Whitley Strieber spoke to me ( = John Mack - ed.) of experiences similar to Isabel's. "The sexual part of my relationship with the beings has been very complex and very rich and very difficult at times because I'm a married man. I've taken marriage vows, which I believe in. To an extent this aspect of it has been thrust on me, and it's not something I've been able to control. If it had been under my control, I would have felt very guilty."

There is a specific alien female with whom he feels mated. "It's like having a second wife with whom I have a secret relationship." "There was never a seduction," he said. "I would wake up in a state of sexual excitement, in mid-intercourse...The physical dynamic is different in the sense that the sensation of intercourse moves through your whole body, and you become totally devoted to it for longer than I do in normal intercourse."

In normal coitus, he said, orgasm can be "a very colorful moment, but in this, the power of the moment starts at the beginning and extends through the whole thing, and at the end I black out." It feels to him "as if a level of sexuality I'm normally not involved with is engaged. It's very, very powerful."

Strieber has fully informed his wife of this connection...

"Project Serpo" is subtitled "The gradual release of confidential documents pertaining to a top secret exchange program of twelve U.S. military personnel to Serpo, a planet of Zeta Reticuli, between the years 1965-1978." The information is being given by someone who calls himself "Anonymous", who claims to be the spokesman for a group of six DIA personnel working together as an alliance. There has been a series of web postings by "Anonymous" in recent months, to a private UFO e-mail list moderated by someone named Victor Martinez. Even the names of most of the ufologists on this e-mail list remain confidential!

First we learn that there were two crashes near Roswell in 1947, both involving "extraterrestrial aircraft" and alien bodies. One live alien was found, and was transferred to Los Alamos. He lived till 1952, and during his time on Earth he established communication with the military, provided the location of his home planet, and also gave a full explanation of the various devices found inside the two spacecrafts.

In 1965 we established an exchange program with the aliens. Twelve military personnel were carefully selected, including two women. Near the northern part of the Nevada Test Site the aliens landed and the twelve Americans left with them. Eight of them returned in 1978, when they were dropped off at the same location in Nevada. Two died on the aliens' home planet and four others decided to remain there, according to the returnees. Unfortunately, this makes a total of 14, not 12. This glaring error is dismissed as a "typo" in the commentary about the document!

The returnees were isolated from 1978 until 1984 at various military installations. The last surviver of this group died in 2002. (This reminds us of how the MJ-12 documents were not released till after the last of the twelve had died!)

"Anonymous" invites comments on his claims, but we don't have much of this, as our final sheet cuts off after "Comment #1". Our own comment is that this material, unsupported by any documentation whatever, is highly unlikely to be true. We have heard some of these allegations before, and remain skeptical. We wonder what ex-ufologist Bill Moore would say about this information - he being the original distributor of the infamous MJ12 documents...

She says that this year's Conference will be scheduled for mid-October, presumably at the same hotel in Hollywood as before. Scheduled speakers include Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and Yvonne Smith. Again your "Smear" editor hopes to be there to present our unique insight into the proceedings.

We will have more information about all this as time goes by...

On January 26th to 29th, James ("The Amusing") Randi headed a list of hard-core skeptics at a conclave in Las Vegas, Nevada, discussing "Science in Politics and the Politics of Science". As most of our readers know, Randi is a militant atheist, fanatically opposed to any and all forms of paranormal events. His million dollar prize for proof of the paranormal is well known.

Says one reporter on the net: "Randi can be eloquent and is quite the showman. He is also wildly intelligent - he got a MacArthur genius grant in 1986. But according to his detractors, Randi's main qualities are his malice and hypocrisy. He's hell-bent on tearing apart anyone he deems a kook, including distinguished scientists and Nobel Prize winners. This is amusing, as Randi has no scientific credentials whatsoever (although he did once write an astrology column for a Canadian tabloid and host a paranormal-themed radio show.)"...

