| EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
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NON-SCHEDULED NEWSLETTER Volume 51, No. 9 October 15th, 2004 (Whole Number 375) OUR FIFTIETH YEAR! |
MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. Box 1709 Key West, FL 33041 |
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MUFON ON THE MARCH!
It seems that sometime between 1949 and 1951, a stark naked couple came to the door of a resident of an unnamed town in Alaska, and asked for permission to bathe. The resident, named Victoria Jahnke, reluctantly agreed. The couple were covered in dirt or dust. Before they left, she gave them clothes! When she cleaned out the bathtub after them, her hands went numb for some unexplained reason. Nothing she did would help. Then came a knock at the door, and a very tall man was standing there with a tube of salve in his hand.
Victoria used the salve on her hands, and the numbness went away. She then kept the remainder of the tube of salve for all these years, until an analytical scientist named Phyllis Budinger recently learned about the case and took an interest. The bulk of the Journal article is devoted to her chemical analysis of this substance, without any mention of whether there was anything anomalous about it or not!
What does all this have to do with flying saucers, you might ask? Absolutely nothing, as far as we can tell. The term isn't even used anywhere in the article. All we have is the outline of an unproven unusual event that doesn't seem to have had anything to do with UFOs or anything else. Phyllis Budinger is known for her pro-abduction views, but whatever point is proven in this article is completely lost on us. Shame on the MUFON Journal for printing such nonsense!...
The lead article in the same issue of the MUFON Journal is written by an engineer from North Carolina named Scott Ramsey. Since 1988 he has made countless trips all the way to New Mexico to investigate the legendary Aztec UFO landing story, and he claims to have spent over $200,000 of his own money on this research. However, the truth is that a large part of this money was the cost of business trips he would have been making anyhow. Nevertheless, this is quite a commitment.
The Aztec crash/retrievel syndrome, too long to recount in detail here, began at approximately 5 a.m. on March 25th, 1948, when two men claimed to have found a "large disc" lying on a mesa in the desert. Some of the alleged witnesses involved in this incident are still alive, and they have been interviewed by Ramsey. Their stories differ from each o๘ther in many ways.
Of course, the Aztec story got its start in Frank Scully's famous 1950 book "Behind the Flying Saucers". His sources included a (later) convicted con man named Silas Newton and a mysterious "Dr. G". The whole thing was later exposed by a magazine writer named J.P. Cahn, but naturally that was not the end of it. Interestingly, the alleged Roswell crash of 1947 is not mentioned in Scully's book at all.
Your "Smear" editor interviewed Frank Scully and Silas Newton in late 1953, and was not at all convinced of the sincerity of either of them. However, our negative impressions are not proof of anything. No less a luminary than Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman says, "I have spent a lot of time with Scott (Ramsey), and am very favorably impressed with him...I too was anti-Aztec, but have changed my mind and have spoken at three of their annual celebrations."
Like Roswell, Aztec has jumped onto the annual convention bandwagon in recent years. It is generally understood that the Aztec story is less well substantiated than the similar story from Roswell. In neither case is there a "smoking gun". so speculation will continue forever!
The September issue of the MUFON UFO Journal is even more weird than the August one! Included is a nice advertisement for the forthcoming National UFO Conference in Hollywood, California, so we will try to be kind in our criticisms.
We begin with the drawing on the cover, showing the face of a possible alien hybrid, who was for awhile a blind young lady's college roommate. Then we come to an Ohio case (no names or date given) called "Witnesses Report Encounter with Entity", which the author himself gives only a rating of 4, on a scale of one to ten, for "Strangeness and Reliability". Next there is a pro-reptilian article by Reverend Bev Trout, who is MUFON's Iowa State Director. She seems to be saying that there are strong reptilian/alien influences in mankind's past and present. Maybe, but where on earth is the proof?
