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!

• TIDBITS OF TRASH
• IN DEPTH DIATRIBES (a new category!)
• CONVENTION ROUND-UP
• Pflock Ptalk - JIM MCDONALD, WE HARDLY KNEW YE
• MISSIVES FROM THE MASSES

• We want to sincerely thank all of you who responded favorably to our recent plea for renewals. Our exact print circulation is Classified, but we can tell you that a significantly higher percentage of non-subscribers than usual sent Love Offerings in response to our request.

• As most of you know, "Smear" is on the Internet, even though its editor definitely is not. A very helpful fellow in Chicago named Steve Mansee puts the zine on the Net for us, and has done so since 1994. Recently we asked him for the Net circulation figures for the year 2003, and this is the essence of what he told us:

  A total of 8,597 people visited the web site. The range of people at different web addresses was 135 to 187 per day. The total number of hits for the year was 516,434. We don't really know what this means and how it compares with other zines, and we would be interested in commentary on this from our readers. By the way, the web address for "Smear" is: "a href="http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear">www.martiansgohome.com/smear....

• There's good news about veteran abductee Betty Hill, whose lung cancer appears to be in recession. Betty, now 84 years old, had her famous UFO abduction experience, together with her late husband Barney, way back in 1961....

• We learn that Barry Greenwood, publisher of "U.F.O. Historical Revue", will be folding his publication before too long, due to lack of interest. It's a pity, because Barry has dug up and researched a large number of obscure cases from olden times (late 1800s & early 1900s), some of which are very intriguing indeed. We will be truly sorry if he retires from the field!...

• At the other end of the circulation scale, UFO Magazine has just staggered out of another "reorganization" period, and is back on newsstands. That charmless couple, Don and Vicki Ecker, will continue to spew out their ghastly mixture of sensationalized trash.

  A really stupid poem on Page One of the February/March 2004 issue ends with: "And for Mosley (sic), Shermer, Karl Pflock and Phil Klass / Someday I'll abduct you, put a probe up your nose." They apparently wanted to say "ass" rather than "nose", but didn't have the balls!

  The trouble with the February/March issue of UFO Magazine begins, unfortunately, on the front cover, which contains a one-inch-high flaming red colored headline reading "There is no God". This is apparently an opinion expressed by space entities in communicating with our government. The secret-teller is John Lear, the now-retired airline pilot who has made indescribably outlandish claims for many years. The first "Lear Briefing" was in 1987, about the time that the first group of MJ-12 documents surfaced. Lear's claims involve underground alien bases; UFO crashes too numerous to count; animal and human mutilations; a treaty with the aliens allowing them to make a limited number of abductions in exchange for their highly advanced technology; etc.

  Lear recently updated his ravings for an appearance on the syndicated Art Bell radio show. (Bell has retired from the airwaves at least twice, but keeps coming back.) On the question of whether the U.S. government should reveal to the masses all they know about interplanetary matters, Bell answered no, and Lear agreed! So howcum they were together, revealing highly classified (if true) information over the radio? It makes no sense at all!

  The editors of UFO Magazine seem to be encouraging Lear without really endorsing him. Says publisher William Birnes, "We're going to be more inclusive in the kind of material we publish and the kinds of ads we take. Frankly, we need to expand so as to broaden our base. But we're still going to maintain an editorial skepticism..." Yeh, sure!

  There's plenty more material in this issue that will excite the gullible. To learn more about all this madness, write to UFO Magazine at their new address: P.O. Box ll013, Playa del Rey, Ca. 90295. Say Jim Mosley sent you, or better still, put two E's in Moseley just to be accurate!

• A New York Times article, kindly sent to us by Chris Roth, discusses one of the least known & least discussed of all Fortean mysteries. It is usually called the Taos Hum, as it is heard in the town of Taos, New Mexico, and other areas nearby. However, the vast majority of the population hear nothing! Scientific tests, though sporadic and ill-funded, have discovered no solution.

