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
• TIDBITS OF TRASH
• SMALL PLANE BROUGHT DOWN BY AN "UNKNOWN OBJECT", KILLING PILOT!
• Pflock Ptalk - BIGFOOT IS DEAD! (Part 1)
• LETTRES TO YE OLDE EDITOR

On Page 4 we erroneously referred to UFO researcher Jerry Black as Jerry Brown at one point, though we corrected this in the remainder of the story. On Page 5 we called Antonio Huneeus "a second-strong lecturer", instead of "second string". And, in an unintentional pun, we stated on Page 3 that astronomy buff Richard Hoagland was given a metal from a Swedish institution, rather than a medal. (Maybe it was a metallic fragment from a flying saucer!)

Keep those cards & lettres (intentionally misspelled) rolling in, and please continue to send us items from the Net and elsewhere which you think would fit into our format. We will even give you credit in our zine, sometimes. Our special thanks to graphic designer Miller Johnson of Albuquerque for the "U.F.O. Museum" cartoon in this issue.

The highly unusual National Transportation Safety Board account points to unidentified red marks on the severely damaged nose and front belly of the plane, and takes this as evidence that it hit another object in mid-air. Agency officials stated that they do not know of any other accident in their files that states "collision with an unknown object"!

Thomas Preziose, the 54-year-old pilot, was of course killed. Preziose was an experienced pilot, and had worked for the New York City Police Department and as an instructor on the Cessna 208 for the Pan American Flight Academy in Memphis. He had flown the same route numerous times. An autopsy revealed no drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

Various theories were explored as to what known aircraft could have caused the collision, but after careful research none were found. There is a possibility that a drug smuggling plane was involved, but there is no direct evidence of this. No one at all mentioned "space ship", by the way!

For some reason this case reminds uf of the classic 1948 death of Kentucky National Guard fighter pilot Captain Thomas Mantell, while chasing a UFO at high altitude. There are those who believe Mantell was "zapped" by the object, whereas the more likely explanation is that the thing was merely a then-classified Skyhook Balloon, and that the unlucky pilot blacked out from lack of oxygen. As in so many UFO instances, it is impossible to find a solution to the Mantell case that satisfies everyone. (Our thanks to K.P.)...

Tim Beckley (left) of Glocal Communications and parapsychologist George Hansen pose with two of Bob Durant's famous "Roswell Girls" at Pat Marcatilio's last UFO extravaganza in New Jersey this past March. Note the UFO in the background! (Photo courtesy of Frank Conway)

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• An item from Whitley Strieber's website speaks of recent confirmation of Ed Walters' notorious UFO activities in Gulf Breeze, Florida in the late 1980s. The confirmation is in the form of a very similar saucer photographed in Venezuela in 1990. We doubt if this proves anything, one way or the other.

  Most intriguing is a paragraph stating. "Ed Walters was unjustly dismissed by a press eager to follow the lead of Air Force Office of Special Investigations operatives and a CIA officer who had taken over the Gulf Breeze MUFON". We immediately wondered who this "CIA officer" might have been, and sure enough he turns out to be (in Strieber's opinion, apparently) retired Colonel Rex Salisberry.

  Salisberry never "took over the Gulf Breeze MUFON". His Sin was writing a negative report on Ed Walters' claims & photos, after having been appointed by MUFON czar Walt Andrus (since retired) to do an investigation of same. All the True Believers, such as Donald Ware, saw this as a betrayal rather than an honest assessment - which it was, in our opinion. Thus Salisberry then sank into the depths of official MUFON Rejection, from which he has never emerged! (Our thanks to Rob MacGregor for this one.)...

• Steven Bassett, a leading political proponent of UFOs, has been in the news a lot lately. As head of Paradign Research Group (PRG), he recently sponsored a successful event called the X-Conference near Washington, D.C., in mid-April. Having run very unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002, Bassett is now trying to make the final cut to get onto a new "Reality" TV show called "American Candidate" - where a group of 12 contestants will "run for president", with the viewers doing the voting. At this time several hundred prospective candidates are being considered for the final 12. Perhaps, in the unlikely event that Bassett is the winner at the completion of this TV series (around the end of summer), he could then call himself PRG-12 or even MJ-12!