Then in July there will be a convention in rural New York State of the Church of the SubGenius. This is billed as a UFO cult, predicting an apocalypse when an invasion of flying saucers occurs on July 5th. Our write-up states incorrectly that the Church was founded in 1953 by J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Actually, "Bob" is not a real person at all, but the "god" of this tongue-in-cheek anti-Establishment atheistic cult. The actual founder is someone named Ivan Stang, who used to be on our "Smear" mailing list. The convention literature says that all ordained SubCenius ministers will be rescued from the invasion by escape vessels piloted by the Alien Sex Goddesses, also known as the Xists. These annual SubCenius gatherings sound like old-fashioned music, sex & drug orgies, and we would sure like to attend one sometime!...

Finally, on a much more spiritual level, on January 21st Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation presented another of its series of abductee panels, in which genuine abductees offer compelling first-hand accounts of their weird experiences. This is another event that we have never attended, partly because Hopkins and your "Smear" editor do not get along, to put it mildly.

And on February 25th, this same Intruders Foundation will present a seminar focused on the classic Rendlesham UFO case in England and the Kecksburg, Pa. case from 1965. This meeting takes place at 241 West 30th St. in New York City. (Our sincere thanKs to Vince Ditchkus for these three articles and several others in this issue.)..

Walter Klinikowski of Allentown, Pa. is an 84-year-old retired Air Force colonel who was stationed at Roswell in the summer of 1947 when the military recovered some kind of flying disc in the desert. Says Klinikowski: "The thing looked to me like the reflector off a weather balloon". He states that in 1947 the government was using weather balloons to monitor whether the Soviet Union had detonated any nuclear devices. (This was Project Mogul, no doubt!)

Many years later he was stationed at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio, as director of the technology division, in which the Air Force would keep any foreign aircraft that crashed in the United States. In a letter written with two other officers and released in 1997, the 50th anniversary of the Roswell Incident, Klinikowski stated that they never saw any alien spacecraft at the base.

Klinikowski believes that a lot of the mythology about the Incident is just that. For example, there's a story about the military commissioning the Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell to make three small coffins, presumably for the spacecraft's dead crew. Klinikowski states that his wife's aunt, who was living with the Ballard family back in 1947, has debunked this story, saying that no such order was ever received!

Klinikowski had an unusually distinguished military career and retired in 1974. He's still alive, and we strongly suggest that Stanton Friedman interview him as soon as humanly possible!

And our friend Tim Beckley of Global Communications tells us that Wayne Aho, one of the last of the old-time contactees, has died at the age of 90. Wayne was a World War II veteran, a UFO contactee, and a "free energy" pioneer. He had light beam and telepathic contact with space people, and was public relations director for Otis T. Carr in his famous failed attempt to launch an earth-made spacecraft to the Moon from an Oklahoma City fairgrounds.

Strangely, Aho lectured more about his military service than about his experiences with UFOs - always with an American flag waving behind him at the microphone. He was a likeable fellow, but Tim Beckley fondly remembers how, at one of his conventions years ago, Wayne gave Tim The Finger when warned that he was exceeding his time limit.

Wayne Aho was a colorful character who will be missed by hard-core saucer fiends...

We are very curious to find out just why Persinger and about 15 of his students have been locked out of their laboratory at Laurentian University in Canada, where they had been experimenting on rats. Persinger has been told he will be allowed back in the lab "once he corrects his research protocols".

However, the students believe there is more to the problem than that, probably involving Persenger's personality or the nature of his research. They were told they could work things out regarding the protocols if they switch supervisers, i.e., get rid of Persinger - but they don't want to do that.

Regarding the experiments with humans, abductee Barbara Snowberger writes, "I make no claim of being an educated genius, but I do know that simulating certain responses in a laboratory does not invalidate all of the original experiences...To think that because similar responses can be purposely achieved, does not negate all alternative reasons for seeing aliens, spaceships, etc."

We tend to agree with Barbara, but Persinger's research is nevertheless very interesting indeed!...

The last family to live on this spread lasted only about 20 months. From the first day back in 1994 they were terrorized by an unseen intelligence that played mind games with them - shadowy figures inside the house, objects that moved on their own, disembodied voices, cattle & bulls that disappeared and others that were carved up with surgical precision in broad daylight! A gigantic wolf that attacked one of their calves was tracked through the mud, but the tracks simply stopped as if the animal had evaporated into thin air. Three dogs were "vaporized" while chasing blue orbs of lights in a pasture.