Our favorite article is a short item entitled "'Mantis' Entities Reported in Arkansas". An unnamed witness and his girlfriend were "lying on the grass in Key Rogers Park... (just) hanging out", when they were astounded by two very tall figures "that had preying mantis-like heads... Their eyes would change from blood red to neon green. We stood there staring at each other for five or six minutes, at which time they disappeared into a white light..." Did anyone else see these figures? Inquiring minds would like to know. Or maybe it's just a case of sex and saucers!
Finally, there is a review of Budd Hopkins' latest book "Sight Unseen: UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings". Here it seems that the aliens have the ability to not only make themselves invisible, but to make humans invisible as well. Included in the book is the strange experience (we kid you not!) of UFO abductee and author Katherina Wilson in a Chicago airport, when none of the restroom's automatic faucets would activate for her, "although they were working fine for other travelers". We really don't know what to say about this! Apparently she was not only invisible, but somehow, she simply was not there! We will leave mt to more highly advanced minds than ours to get to the bottom of this sort of thing!
The signals were broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe's most common element absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers say is the most likely means by which intelligent aliens would advertise their presence. These signals were picked up through the SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screen-savers on millions of personal computers worldwide, to sift through the huge amount of data coming into the telescope, Dr. Paul Horowitz of Harvard University, a worthy successor to Dr. Donald Menzel (a supreme UFO debunker of yesteryear), had this to say: "It's not much of anything at all. We're not investigating it further". Other mainstream scientists gave similar opinions. All we can say is, "Time Will Tell"! (Our thanks to Denis Corey)...
Bryant asks that a grand jury be impaneled to, among other things, answer the questions "Who authorized, conducted, and suppressed the official crash-retrieval operation? Where are the confiscated material and other wreckage of the craft being stored, and by whom, and under what legal authority?" Etc., etc.
Of course Roswell has been examined and re-examined numerous times, with no "smoking gun" emerging. What if there really is no wreckage or alien bodies? Some people will never be satisfied here; but for those with an open mind on the subject, we still recommend the worthy tome published in 2001 by our esteemed contributing editor, Karl Pflock. It is called "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe". We wonder if Larry Bryant has ever bothered to read this!
Juan Acuna described the animals as dog faced and having wings. The creatures followed him along the edge of the canal and then flew away, he claims.
There were no other witnesses to this event, but a large number of farm animals were killed mysteriously in the same area around that time. The mayor of a nearby town called Parral was quoted as saying, "If the chupacabras has done anything positive by its presence, it's that we have fewer people on the streets at night, which I think is good. I hope the chupacabras won't attack decent folks but only the delinquents who are up to no good in Parral".
We believe he was kidding!
Some reputable researchers believe that the cause was a comet nucleus or a stony asteroid, rather than a meteorite. But those with a sufficient "Will to Believe" can't rule out the possibility that it was a spaceship. (Our thanks, once again, to Denis Corey.)
On the evening of October 17th, 1973, there was an incident near Falkville, Alabama, in which a policeman named Jeffrey Greenhaw took four polaroid photos of a mysterious humanoid seen walking down the middle of a rural road. The officer was responding to a phone call to the police station, in which it was claimed that a spacecraft had landed nearby. However, no such craft was ever seen - making this into one more UFO incident without a UFO! Jeffrey Greenhaw, at age 23, was police chief of the little town of Falkville, and it is not clear how many other men were on the force, if any. He happened to have a polaroid camera in his police car, and as the creature approached him on the highway, he took one picture at a distance of about 50 feet, another at 20 feet, and two more at a distance of only ten feet!
At that point the entity stopped walking toward him and just stood there. The chief considered pointing his revolver at it, but decided against the idea. Instead, he chased it in his patrol car, but the frightened creature allegedly outran the car and quickly disappeared.
This entity was said to be very human in size, and wore a one-piece tinfoil-type "spacesuit". Its movements were described as rigid and stiff, not with the flexibility of a normal human being. It could move about ten feet in just one step, according to the chief.