  We have looked at Bassett's position statements on various matters, including, of course, the flying saucer controversy. The only thing we're sure we agree with him about is the war on drugs. He is against it...

• Peter Gersten, whose Web address starts with "ufolawyer" (as he once was a real lawyer in New York City), is more on a metaphysical kick than a political one. Says he, among other recent ravings: "During the 'end-times', the period leading up to the 'Singularity', there will occur a specific scenario in our solar program involving both a catastrophic event (2004-2006) that will threaten our survival, and the arrival (first-contact) of an 'extraterrestrial' intelligence (6 to 12 months after the threat) to save us."

  We have brushed off ufological predictions for nigh onto fifty years now, and we don't intend to let this one get to us. But on the off chance that Gersten is correct, remember that you read it here first!...

• Former UFO researcher William Moore and your "Smear" editor have had further correspondence recently and have agreed to "bury the hatchet" and remain friends. Moore prefers that we not discuss him in our zine, and we will cease doing so unless he (a) has a vivid abduction experience (which he has never had in the past), or (b) does something else so overwhelming that we can't resist sharing it with our readers. Moore, as you probably recall, was involved in the original set of MJ-12 documents, released to the public in 1987...

• We have here a very interesting item from the Net, dated March 24th of this year. The subject is given as "WMD" (weapons of mass destruction), and the original is marked "SECRET" and is dated January 2nd of 1952 - just months before the gigantic flying saucer flap of July, 1952, when unidentified radar blips were seen over the nation's capital.

  The title of this document is "Memorandum for General Sanford", he being the Chief of Air Force Intelligence at that time. The memo, which runs about l 1/2 pages, is written by Brigadier General W.M. Garland, who signs himself as Assistant for Production, Directorate of Intelligence.

  We won't quote the text in full, but a key part reads: "In view of the above facts and the persistent reports of unusual flying objects over parts of the United States, particularly the east and west coast and in the vicinity of the atomic energy production and testing facilities, it is apparent that positive action must be taken to determine the nature of the objects, and, if possible, their origin. Since it is a known fact that the Soviets did not detonate an atomic bomb prior to 1949, it is believed possible that the Soviets may have developed the German aircraft designs at an accelerated rate, in order to have a suitable carrier for the delivery of weapons of mass destruction.

  "In other words, the Soviets may have a carrier without the weapons required, while we have relatively superior weapons with relatively inferior carriers available. If the Soviets should get the carrier and the weapon, combined with adequate defensive aircraft, they might surpass us technologically for a sufficient period of time to permit them to execute a decisive air campaign against the United States and her allies. The basic philosophy of the Soviets has been to surpass the western powers technologically, and the Germans have given them the opportunity.

  "In view of the facts outlined above, it is considered mandatory that the Air Force take positive action at once to definitely \ determine the nature and, if possible, the origin of the reported unusual flying objects..."

  There are several points to note here: First, the term "WMD" is certainly timely today, 54 years after the memorandum was written. Secondly and more importantly, one must notice that there is no hint here that the mysterious objects could be from another planet rather than from the Soviets; and lastly - it is obvious that as of Jan. 2nd, 1952, no flying saucers from anywhere had crashed in the United States, or even elsewhere, to the best knowledge of these top Intelligence officers. If UFOs didn't crash anywhere, that would certainly include Roswell!

  Joel Carpenter is the researcher who placed this document on the Net, and one can assume it was recently released to him through the FOIA. Karl Pflock has over forty other relevant documents from those early days, all leading to the same conclusion regarding UFO crashes. Many of these can be found in his 2001 book, "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe"...

  Another important though little known UFO researcher has recently departed to that Great Saucer Landing Field in the Sky. The name Roy F. Craig may not be familiar to most of you, but he was the chief field investigator for the famed Colorado (University) Project, also known as the Condon Committee - headed by the late Dr. Edward U. Condon.

