinting in an upcoming 'Saucer Smear' please refer to me as 'Commander Y'. I believe the more desirable 'Commander X' and "Commander M' monikers have already been taken."

• Legendary abductee BETTY HILL, now 84 years old and battling cancer, writes as follows on her Christmas card to us:

  "Thanks for asking. My health is improving after seven weeks of chemo and rediation. All the best to you."

• "Actor, Spokesperson, & Voice-over Artist" BOB BARNES of Indiana writes:

  "Enclosed please find my check in payment of another year's 'non-subscription'. I never tire of your rants, raves, and ribaldry in 'Saucer Smear'.

  "I'm also enclosing copies of my latest UFO projects. I've worked for most of the year transferring old UFO-related tapes, cassettes, LPs, acetates, and even a couple of wire recordings onto today's digital media. The result so far is the three mp3 CD's I've enclosed for you.

  "Now, I know you're very anti-computer, anti-web, and probably still have a rotary-dial phone, but hear me out. This new technology allows me to cram up to ten hours of listening onto one CD! To listen, just drop it into most any computer with a CD drive or into a DVD player and boot 'er up...

  "Let me know what you think after hearing them, and gee - if you like 'em, you might drop a line or two into the next newsletter about 'em. At least I have bribed you with comp copies!..."

  Bob Barnes can be reached at 1570 Avon Place, Huntington, Indiana 46750.- Editor.

• COLONEL JOHN ALEXANDER of non-lethal weapons fame, who was formerly associated with Robert Bigelow and his NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science), writes us now from Afghanistan, where he is serving with something called the Office of Military Cooperation:

  "I recently received a copy of 'Saucer Smear' so I decided to write. We get to send letters free, you know. I thought you might like a non-report update: I have asked people here in Kabul about UFOs. Basically, they have no idea what I am talking about. Although George Knapp did ask me to check in on MUFON-Kabul, I don't think there is a need to rush to set up a local chapter!"

• Retired engineer GAINES CROOK (real name!) writes:

  "When the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, which led to the translation of the Egyptian demotic and heiroglyphic characters, it also had Greek characters for translation. I cannot imagine a similar instrument for understanding of the paranormal. There have been attempts to study the paranormal for almost 150 years, and the reults yeilded are so puny that it takes advanced statistics to locate the tiniest result above the 'noise'. At present, we have absolutely no tools to prove the paranormal...

  "UFOs are one of the most thought-provoking subjects I have ever encountered. The biggest problem is that 99.9% of the thoughts they provoke are pure garbage... Humans cannot conceive something that is not part of their experience, so they automatically put it in some familiar category. I had hoped to live to see some explanation to the UFO problem, but it will have to happen pretty fast, as I am over 80 now!..."

• JERRY LUCCI of anti-Roswell fame writes as follows:

  "...I recently read a book of the new MJ-12 documents, and let me tell you that ufoology is missing out on a great researcher - whoever put these things together really knows their stuff! Too bad they don't have an interest in real research!

  "On another front - what do you hear about our old friend Bill Moore? What is he up to these days?..."

  Bill Moore recently sent us a Christmas card with no handwritten message. Before that, the last we heard from him was early August, 2003. Is he mad at us for some reason? No one seems to know for sure! - Editor.

• The semi-mysterious figure known as CARLOS MENTIRA writes:

  "Dear Supreme Commander:

  "In your latest 'Smear' you hint darkly at the possible demise of your long-esteemed zine. Say not so! You have been at it for nearly fifty years - longer than any other saucer fiend - and that is quite a record to be proud of!

  'When you get too old and/or feeble to continue publication, why not turn the whole thing over to Karl Pflock? He being younger and far more handsome than you, could go on publishing for eons to come, or at least for a few more years!

  "By then the Space People may have landed en masse, to make Earth a paradise, as promised by numerous contactees of yore. (Even if this never happens - and it probably won't - it's still something to hope for!)"

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!

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