  The most common description of the hum is that it sounds like the low rumble of a distant diesel truck idling. Some people also feel a vibration, or simply feel the vibration with no sound at all. The minority of people who have this problem don't appear to have other hearing problems or to fall into any other neat category. A similar phenomenon has been experienced in recent years in other cities in the U.S. and around the world.

  In the 1990s, complaints about the humming sound in Taos reached Congress, and an investigation was conducted. The results were inconclusive, and the matter was soon forgotten.

  Gregory Speis, a senior electronic technician at the University of New Mexico, made a study of the complaints in one home, and found nothing he could prove. Said he: "I'm the kind of guy that believes in UFOs even though I've never seen one; and I would say this is not as provable as a UFO."...

• A lot of you will remember Todd Zechel, who was prominent many years ago with Bill Spaulding of Arizona, in the activities of CAUS - Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. They filed Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuits against the government, demanding the release of information regarding specific UFO cases. In some instances they were successful. Renegade lawyer Peter Gersten has also been involved in this, and currently Larry Bryant of suburban Washington, D.C. seems to be the loudest voice.

  Zechel eventually retired from the UFO field, having had what he describes as a mild stroke. Presumably he lives on a government check of some sort. We remember him in his earlier days, when his greatest achievement, in our opinion, was forcing politically conservative UFO debunker Phil Klass to actually admit he had socialized with a known Russian spy on more than one occasion. One of Todd's lesser achievements was running up a telephone bill of over two thousand dollars, when he was a guest at our apartment in New Jersey during part of the year 1977.

  Zechel retains the title of "Director of Operations, Associated Investigators Group" Many have speculated that this group consists entirely of Todd himself! Occasionally he "reaches out" with a phone call to us or an email to Karl Pflock, whose background in the Intelligence community seems to enrage the retired ufological warrior.

  Todd's most recent email to Pflock - too long to quote here in full - is entitled "Did Zechel Come Shockingly Close to Busting a CIA Covert Operation?" Zechel rambles on, furious enough to accuse Pflock of having (years ago) accepted Big Money in CIA covert funds from FUFOR (Fund for UFO Research), and then having disappointed the Fund by not endorsing the Roswell Incident as an interplanetary event. Zechel calls the Roswell Incident merely "the radar-reflecting disc strung from a cluster of six balloons launched from White Sands". This solution is Zechel's opinion, and is indeed shockingly close to the truth. Yet, he seems to be greatly peeved that Pflock apparently let the Fund down.

  We are not aware of any "vicious attacks" in "Smear" against Zechel or anyone else, and yet he raves on: "If Agent Pflock was part of a disinformation project designed to lead people away from the real (UFO) evidence, he did a masterful job. And credit him too for finally churning out a UFO book, abeit with the shameful grave-robbing hoaxer, Jim Moseley... Pflock uses whatever means are available to him, such as Moseley's 'Saucer Smear'...to launch vicious lie-filled attacks at me." It is apparent here that Zechel is off his medication, if any! (Our thanks to Karl Pflock for this item.)...

• In "a href="ss040110.htm#berlitz">our story in the last issue, we incorrectly stated that Charles Berlitz's book "The Roswell Incident", co-authored with William Moore, preceeded "The Philadelphia Experiment", also co-authored with Moore. More importantly, we failed to realize that although Roswell eventually became a much bigger story - as it still is today - initially the other book was by far the more successful of the two.

  In the same "Smear" article we also stated that Berlitz and Moore ended up hating each other because of royalty disputes. Moore takes exception to this. We stick by our recollections of oral statements made to us by both these gentlemen, years ago. Perhaps "cordially disliked" would have been a better way of putting it....

• A truly offbeat item: Famed psychic spoon bender Uri Geller of England purports to be a very close friend of singer Michael Jackson. Recently Geller is reported to have hypnotized Jackson and asked him about the persistent rumors that he has abused male children. Geller claims that, under deep hypnosis, Jackson deniedthe rumors and said: "My relations with children are very beautiful." Geller is sure that Jackson was telling the truth, but we aren't sure at all!