  This was the official government search, back in the late 1960s, for scientific evidence of the existence of unidentified flying objects. Craig was co-author of the three volume Condon Report, which (sadly) concluded, in essence, that the subject was not important enough to be pursued further. This conclusion was to be expected, partly due to Dr. Condon's very negative personal attitude toward UFOs; and the publication of these books brought much anger and anguish to the saucer research field.

  Years later, Craig wrote his own book about his experiences with the Committee. It was called "An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence". Craig, unlike Condon, said that he liked flying saucers, and he even wrote silly poetry about them. Some time before his recent death at age 79, Craig donated his papers and research findings to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection at Texas A&M University. (Our thanks to Martin Kottmeyer & others)...

• There's a major motion picture due to be shot late next year, based on H.G. Wells' classic alien-invasion epic "War of the Worlds". Steven Speilberg, Tom Cruise, and other big names are involved in the production.

  The novel was written back in 1898, and was the basis for Orson Welles' (no relation) famous 1938 live radio drama of the same name. In this, a Martian spacecraft was said to have crashed in New Jersey, and many people (including our mother, in New Jersey) took this fictional story very seriously, and even went into a panic over it!

  The Internet story we have on this subject omits the fact that there was a successful 1953 movie on the "War of the Worlds" theme, starring Gene Barry. There also was a very unsuccessful TV series on the subject, in the late 1980s. Anyhow, the new movie is something to look forward to, though it won't actually hit the screen until 2006...

• The nitwits are at it again, buying real estate on the Moon! A man named Dennis Hope, with a company called Lunar Embassy, is based in Nevada and apparently has the legal right to unload Moon land at $19.95 per acre. He claims that he has 2.5 million property owners in 80 countries, and more than 1,300 corporations (which should know better!) have purchased plots. Never mind that there is no air or water on the Moon, and that the daily temperature ranges from a low of 245 degrees below zero, to a high of 225 degrees above zero! Hope, aptly named, claims that his business is not a scam. He also sells T-shirts, plaques, and maps - presumably of the Moon...

• A small item in the April 2004 MUFON UFO Journal informs us that the Australian International UFO Flying Saucer Research organization (AIUFOFSR) has folded, as of late last year. Founded in 1952, this is said to be "one of the oldest UFO organizations in the world". This could well be true, but we have never heard of it! The British Flying Saucer Bureau, a branch of Albert K. Bender's original International Flying Saucer Bureau, was founded in 1952 also, and appears to still be in existence under the direction of Denis Plunkett.

  We find this of interest, because the Saucer and Unexplained Celestial Events Research Society (S.A.U.C.E.R.S.), publisher of "Saucer Smear", was founded in 1954, and seems to be well on its way to becoming - if it's not already - the oldest UFO group on this planet. Some say that we don't do research. Some say that we aren't even a group. But we do grind out "Smear" and hold annual conventions around the U.S.A., under the title of the National UFO Conference (NUFOC). More details about this year's NUFOC will be announced soon....

• After all the recent nonsense about artificial objects - even rocks shaped like letters of the English alpabet - being found on the surface of Mars, we now have a case of an authentic unidentified flying object being photographed there! One of NASA's rovers recently sent back to Earth a photo showing a UFO flying above the red planet. It is thought that this was probably Viking 2, launched in 1975, which continues to orbit Mars, but we prefer to believe that the Martians are keeping our rovers under surveillance. Maybe they're worried that Richard Hoagland will try to give a lecture up there! (Our thanks to Gene Duplantier of Canada.)...

• Finally, here's a really strange item, from a Georgia newspaper, that we received at our humble Headquarters just at Press Time: It seems that late on the evening of April 2nd, Claude Balsworth and his son Bruce were driving on U.S. Route One in southern Georgia, near the tiny town of Homeland, where they live. This is in the vicinity of the dreaded Okeenokee Swamp, where strange creatures have allegedly been seen for decades.