Cynics said that the outfit worn by the creature looks like a fire fighter's suit, but though similar, the suit is not the same. "The Messenger" shows two photos side by side - one of the entity and the other of an admitted human being in such a suit. They do indeed look different from each other, but the pictures are too dark to reproduce here.
In our humble opinion, this incident was probably a hoax, but the policeman would have had to be in on it. No sane individual would face an armed cop in this manner, not knowing what said cop would decide to do. We wish we knew more about young Greenhaw's background, and what his attitude toward the incident really was. Perhaps some of our readers have more information.
PSYCHIATRIST JOHN MACK MOVES ON TO A HIGHER PLANE
Mack was the author of two important books about alien abductions. He believed that such incidents have both a physical and spiritual component, and in this he disagreed with abduction researcher Budd Hopkins and others, who stuck to the physical aspect.
Mack's greatest fame was his biography of T. E. Laurence (Laurence of Arabia) in 1977, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in biography. His interest in ufology developed in more recent years.
We did not know Dr. Mack personally, but he seems to have been a brilliant and eccentric man. In 1994 the Dean of Harvard Medical School appointed a committee of Mack's peers to investigate his treatment of abductees who came to him to tell their stories. Mack won out completely in this embarrassing episode, and his freedom to study and state his views freely was reaffirmed. This was, in our opinion, a great triumph for academic freedom, irregardless of whether one agrees with Dr. Mack's views or not!
"SMEAR" EDITOR RESIGNS AS PERMANENT CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL UFO CONFERENCE!
Moseley personally hosted conventions in New York City in 1967 and 1980, and in 1990 he and Tim Beckley co-hosted the event in Miami Beach, Florida. The gatherings in other years were hosted by many other ufologists in various cities around the country. Many of these involved Rick Hilberg, who continues to be the leading ufological light in Cleveland. Others of these annual events took place as far away as California.
The main task of the Permanent Chairman has been to find someone each year who is willing and able to undertake the complex responsibility of sponsoring a convention. Few of these gatherings have made any money for the sponsor after all expenses were paid. Obviously, a sponsor has to be motivated at least in part by a desire to be an active part of the ufological scene and "to get the Truth across".
There has always been a "Permanent Organizing Committee" to advise the Permanent Cairman, if he (or she) so desires. Currently this group consists of: Rick Hilberg, Karl Pflock, Matt Graeber, Tom Benson, Tim Beckley, William Moore, Allen Greenfield, Antonio Huneeus, Curt Sutherly, and Tim Brigham - most of whom are well known in the more conservative wing of ufology.
The 2003 NUFOC convention was hosted by Dr. John Miller of California, with help from a lady named Ms Lisa Davis The 2004 event, amply advertised in this issue of "Smear" is co-hosted by Miller and Davis. For the 2005 convention, Ms. Davis will take over as Permanent Chairman and local sponsor, no doubt aided again by Dr. Miller. It is the intention of these people to continue holding the NUFOC in southern California, rather than moving it around the country as before. (See John Miller's letter further along on this page). In this way, it is hoped that the organization will succeed in building up more of a following than it has in the past. It appears that MUFON may be going in this same direction, as this year's convention was in John Schuessler's home state of Colorado, and next year's will be there also.
Lisa Davis has been an abduction researcher for seven years. In 2003 she formed the Foundation for Abduction Research and Support (FFARS), the goal of which is to educate, support, and empower individuals unwillingly involved in the abduction experience. FFARS provides a world-wide platform of objective information for the general public on the abduction phenomenon. Lisa's website is www.ffars.com. There is also a support group that meets monthly in San Diego, where Ms. Davis lives.
Lisa Davis is a vivacious young lady with enthusiasm for the UFO subject, and we know she will do well. In her personal views, she has studied the Bible for enlightenment on the subject, and is currentlyl working on a book. Says she: "I now believe this mystery to be a multi-faceted phenomenon, with many different meanings and reasons. My book is about the four main trains of thought on what the abduction mystery may be."
We will have more to say about all this in our next issue.