• In late January, the prestigious World Economic Forum held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, attended by about 2,300 global leaders, including 31 heads of state. Ordinarily this would be of little interest to "Smear", but this time there was a dinner seminar entitled "The Conspiracy Behind Conspiracy Theories: Have Extraterrestrials Made Contact With Government Leaders?" The seminar was closed except to forum participants. In other words, there is no reason to believe that there is or ever will be a publicly available transcript of just what was said. Presumably the real topic was closer to "How to Make Big Money from the Space Age", but who knows??

  Strangely, the story of this mysterious dinner meeting has received relatively little comment on the Net. The heading reads "Are ET and Corporations in Cahoots?", but there is no provable answer to this rhetorical question. The pro-UFO person chosen to comment on the matter, in the article we read, is none other than Richard Boylan, well- known to your Smear editor as the de-frocked California psychologist who lost his practice by indulging in a "hot tub massage" with a patient, and maybe also because of his extremist views about saucers. He is quoted as saying: "I've learned to live with insults. Billions of dollars have been spent to intimidate witnesses and use the giggle factor to put on a funny farm anyone who suggests corporations have privatized alien technology.

• As Boylan tells it, the ETs first came to Wall Street in 1947 by way of (you guessed it!) Roswell, N.M. It was in that year that the late U.S. Army Colonel Philip Corso said he found five aliens amid the buzzards and rattlesnakes at a UFO crash site in the desert.

  The new arrivals were just over four feet tall with Crayish-brown skin, four-fingered hands, and watermelon-size heads without hair. In his book "The Day After Roswell" Corso claims he salvaged parts of the downed UFO and managed a government-sponsored reverse-engineering program that farmed out the technology to various major U.S. corporations...

• The MUFON UFO Journal continues to entertain and amuse, and occasionally enlighten. The January 2004 issue contains an interesting editorial by MUFON International Czar John. Schuessler on the subject of alien implants, in which he basically concludes that since we earthlings have recently developed advanced implant technology, the aliens may well have done the same, on a much more sophisticated level. However, he admits that "the purpose of the implants and how they work is still the subject of speculation". This is most certainly an understatement!

  In the same issue of the Journal one finds an article by Dr. Roger Leir, a foot doctor reporting on his llth implant removal. The good doctor became involved in this although the alleged implant was in the abductee's mouth. Various anomalies were discovered during and after the removal, but Leir admits: "What does it all mean? To be quite frank, I would have to say we do not know..."

  Abuction stories are confusing enough, all by themselves, but when it comes to implants, the investigators seem to be just guessing! No one has suggested a detailed study of a control group of non abductees, chosen at random, to see how many of them have small peculiar objects embedded somewhere in their bodies. This. would be a tedious task, but it might (or might not) get rid of the suspicion that the implants removed from the bodies of abductees have something to do with the interplanetary experiences they claim to have had...

• We are most pleased to announce that the 41st running of the National UFO Conference (NUFOC) will take place somewhere in the Los Angeles area, some time in the early Fall - further details to be announced soon. The local sponsor is Dr. John Miller of San Pedro, California. He is a medical doctor who has been a life-long UFO buff and a close associate of author/researcher Ann Druffel, who sponsored last year's NUFOC convention in North Hollywood.

  Dr. Miller can be reached at: igornla@earthlink.net. He is very interested in input from "Smear" readers regarding forming a local working committee; speakers; publicity; etc. Let's make this Con. something to remember for a long time. Wheee!...