  Suddenly a huge heavy-set humanoid creature started to cross the road just ahead of them, became transfixed by the headlights, and stood there for several seconds during which he could be seen clearly. The creature was facing their car, and looked to be almost seven feet tall, covered with long hair which glowed with a faint greenish light. They could not help noticing that it had very large and prominent genitalia, which they described in cruder terms later when calling in the sighting to police.

  After a few seconds, the creature bolted from the road, and ran toward a small nearby lake, making an erie howl as it ran. They could hear a loud splash as it entered the water, and then there was silence.

  Next they noticed a hazy white glow coming from about 100 feet away in the nearby woods. They stopped their car next to the highway and were about to approach the woods, when the glow flared up extremely brightly for a moment and then disappeared completely.

  Spooked out by all of this, they drove home at top speed. The next morning Claude Balsworth returned to the exact spot (or so he claims) with a sheriff's deputy, but nothing unusual could be found. Apparently there were no other witnesses to the previous night's events.

  This is surely a case for "Filer's Files", and we hope to see it there. (Credit: Carlos Mentira.)

Reading Greg Long's new book "The Making of Bigfoot" (Prometheus, 476 pp., $25), was a "deja vu all over again" experience.

I'm not referring to the over-italicized, over-exclamation-pointed, over-ALL-CAPPED, overblown foreward by Kal K. Korff ("President and CEO, CriticalThinkers, Investigative Journalist, Author") and Long's fawning reciprocation in his introduction - taken together, a textbook case of verbal mutual masturbation. Nor am I referring to the jacket blurb by Robert "The Alien Autopsy Film Is Real. No Wait! It's A Hoax" Kiviat, who just happens to be producing a television tie-in with Long's book. Nor do I mean another such blurb by one Michaela Kocis, Czech "Investigative Journalist" and, I suspect, Korff's wife.

Instead, it's the remarkable similarity twixt Long's quest for the truth about the (in)famous Roger Patterson film of "Mrs. Bigfoot" and mine for the same about Roswell. We both spent eight years investigating. We both learned there was much more/and Much less to our respective mysteries than met the eye. We both discovered the so-called experts didn't ask questions they didn't want the answers to, and ignored, glossed over, and poohpoohed the inconvenient facts. In both cases, the truth was in plain sight or almost so for anyone unblinkered by a Will to Believe or driven by less savory motives to see: Regrettably, at least for me if not for Long, both Patterson's film and Roswell's crashed flying saucer are phonies.

To the general public and even to many putative Bigfoot experts, the film shot by Patterson allegedly on October 20, 1967, at Bluff Creek, California, seemed genuine, showing a real crypto-creature. Proof at last! Seemingly very scientific analyses and investigations supposedly established the hairy critter in the film couldn't have been a man in an ape suit, in cahoots with Patterson and his semi-Indian sidekick Bob Gimlin. It was all very convincing!

It turns out the late Mr. Patterson was an artistically talented dreamer and third rate con man with an aversion to honest work and paying his bills, who pursued fame and fortune with all sorts of oddball schemes before becoming obsessed with Bigfoot and a Conviction the hairy cryptid would make him "a million bucks". Moreover, Patterson's Schemes and shady character were well known to his Yakima, Washington neighbors. So, too, were his efforts to film a Bigfoot "documentary" locally - before that fateful day in 1967. Oh yes, then there was his Bigfoot book, self-published in 1966, and the Bigfoot sightings near Patterson's home, in an area where no such sightings had been made before. And what about the guy who claimed to play the role of Mrs. Bigfoot, and the question of how the film could have gotten from California to Yakima and developed in time to be shown to three leading Bigfooters, just two days later.

Somehow, these inconvenient facts and more have been dismissed or conveniently left out of accounts of Patterson and his film. Still, Long doesn't... Oops! Out of Space till the next "Smear".