SPEAKING OF DELLSCHAU
You really got my attention when I ran across the article, "Charles Dellschau and the Sonora Aero Club" by Dennis Stacy, in the July 20th, 2004 issue of "Saucer Smear". It perked my interest because it just happened to be that the very next day I was leaving for Houston, Texas for meetings with Pete Navarro and Bob Gunner on that very subject - Dellschau and his Sonora Aero Club.
As you may know, Pete Navarro is the man who broke the Dellschau code. Today anything that is known about Dellschau and his Aeros comes from information furnished by Pete or his research partner, the late Jimmy Ward, or both, regardless of what others may claim.
Seven years ago Pete asked me to help him condense his over 5,000 pages of documents, drawmngs and photos into a manageable report, and then collaborate on a book on the subject. After many years of work in a partnership that has grown into a very warm friendship, we have finally completed the project. We scheduled our last meetings to finalize details on our book about Dellschau for the week of August 6-15, 2004.
Bob Gunner is Editor/Publisher of Cyber-Pulp/HoustonUSA, which will be publishing our book, which is called "Secrets of Dellschau: The Sonora Aero Club and the Airships of the 1800s". Bob is on the cutting edge of using the computer as a publishing tool. Our expected publishing date is mid-December of this year.
Over the years there have been many different theories regarding Dellschau and his detailed drawings - everything from his having been an alien, to "he was just a crazy old man with too much time on his hands". And, naturally, after seven years of studying Pete's research, I have started to develop my own ideas.
Of course there is the possibility of the obvious: Dellschau may simply have been obsessed with getting information he had in his possession - or even only in his imagination - documented before he passed on.
However, whether he got the information from a secret society named the Sonora Aero Club, or the even more secretive NYMZA, or his friend Peter Mennis - or even from his own mind - the most important questions to be answered are: Did the machinery and the flying machines he diagramed in his thousands of drawings actually work? And, was the NB gas he claimed to be the source of power and "lift" actually an anti-gravity fuel?
Unfortunately when it comes to being able to answer a concrete "yes" or "no" to anything regarding Dellschau and his claims, we have a very big problem. The first and most important half of Dellschau's story is lost. There are still 2,500 of his drawings out there somewhere. These are drawings made before the ones studied by Pete. These early parts of the story are the ones that naturally would have covered just how NB gas and the machinery worked. By the time of the creation of the 2,500 Dellschau drawings that Pete has studied, the background would all have been explained in the earlier works. Dellschau would have had no reason to repeat the information in these later drawings.
Although Pete had unlimited access to every Dellschau drawing that is known to exist, he believes that the final answers we seek are hidden in those early, lost drawings.
Our book, "The Secrets of Dellschau" was not written to "solve" the mystery. For the reasons stated above, that can't be done. Our purpose was to pass Pete's research and findings along to others who might be interested, or who might even have missing pieces of the puzzle in their possession and not even know it. We also wanted to present these findings in an enjoyable and easy to read format. We think we have accomplished our goal, and are very proud of our book!
Today Dellschau's notebooks have now been broken up into separate pages and spread all over the world. One framed page out of Dellschau's notebooks sells for a hefty $15,000 to $25,000! Never again will anyone be able to study the complete known Dellschau collection. We hope our book in some small way will help to fill that void. Such an amazing story should not be lost!
So - Mr. Stacy may be right. Dellschau may have been, and probably was, an Outsider Artist. But I think that after he has read "The Secrets of Dellschau" and has studied the illustrations therein, he would agree with us that there's more to the Dellschau drawings than what first appears.
Editor's Note: We look forward to this book, and we definitely intend to review it in the pages of a forthcoming "Smear".
Last time, I promised to devote a few columns to recollections of my saucered-up youth, recalling the Golden Age of UFOs from a kid's-eye point of view. This time, I begin making good on that "threat". Just so there's no doubt about what I think I'm doing: This ain't Serious Ufology, loyal Smearites. It's just my memories, flawed, fragmentary, beclouded, and "enhanced" by time, of a perhaps too smart, imaginative boy's summer days and winter nights made magical by flying saucers from outer (and inner) space.