• In spite of the scarceness of really good UFO sightings these days, it seems there are more conventions than ever before! From the Net we learn of one being sponsored by Stephen Bassett, who recently ran for Congress, very unsuccessfully. Unlike John Lear and Art Bell, Bassett is openly & strongly in favor of full public disclosure regarding the flying saucer subject. His group is called Paradign Research, and his conclave is called the First Annual Exopolitics Expo- X-Conference- an odd title indeed. It will take place near Washington, D.C. on April 16th-18th, and includes 23 speakers, most of whom are very well known mn the UFO field. Wish we could be there!...

• Finally, there's the annual festival - some would say fiasco - in Roswell, N.M. It will again be on July 4th weekend, but the organizational structure has been changed. The relationship between the International UFO Museum, the local Chamber of Commerce, and the festival itself is a complex one, but the "bottom line" is that they all hope to reverse the trend toward smaller crowds of visitors in recent years.

  This year the theme will be the 1940s - as the Roswell incident is alleged to have occurred around July lst of 1947. There will be vintage cars, 1940s style clothing and music, and maybe even concerts by famous musicians. And, inevitably, Stanton Friedman will speak! Wish we could be there, and good luck to all involved in this folksy venture!

Ann Drruffel's "Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science" (Wild Flower, 2003, trade paperback, $34.00) is an important book. It is also a significantly flawed book. Despite its shortcomings, it is must reading for anyone with a serious interest in ufology and a knowledge of The Field and its history that is both deep and broad, the only defense against becoming insnared by the errors of judgment and fact littering the book's 623 pages.

"Firestorm" is a sprawling, repetitive, undisciplined morass, in which is bogged down a first-class 350-or-so-page personal and intellectual biography. Druffel, a lovely lady and ufological pioneer, has been ill-served by her editors at Wild Flower. They did not exercise the tough love that is the stock and trade of all good book editors, firmly keeping their author focused on the inspiring and tragic story of a brilliant, quixotic man who attempted almost single-handedly, and in vain, to bootstrap ufology into scientific respectability.

Instead, they allowed Druffel to lard up her text with irrelevant and marginally relevant and lengthy asides and dark allusions to conspiracy and coverup, most aimed at suggesting the Silence Group/MJ-12/the CIA/Them hushed up McDonald and NICAP, the UFO organization with which he worked most closely, and perhaps even were somehow responsible for McDonald's self-inflicted (Druffel: ?) death in June 1971. A minor example of this, required to be mentioned here by the Truth in Book Reviewing Code, is her unquestioning repetition of the allegation that Yours Truly arguably was a CIA plant at NICAP Headquarters, a canard that originated with that paragon of truthtelling W. Todd Zechel, and was "sexed up" by the ufological gossip mill.

There also seems not to have been any consistent copyediting or fact checking applied, leading to such minor problems as Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown being identified both correctly and as secretary of the army, and such very serious errors as this one: In text and a footnote on p. 60, Rcuffel asserts that in 1966 McDonald had been given official access to the still classified "Project Blue Book Special Report 14", for which she gives the wrong date and which she says McDonald discovered was in some important respects different from the declassified version published in 1976 by Leon Davidson. When I read this, I immediately realized something was amiss: "Special Report 14" had been declassified in 1955 and its essential elements first published by Davidson the following year. McDonald died in 1971. Hmmmm.. I contacted Druffel and learned that the classified document in question was, as I suspected, actually the infamous Robertson Panel Report.

Similarly, a good many of Druffel's summary accounts of UFO sightings are inaccurate or, worse, tricked out with bogus mystery. One such is her rendering of the Socorro, New Mexico, saucer (?) landing of April 1964. In addition to a number of factual errors and overstatements, she includes the clearly false claim that, almost immediately after Socorro policeman Lonnie Zamora reported his encounter, a specially equipped U.S. government vehicle showed up at the site and wiped it clean. She also finds something mysterious in the fact that one of the first persons on the scene was an FBI agent (the guy just happened to be at the town police station when Zamora called in).

Unfortunately, the foregoing examples are but the tip of the iceberg. Thus my warning that "Firestorm" isn't a book for the ufological un- and ill-informed. But then there is that first-class personal-intellectual biography trapped inside.