• Researcher GORDON LORE writes as follows:

  "I have read, with some degree of trepidation, Karl Pflock's somewhat blistering review of Ann Druffel's 'Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science', which appeared in the Feb. 25th, 2004 edition of 'Saucer Smear'. While he spends much of his review nit-picking over what he views as mistakes and padding, he does get two things right: (1) 'Firestorm' 'is an important book', and (2) it is 'a first-class...personal and intellectual biography' of a man whom many of us in the UFO field in the mid-1960s until his tragic death in 1971 knew, loved, and had the good fortune to work with.

  "While McDonald could be 'in-your-face' honest and demanding in his pursuit of getting the scientific community to take an objective look at the plethora of unexplained UFO cases, he could also be kind and tender and was more than willing to hear other points of view. As Ann Druffel points out in her superb biography, he jumped with equal enthusiasm, total dedication, and strict scientific scrutiny into UFOs and other areas of interest. His copious note-taking was legendary.

  "As Vice President/Assistant Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), headquartered in Washington, D.C., I, along with my late wife, Marty, worked long and hard with McDonald. We thought our enthusiasm for UFOs was great, but Jim McDonald blew us away. After traveling from his home in Arizona and following local meetings, he often stayed up until the wee hours of the morning discussing the latest UFO cases with us. His dedication to what he was doing was unquestioned.

  "He first visited NICAP headquarters in 1966 as a skeptic, saying he wanted to look at some UFO reports in our files. Following one long afternoon of reading and taking notes, he became convinced that there was a lot more to the subject than he realized. He was 'hooked', and did not stop searching for the UFO truth until his death...

  "Marty and I spent many hours in Ann Druffel's home working with her on her manuscript. She was careful about letting us peruse what she wrote about our contribution, and assiduously corrected any mistakes prior to publication. 'Firestorm' is not only a biography of a great scientist. It is also the first full, too-long-delayed, in-depth story of what happened at NICAP, then the world's largest UFO organization, and of the troubling forces that eventually overthrew it. In some ways, it's a disturbing, even frightening story, but it does shine the light of truth into some dark corners that badly need illumination. In this and other ways, it may, indeed, be the most important book on the subject ever written!..."

• The semi-mysterious HARRY LIME of Lime Industries, Ltd., writes:

  "I found Ann Druffel's defense of her book 'Firestorm' against Karl Pflock's insightful review most amusing and a bit sad. First, she quotes Berthold Schwarz, a man incapable of penning or voicing a coherent paragraph, let alone a comprehensible book, saying her bloated opus is 'tightly stiched together in a highly-readable (sic) style'. Then she defends her editors by saying Pflock 'has no idea of the year-long copyediting and fact checking process' she and they went through, in effect admitting it could have been much worse (the mind boggles!) Of course she also resorts to the refuge of all 'wronged' authors - utterly irrelevant appeals to authority - by referring to favorable reviews in unnamed 'refereed scientific journals' and by sundry 'prominent authorities'.

  "Sadly, Druffel does not muderstand how foolish and amateurish this makes her look. Professionals never waste their time taking reviewers to task!"

• Ufological Authority Figure JEROME ("JERRY") CLARK writes as follows:

  "I enjoyed your comments about me in the new 'Smear'. I always appreciate your interest in my views, even if for some reason you don't always get them right. I'm sure that is not because you have bad intentions, simply that you're too busy to read carefully.

  "You refer to two letters I wrote you, in which I asked you to admit that your wild charge about George Hunt Williamson - that he murdered his first wife Betty - is a falsehood and that the slander's source, the late Yonah Fortner, whom even you admit not to be reliable (except, apparently, when you want to believe him), ought not to have been credited without independent verification. Unfortunately for you, no such independent verification exists.

  "In any case, your characterization of my communications with you is not recognizable to me. Nor is your claim that my alleged beef with you 'seems to be that we' - divine 'we', I presume - 'don't have, nor do we (sic) claim to have, any special credentials'. I (not, note, 'We') have no idea where that comes from. That thought, in fact, hadn't even crossed my mind, not even once. It's nothing I've ever said either privately or publicly. I can only amsume that you just made it up. Sort of, one might say, in the same way Fortner made up the story that had Williamson tossing his wife off a cliff in Peru.