In 1995 the ranch came to the attention of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). This group, financed by Las Vegas millionaire Robert Bigelow, is inactive now (as Bigelow has new interests), but for 8 years an unprecedented scientific study was conducted. Observation posts were built, video cameras were operated, and scientific personnel were on the property 24 hours a day. Out of dozens of weird phenomena they witnessed, none are reproducible because no two incidents were the same! Whatever it was proved to be elusive. The cameras installed atop telephone poles were attacked and dismantled by something that was apparently invisible!

All this sounds extremely far-out, but it is vouched for by real scientists, headed by a man named Dr. Colm Kelleher. Says he: "The mystery of the Skinwalker Ranch remains unsolved. If anything, it has created more questions than I had when I came into this thing."

Famed UFO researcher George Knapp of Las Vegas and Dr. Kelleher have co-authored a book about the ranch, called "Hunt for the Skinwalker". We would love to see it!...

"I received your gratis Vol. 53 No. 1 of 'Smear'...and I thane you for thinking of me. However, I'm clueless as to why you refer to me as a colleague, when I'm on your esteemed Hall of Shame list. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

"Rumors that reached you regarding an interview I did with Walter Haut are correct. Walter did indeed admit to being in the conference room when Major General Roger Ramey ordered the (Roswell) issue covered up, using a downed weather balloon story. Haunt also observed one body and the object, which he described. I played an 88 second soundbyte of Walter on my last regular contribution to Errol Bruce-Knapp's 'Strange Days Indeed!' radio program, which airs in Toronto and Montreal on Saturday nights. I would have sent you a copy of the audio clip, but since you're a stickler for maintaining a 19th Century track record for technological progress, I decided it would have been a waste of resources and postage "

"I have to disagree with your positive assessment of Robert Durant's review of 'Project Beta' in the last IUR. Since by your own admission you have not read my book, you did not realize that Durant apparently hasn't read it either. He seems to be the sort of ufologist who has decided to 'defend the faith' rather than deal with any facts. He takes me to task for overlooking the elusive reason as to why the AFOSI did not simply tell Paul Bennewitz to cease and desist his investigations, when I actually answered this in at least two places in the text. He goes on to repeat some of the things covered in the book, and ask why I ignored them' I don't know if this is funny or tragic, but it certainly does not bode well for ufology.

"I think what upset him the most is that 'Project Beta' does not treat ufology very kindly; but many of the stories that were spawned by the Bennewitz affair were accepted by a few excitable and loud individuals who sowed the bad seeds so thoroughly that we are still recovering from the fallout. Durant missed this point entirely. Fundamentalism trumps reason once again, sort of like a dog who insists on looking at your finger rather than what you are pointing at.

"'Saucer Smear' continues to be the guy that stands off to the side, laughing at the dog. Keep 'em coming!..."

"I enclose another generous contribution to the best UFO zine in the world!"

"I hate to start a formal missive with a question, but I was wowed by the suspicious life-changing photos on Page 6 of your Jan. 25th issue. Do you have a new ad agency? The two photos of Mr. Erik Albrektson's 'before' and 'after' appearance are spectacular, after only seven short months of reading 'Smear'. This should increase your circulation tenfold. Future ads using this same format might secure more non-subscribers than you can handle!..."

"I must take up the matter of the Klass letter you mention in your last issue.

"This letter was written to an individual, Dr. A.G. McNamara, at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics at the National Research Council of Canada, in August 1980. It probably pre-dates the 'Roswell Incident' book which Stan Friedman was heavily involved with. I say this because Klass makes no mention of that book in his letter, which I would certainly expect him to mention had the book come out by then.

"Evidently Dr. McNamera had some responsibility for UFOs in Canada at the time. It is not clear whether he and Klass had any previous contact, but Klass wanted to warn him of Stan Friedman's impending move to Canada and of the likelihood that Friedman would soon begin accusing Canada of the grand UFO cover-up as he had done in the U.S.

"The letter was certainly unnecessary and uncalled for. It was intended as a personal (i.e. confidential) letter, which explains why nobody knew about it until after Phil's death last year. I only found it through a website, whose identity escapes me for now.