Druffel, with the help of a grant from the Fund for UFO Research, spent years archiving McDonald's UFO files and papers, now held at the University of Arizona library. Through this work and tireless pursuit of interviews with family, friends, and colleagues of McDonald, she has become the authority on the atmospheric physicist's remarkable quest to crack the UFO mystery and to get mainstream science to take the subject seriously.

In "Firestorm", Druffel gives us an often exciting and moving account of McDonald's efforts, which coincided with one of the most important periods in ufological history, a time when ufology probably had its one and last best shot at gaining scientific respectability. Among many other things of considerable interest, she reveals just how close McDonald came to being named to conduct a UFO study sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, only to have this derailed by the air force decision to fund an "objective", "independent" university-based study, resulting in the Condon Committee fmasco. (Talk about an "if only..."!) She also establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that Phil Klass' charges that McDonald was misusing U.S. Navy contract monies for his personal UFO work were baseless and destructive misrepresentations. (Note to Gary Posner: Yes, she documents this.)

In sum, in recounting McDonald's personal struggle, Druffel portrays that of ufology at large and the clash of personalities and human foibles that have shaped our would--be science as we know it today.

In the course of this, we also come to know James McDonald as well as it may have been possible to know such a private person - difficult, single-minded, brilliant, abrasive, politically naive, and heroic. Ironically, those personal characteristics that gave him the courage to buck the scientific establishment and make such a major mark on and contribution to ufology seem also to have been the very factors that, along with the discrediting campaigns of such enemies as Klass and Donald Menzel, brought him up short of his goal.

If only...!

• Researcher KEVIN HENDERSON sends us one of the most ego-enhancing letters we have ever received, & which we greatly appreciate:

  "I hereby submit my yearly non-subscriber offering. As far as 'Smear' and yourself being in shitty financial times, that sucks and makes me very depressed. In fact, the day that 'Saucer Smear' ceases to exist is the day that Ufology exits the scene for every thinking person. You have done more than just be a 'court jester of Ufology' - you have also provided one of the only honest records of anything whatsoever to do with The Field, and I suspect your name and book will be remembered long after Budd Hopkins and his fraudulent ilk are but a depressing hangover memory for even the most deluded followers concerned.

  "Anyone, including MUFON, who ever protested your style simply resents that you have long been the guy at the bar calling spades spades, which you continue to do, which irks them even more. I have no idea what the UFO faithful think of your zine, but for anyone with half a brain and a sense of humor, 'Saucer Smear' is the only UFO journal that matters, period."

• Veteran ufologist GEORGE EARLEY makes a comment with which we agree strongly:

  "I note in your current issue that Phil Klass takes a poke at Jerry Clark for his long ago, one-time wrong-headed assessment of the importance of Todd Zechel to ufology. Of course, Mr. Klass can be similarly faulted for his initial and incorrect assumption that UFOs were some sort of natural plasma phenomena. We all discover, over the years, that some of our assumptions are wrong. Some learn from such errors and move on. Others remain unchanged. Both Klass and Clark have moved on, though Phil prefers to revisit the past when it suits his purpose."

• Long-time correspondent DENIS COREY writes:

  "Thanks for the latest 'Smear', which arrived yesterday. I enjoyed reading all of it, as usual. I paid careful attention to the last-page comments of the semi-mysterious 'Carlos Mentira'. He makes a good point when suggesting 'Smear' be turned over to Mr. Pflock someday. It would certainly make things easier on you. But maybe not. People would continue sending items to you and then you'd end up having to forward them to Karl! Either way, at least it's nice to know you have someone to carry on whenever you decide to mothball your typewriter!"