  "Anyway, that aside, I write for another reason, which is to make the following generous offer to 'Smear' readers. Those who are interested - if any - are invited to contact me, and I'll be happy to send copies of my March 18 and 19 letters, and they can judge for themselves whether you have accurately depicted their tone and content. And even better, for any correspondent who asks, I will be happy to provide, free of charge, a copy of my IUR review of your and Karl Pflock's book in which the Williamson tall tale appears. I can be reached at 409 West 2nd Street, Canby, Minnesota 56220, or at jkclark@frontier.net. Thanks much."

• Long-time researcher MATT GRAEBER writes:

  "This latest issue was a great 'Smear', and was a saucer gossip's gourmet delight, having just the right amount of back-biting, muck-slinging and eye-gouging. It was simply delicious!

  "I'll be sending you a copy of the expose I penned on the hoaxes that were perpetrated in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, back in 1974 - where a UFO had reportedly crashed and sunk in a silt pond within the town's limits. I know that you do not like to read too much stuff that people send you, but I thought you might puruse the article and mention it in a future edition of 'Smear'. Actually, the part that will probably interest you the most pertains to Ohio MUFON and a deputy sheriff who compounded the drama by perpetrating his own hoax, which the MUFONites swallowed hook, line, and saucer!

  "I am hoping you can give the article a plug, as I am also planning to post it on the dreaded Net at - use your search engine - carbondale, pa, ufo crash. On the Net the incident is taking on Roswellian characteristics and is being presented in a grossly distorted fashion!..."

• Researcher FRANK CONWAY writes as follows:

  "...When I got back home from my recent visit to Florida, there were voice-mail messages on my phone from George Filer awaiting me. It seems he's quite concerned about the photos that the Rover Spirit and Opportunity are sending back from Mars. George thinks he sees evidence of a Martian civilization in the pictures (letters of the English alphabet engraved on rocks, statues lying around on the desert, etc.) I've been dutifully examining all of the raw images on NASA's web site, as instructed, but, as I've told George, so far I haven't seen anything but sand and dust and rocks. I suggested to George that if NASA discovered even a hint of anything exotic on the Martian surface, they would not cover it up and keep it secret (as he seems to think they're doing) but would instead broadcast the news from the rooftops! Those guys live on funding and any discovery that would attract more federal funds would be on CNN in a microsecond!..."

• Back in late January we received the following letter from RAY CECOT of IRAAP (P.O. Box 12233, Albany, N.Y. 12212):

  "Our hard copy newsletter, 'The Messenger', has been in existence since 1997... People are still interested in the UFO topic and want to receive a hard copy publication. Not everyone has Internet access, which many who do have a computer find difficult to comprehend. Internet and email cannot do it all. Hence, our newsletter remains in paper form.

  "Besides the U.S., we've established contacts in other countries, and the newsletter gets sent there, as well. These include Japan, France, England, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

  Since 1997 IRAAP has come a long way, due mainly to perseverance when times were not good."

A LAY IN A MANGER A man was arrested for havinq sex with a sheep used in an undertaker's live nativity tableau. Joey Armstronq, 29, broke into the shed housinq the animals in Charleston, West Virginia, where he was cauqht in flaqrante delicto. A week later, one of the sheep had a lamb, which became part of the display. Whether it was the same sheep is not specified. Ananova, 17 Dec; NY Post, 23 Dec 2002.	DIVINE WARNING Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ, which has drawn complaints from religious leaders, escaped injury after being struck by lightning during filming. Smoke was seen coming out of his ears. The bolt also hit the umbrella of assistant director Jan Michelini, who had already suffered light burns on the tips of his fingers when struck by an early bolt during filming on a hilltop months earlier. [AP] BBC News, 23 Oct; NY Post, 24 Oct 2003.

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