"Klass does use an unflattering description of Friedman, saying he was a UFO lecturer 'of the snake-oil variety'. He says Friedman's lectures are 'filled with half-truths and falsehoods', that he 'has a mountainous ego', and that he is regarded as an 'outcast' (in 1980) within the UFO movement. Klass does say, however, that Stan is a 'likeable chap with a good sense of humor' and that his lectures are far more 'colorful' than those of Hynek.

"As you point out, the letter had nothing whatever to do with impeding Stan's intended move to Canada. Klass was merely assuring this man that he and the NRC would be 'publicly accused of a cosmic cover-up that dwarfs the Watergate scandal'. Whether Stan did in fact ever make this accusation (against the NRC) I simply do not know.

"Anyway, the above is the essence of the said letter. I expect that other confidential Klass letters will surface from time to time..."

"I enjoyed your last issue of 'Smear' as always, and thought you might like to run another picture of Phil Klass, this time with me at the 1998 MUFON Symposium in Denver. It was one of the rare times I saw Phil at a conference not wearing his loud plaid jacket that was apparently his trademark, but he was still holding his ever-present recorder.

"You mentioned in 'Smear' that 'Klass is said to have caused the late James McDonald to lose a research grant (and that) Ann Druffel, who recently published a biography of McDonald, no doubt has many more details about this matter.'

"Please let me clarify how Phil Klass caused Dr. James McDonald to lose one of his official Office of Naval Research (ONR) grants. The verified details about this and the other attaches Phil made against McDonald during 1967-1970 are covered in full in Chapters Seven, Eight, Nine and Thirteen of my book. Numerous other attacks made by Klass upon other prominent members of the objective UFO research field, which reflected upon McDonald as well, are described in other chapters.

'For some reason, you haven't read my above-mentioned authorized McDonald biography, 'Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science'. 'Saucer Smear' readers might be interested to know that the only negative review of the book, which took me ten years to research, write and get published - was by Karl Pflock, your esteemed Contributing Editor. This in spite of the fact that the twenty or more other published reviews of 'Firestorm'' by top researchers in the field, were all positive, and even glowing. Karl chose to be totally negative, and I still wonder why. (By the way, please tell Karl that he continues in my prayers for his full recovery to health.)

"To get back to Phil Klass, in early Spring of 1966, as Jim McDonald was just deciding to become openly visible in the UFO field, in spite of academic colleagues' warnings that by doing so he might endanger his career and professional reputation, he made an initial attempt to work with Phil on a friendly, sociable basis. This is described in detail on pp. 164-166 of 'Firestorm". For Phil at heart was a friendly, sociable and humorous man, just as McDonald was. But McDonald's attempt was short-lived, because Phil's attacks against him began soon afterwards...

"From mid-1998 onward, Phil's back problem increased in severity, and my husband and I began to pray each night for his recovery... (He was on our 'prayer list' of six or seven chosen individuals whom we entreated God to cure from various serious ilnesses.) Unfortunately, God had other plans for him, and we trust that he is in a better place, on the Other Side, with perhaps more knowledge than any of us here on earth have of the real nature of the UFO phenomenon.

"I could write much more about Phil, but I know your tolerance of long letters is limited. Just let me say that Phil might have felt 'responsible', perhaps on some official level (?), to cause friction and doubt regarding the real value of objective research on the physical UFO phenomenon. But he was, at heart, a kind and thoughtful man to those he did not feel obliged to attack."

"Thanks for the latest 'Smear'. The debate will continue to rage over whether Klass was an angel or a devil or an alien. I personally feel he was a mind-controlled Reptilian from the Masonic/Templar headquarters inside the Hollow Earth. Nothing else could possibly explain his bizarre dismissal of such a solid body of evidence. (Sarcasm aside, I admired Klass but think he had a very impoverished view of the Universe, which is far more mysterious than the Skeptics imagine...)

"The big news from this end is the release, finally, of 'E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces' from Duke University Press, featuring my chapter. Already it's being taught in a course somewhere, and I've had a couple word-of-mouth reports of praise..."