• Anthropologist CHRISTOPHER ROTH writes as follows:

  "...I was intrigued enough by your reference in the latest 'Smear' to one Steve Curry's plans to launch an expedition to the Hollow Earth - and by references to Mormon folklore about a hollow planet, which was news to me - that I tracked down his Web site. Most of it is a humdrum advertisement for kayaking and rafting trips which he charters. But the section on his Hollow Earth expedition has a very different tone. It goes so far as to promise that, once inside the hollow earth, expedition members can sail up the River Hidekkel 'to the City of Jehu, to meet the inner earth inhabitants...take an inner earth monorail train to visit the lost Garden of Eden located under America on the highest mountain plateau of the Inner Continent', and 'perhaps visit the palace of the King of the Inner World', who he claims is named King David and is descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Isreal. Mormonism per se is not mentioned, but it has the same Barnumesque smell. Something tells me there is a potential false-advertising lawsuit in here somewhere. But anyone who reads such ad copy and plunks down twenty grand for the trip deserves what they get!"

• ROB SWIATEK of FUFOR (Fund for UFO Research) writes as follows:

  "As usual, I find your monthly newsletter- oddball thing that it is - a useful font of UFO information and humor. Like a mother lode, once it peters out there will be nothing to replace it...

  "Here are a couple of observations from the year just past:

  "(1) The International UFO Museum and Research Center continues to impress me as an organization striving to set scientific ufology back five years every time it holds a conference or stages its wacky July fandango. My suspicions were buttressed after I was denied help with an important research project for not agreeing - in effect - to relinquish control of the project to the Museum. I'd suggest the Museum reevaluate its so-called commitment to research, or just forget the posturing and proclaim itself a boutique!

  "(2) The resolution to the UFO enigma won't come during my lifetime...In fact, we most likely have the basic solution at hand- a nonhuman intelligence - so our task becomes one of convincing everyone outside the field that we're onto something. Serious researchers might accomplish the latter feat, but they won't succeed in unraveling the why behind the UFO presence or the mechanism by which it travels/appears here. For that we need the Ph. Ds in the universities and the engineers in the corporations - and even they might not succeed. Are you ready to hit the lecture circuit again, Commander?..."

  We agree completely with Rob's basic thoughts in #2, above. We do not agree, however,that "Smear" is a monthly magazine. We have struggled all these years to make it clear that ours is a non-scheduled newsletter. - Editor.

• FRANK CONWAY, a very thoughtful researcher, writes:

  "I divide the ufological community into two camps: the Researchers and the Storytellers. As a scientist, I would like to identify myself with the Researchers- men like Jerry Clark, Bob Durant, Stanton Friedman and George Hansen. I know you love to make fun of these guys...but, far out as some of them are, at least they're trying to apply the Scientific Method to the resolution of an as-yet inexplicable phenomenon. They've had little uccess because - to put it bluntly - the real-world impact of the phenomenon is minimals. UFOs simply do not impinge on anyone's life (anyone who has a life, that is). That's the real reason for the Air Force's indifference to the subject; there isn't any "cover-up". There just doesn't seem to be any justification for spending money or manpower investigating a phenomenon of no consequence.

  "Also, many of the researchers, in frustration, have fallen into the philosophical trap of becoming True Believers (Roswell, MJ-12, etc.) When scientists start believing things, science goes out the window. When researchers in a largely unfunded field find that they can make a few bucks selling books or giving talks on sensational topics to a gullible public, intellectual integrity follows science - out the window...

  "Do I see a light at the end of the tunnel? .... I don't think so, Jim ... Ufology is and will remain marginalized for two reasons: One reason I have mentioned above: UFOs, while intriguing to some of us, have proven to be of no practical consequence to anybody. The other reason is that in 57 years not one piece of solid, irrefutable evidence as to the nature of UFOs - or their origins or purpose - has turned up... In five decades in a nation where almost everyone has a camera around somewhere, and videotapes of police beatlng up thugs are commonplace, why has no really good, clear, close-up, incontestably genuine photograph of a UFO or a UFO occupant ever emerged? Why do we get pictures of nothing but out-of-focus blobs or tossed hubcaps or lampshades suspended from a string? Talk about frustration! But I still have hope. Wait till next year, as we Philadelphia Eagles fans are wont to say!..."