It was during my sixth or seventh summer (1948 or '49) that I first heard a crashed-saucer tale. Perched on the tailgate of a surplus army truck at another child's birthday party, I listened raptly as several of the fathers discussed the capture of a downed flying saucer and the bodies of the hapless crew of little men from another planet - an event in which one of the fathers claimed to have participated.
This fellow, now long dead, had been in the U.S. Army, stationed somewhere in the American southwest sometime after the end of World War II. He said he was part of a detail sent out to recover the strange craft and bodies. Everything was rounded up and whisked away to some unknown location. All involved were sworn to secrecy. This yarn, now all too familiar in one guise or another, fascinated me, inspiring a nearly life-long involvement wi th UFOs.
Needless to say, I don't recall the story I heard that day so long ago in any detail (hey, I'm no Gerald Anderson). My recollection of it, probably somewhat conflated with other stories over the years, bears a close resemblance to the discredited Aztec crash of 1948, now on at least its second round of attempted resuscitation, this time by my friend Scott Ramsey and the Inevitable Stan Friedman - and wait'll you read my book with Nick Redfern. The saucer was tracked to its grounding by radar. When military search and recovery teams located it, they discovered it was only slightly damaged, having floated gently to earth. However, the "bunch of little men" (these words I remember without any doubt) who crewed the thing were dead, though not visibly harmed. The saucer was dismantled and trucked out, and the bodies of the crew were "shipped back east" (again, very clear memories).
Definitely sounds like Aztec, doesn't it? The only thing is, it's certain I heard this account before Frank Scully broke the Aztec story in his "Variety" column in October 1949. When I again started giving serious consideration to crashed-saucer tales back in the 1980s, I did my best to recall all I could about what I'd heard. I discussed it with my parents, both of whom remembered the party well. They confirmed it was a summer event and for a number of reasons were certain it was held in 1948 or 1949, definitely not earlier or later.
My father also had a vague recollection of the captured saucer yarn. It should be noted that both my folks remembered the man who told the story, one of my father's college bookstore employees, was a blowhard and teller of tall tales, who had a habit of claiming to have lived a life far more exciting than the one he'd actually lived. However, he did serve in the army during World War II and, somewhere in the southwest, for a time after.
Try as I might, I have never been able to come up with any independent confirmation of this titillating tale. Back then, though, all that mattered to me and the other kids was, "Wow! A real flying saucer, with little men from Mars in it". It made great fodder for the make-believe game we played well into the evening that day, and for the dreams that followed that night.
"I enjoyed the latest 'Smear'. I had to write because it was too-quickly pointed out to me that I am ineligible to be called a 'Super-Skeptic'. The present issue of Vogue has a piece that ponders why the Era of the Supers is over. It points out that there has been no newly named supermodels, or for that matter superstars, in several years now. The acid test is whether the person is recognized when there is no surname attached. Say Tyra and everybody knows it is Tyra Bankis. Say Christy, obviously Christie Brinkley. Say Kate; obviously Kate Moss. Of stars, think Nicole."In ufology, only 'Jerry', 'Uncle Phil' and 'Supreme Commander' have that kind of NoSurname-Required recognition. While I have been told more than once that I have a weird type of legendary status, nobody would say I have the level of recognitmon to be 'super-anything'. There are individuals who would say I'm not even a proper skeptic, whatever that means.
"So, too little and too late."
"It was good talking to you the other day. I'm fine with the idea of Ms. Davis taking over the National Chairmanship for the NUFOC. She has the money and youthful enthusiasm to keep on putting on conferences out here on the West Coast...She plans to establish a continuous annual presence for NUFOC in this area- probably Hollywood. I will help her, but I can't be the main guy next year. I have too many irons in the fire. I am honored that you would seriously consider me for the National Chairmanship."Ms. Davis has rented office space and plans to create a continuing presence for NUF0C there and on the Internet. I see this as the proper way to go!..."
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