"Clancy's no mystic and deserves better from Graeber than his chivalrous Jungian faux-profundities. Jung was writing during the heyday of Space Brothers spirituality. The aliens back then were sunny moral paragons preaching Ban-the-Bomb, racial harmony, and selective Biblical literalism. The female aliens were high-class beauties and the males sometimes reminded one of popular portraits of Christ without the crown of thorns. You'd have to be blind NOT to see them as technological angels, and Jung was 20/20 in that regard.

"Abductions are a different category of myth, belonging more to the realm of horror stories and the fears descended from the moral ambiguities of scientific vivisection. The aliens inflict pain and suffering, operate on people without consent, mess with their heads like lab rats, and violate sexual taboos. They aren't angelic creatures and don't look that way either. If not pure evil, they need to be parsed as amoral by apologists. I labeled them villains long before Clancy's book, and there is nothing in her book that would convince even a child otherwise. She mindlessly applied Jung's opinions to this later problem with no evident realization that she needed to make adjustments for the fact that greys are darker beings, morally and more. She declares abductions involve technological angels only on the force of Jung's good name, and that is just not good enough.

"Does Graeber really want 'Smear' readers to believe he thinks greys are angelic creatures or is his point that evil is actually good? Mystics believe that, I'll concede, but Clancy is too lucid a writer to believe she'd embrace such nonsense as helpful.

"Another great issue!... Your cartoonist Matt Graeber, who is a most talented artist, needs to cool off a little before he writes his notes. Good copy - but not good tactics. I like this 'ace cartoonist', but get him to 'chill' - or better, he should do a cartoon instead of writing."

"Internet impresario and root-wordologist Mary ('Sasquatch-Anna') Sutherland of Burlington UFO and Paranormal Radio fame has managed to put her foot into another ufoological crap circle recently when she posted some of long-time researcher Larry Hatch's maps and investigative text at one of Mary's many amusing BUFO web sites.

'Meanwhile, Sutherland stated at her site that the good folks at CUFOS had given her permission to do so. Obviously Mary is a little confused again, because neither Hatch nor CUFOS knew anything about this 'Loan' - which prompted Hatch to think of it as a blatant copyright infringement.... Stay tuned!"

The humor in the first paragraph above is that Mary Sutherland apparently thinks "Susquehanna" River is a "root word" for "Sasquatch-Anna", i.e., a female Bigfoot seen in Pennsylvania. - Editor.

"While you were nailed by a trio of hurricanes, the Fund for UFO Research was hit by Hurricane Richard (Hall), which stomped through last summer leaving Category Two devastation in its wake. For some time, emnity has been growing between Richard and the Fund leadership, to the extent that the blowup wasn't entirely unexpected when it occurred - it was almost a case of the other shoe dropping. Richard's departure along with the downward spiral of organized ufology in general means a skeleton staff now roams the Fund's expensive offices. However, important projects vital to the Future of Scientific UFO Research continue to be pushed to fruition (whatever the hell that means!)

"For your reading and reviewing pleasure - aware as I am that pages have to be filled in 'Smear' - I've enclosed one of the aforementioned vital projects: 'Grass Roots UFOs: Cases From the Timmerman Files'. It's a throwback (in the best sense of the word) to the type of book that at one time dominated ufological publication lists, a book chock-a-block with sighting reports and line drawings. And there's organization to it. It's not just cases thrown randomly together to fill pages. Author Michael Swords introduces the cases in order of increasing strangeness. The Fund for UFO Research and CUFOS are selling copies for $22.00 each, postpaid."

Dick Hall is a serious researcher whom we have known since the 1950s, but his personality is such that we simply don't speak to each other at all. Long story here. -Editor

"Marge Testrake, one of my faithful followers, called me & reported that on CNN News of the week (of January lst) they had Kreskin's Predictions for the year 2006. One of these predictions is that people who have cell phones with pictures are going to be receiving calls from UFOs and Extraterrestrials! Maybe the UFO doldrums are over, Jim! What do you think? This could be a 'Saucer Smear' Cellebration!"

Pat informs us that his next UFO/ET Congress will take place on April 1st & 2nd at the same dreary Days Inn at Bordentown, New Jersey - at exit 7 (Route 206) from the N.J. Turnpike. - Editor.