• Researcher MILES LEWIS writes as follows. He, as you may recall, was in charge of the 2001 NUFOC - which got wiped out by the 9/ll disaster. Currently he is Director of the Scientific Anomaly Institute, 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, Texas 78704.

  "Dear Supreme Commander Moseley:

  "...I don't know what we would do without 'Smear'. I am always amazed at how much information I glean / grok from reading your monthly collection of verbiage - especially considering your lack of connectivity to the Great Beast System, the 'cursed' Net.

  "Part of the reason I've been unable to write you sooner is that I've been hard at work getting my new non-profit lending library and research institute off the ground. Long before taking responsibility for the ill-fated 38th annual National UFO Conference, I had dreamed of using my UFO and Parapsychology book collection as the foundation of a library and research organization. Modeled after the 30-year-old Archives for UFO Research in Sweden, the Exceptional Human Experience Network in North Carolina and other respectable research organizations, the original Anomaly Archives collections number over 1,000 books on UFOs, Mind, Forteana, and all points in between!...

  "The Anomaly Archives will begin publishing a quarterly newsletter within the next month or so. Ultimately, its lending library will expand beyond the local venue and be- come available to folks across Texas and then across the United States via snail mail....

  "Please let your readers know that the Anomaly Archives does take donations of money and materials. Enclosed you will find further information on the activities and goals of the archives. I hope you will promote us within the pages of 'Smear'. Please consider donating past issues of 'Smear' for archiving within our library...We are a non-profit corporation with the State of Texas and are in the process of getting our 501(c)3 status from the Fed, so donations will ultimately be tax deductible.

  "On a final note - I am worried by your assertions that the National UFO Conference (and 'Smear') may cease in the near future. WE CAN NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! You, and this historic conference must live on!... "

• Researcher DAN POLING writes:

  "Enclosed is my donation to your Cause, to stay on as a non-subscriber for 2004. I notice your book, 'Shockingly Close to the Truth!', is holding steady as the 263,738th bestseller on Amazon.com, which is where I bought my copy. Given the comments in your December newsletter about your financial situation, I take it that having a book on the bestseller list isn't as lucrative as it used to be. I loved the book, by the way. You are like so many alchemists, astrologers, and parapsychologists out there who have the distinction of getting to spend a lifetime studying something that doesn't exist! Unlike most, however, you've had a lot of fun doing it..."

A Bristol man, caught with 17,000 worth of cannabis, convinced a jury it was for personal use. The man and his partner chain-smoked joints to relieve paranoia, agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and light sensitivity. His name was Christopher Blow. D. Mirror, 23 Nov 2002

LOST LUGGAGE RETURNS A suitcase full of clothes belonging to a German hairdresser was lost by an airline after he went on holiday to Senegal in 1979. Twenty-four years later, in September 2003, it was found lying outside a police station in Dusseldorf. Where had it been? [R] 9 Sept 2003.

ALIENS A GAS A man, his wife and daughter in Yukhnov, Russia, were amazed when a flying saucer appeared outside their window. The man called his teenage son to warn him not to come home as there were aliens outside. Sceptical, the young man came home anyway, to find gas pouring from the kitchen stove. A forgotten kettle had boiled over, putting out the flame. Doctors said the family had experienced a mass hallucination brought on by the gas. Ananova, 23 Oct 2003.

WILLIAM POTOGI, 33, WAS GIVEN A ritual bath by a witch doctor in Paramaribo, Surinam, to make him bullet-proof. He asked the witch doctor's assistant to test whether it had worked and was shot dead with his own sawn-off shotgun at point-blank range. According to Ronal Gayadhar, a policeman: "Both men deny murder and claim Potogi died because he lacked faith in the spell". [AFP] 5 Sept; Sun, 10 Sept 2002.

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

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