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!

• MORE ABOUT PHIL KLASS
• MAY GOD HEAL MR. RANDI!
• MISCELLANEOUS RAVINGS
• MISSIVES FROM THE MASSES

Anyhow, documentary producer Paul Kimball has recently posted a fascinating item on the web called "Phil Klass - A Spy for the FBI?" FBI files released after Klass' recent death show conclusively that old Phil definitely was not in league with that agency.

In the 1970s Klass was on a vendetta against Dr, J. Allen Hynek, and on June 14th, 1975 he wrote a letter to then FBI Director Clarence Kelley, knocking Hynek harshly. Kelley wrote back defending Hynek's scientific reputation. The Kimball web posting concludes as follows:

"Privately, FBI officials were scathing about Klass. Attached to the Kelley letter is a memo that states: 'Klass is well known to us. He is deficient in all points of his argument, particularly concerning the credentials of Dr. Hynek, which could scarcely be better. Hynek has been associated professionally with some of the finest universities in this country and is recognized in the most prestigious scientific circles. On the other hand, Klass has no such sterling reputation and has twice been under FBI investigation in connection with the unauthorized publication of classified information. Both of these cases have been closed."

This latter point, about Klass publishing classified materials without authorization, is ironic, given his role in the MJ-12 circus. Other memos in the file reveal that the only reason Klass wasn't prosecuted is that the classified information he had used could not be declassified for the purpose of prosecution. (Memo dated May llth, 1976.)

"Lucky for Klass!

"What can be gleaned from these files is a portrait of a man who was neither respected nor liked by the FBI; who was in fact seen as an 'accusatory and argumentative' trouble maker and who could not be trusted, given both his previous publishing of classified material and his 'intemperate criticism and irrational statements' (i. e. he was a loose cannon.)

"He could be a mean-spirited pain in the ass - no surprise there to many ufologists but he was also about as far from being an FBI agent as you could get."

"Smear" urges all of our devout non-subscribers to pray intensely for our aging fallen hero. Let's hope for a miracle that will restore our guru to mental and physical health as quickly as possible. Light a holy candle, invoke White Magic, do an incantation, bribe the Devil, consider sending Randi to Lourdes, or do whatever it takes to overcome the Supernatural Forces of Darkness that have laid our hero low - or whatever!

Or, you can send a mere card to Randi % JREF, 201 S.E. 12th St., Fort Lauderdale, Fl. 33316.

We have mailed Randi a confidential postcard that reads as follows, "Dear Randi. Sorry to hear of your illness. I have asked God to restore you to full mental and physical health. If this actually works, please send your million dollar prize to me at the address on this card "...

• Another older guy still in the news occasionally is Swiss author Erich Von Daniken, whose books pitch the theory that extraterrestrials were present on Earth thousands of years ago. They were supposedly responsible for the pyramids of Giza, the stone statues of Easter Island, Stonehenge in England, etc. He admits that he has yet to find objective proof of this, though he has "chains of evidence" - whatever that means.

  As a young man Von Daniken served jail ttme somewhere in Europe, for forgery, if we remember correctly. But in 1968 he published his first book "Chariots of the Gods", which went on to become a best seller and a beautiful documentary film the following year. The book was rejected twenty times before being accepted for publication, and it was eventually translated into 32 languages. He went on to write a total of 29 books to date, presumably making a great deal of money in the process.

  We actually read one of the early books, called "Gold of the Gods", about Inca treasure and long mysterious tunnels in Equador. We know something about pre-Colombian artifacts, and all we remember is that the treasure photos in the book looked absolutely fake!

  In recent years Von Daniken has been connected with a very successful extraterrestrial theme park in Switzerland, where he is part owner. Now 70 years old, he claims that his controversial theories will be taught in schools within the next ten years.

  We blew an opportunity to chat with Von Daniken at the 1997 UFO convention in Roswell, New Mexico, where he was one of the speakers. We were in the front row of the darkened auditorium, waiting for the lecture to begin, when we noticed a seedy-looking man standing alone next to the stage. We assumed this was an electrician or stage hand of some sort and ignored him, but alas, this seedy-looking individual was actually Erich Von Daniken! The lecture was Interesting, but his accent was too much for us, and we did not stay till the end. (Thanks to Vince Ditchkus)...

• We were not at all surprised to see that the February-March issue of "UFO Magazine" has a cover story about "Serpo", the no-doubt mythical planet to which a small group of highly-trained Americans was supposedly sent in 1965. About half of the issue (40 pages) is devoted to this subject. We are asked to believe that the classic movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was basically a true story of alien cultural exchange, or whatever. Poor Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who appears briefly in that movie, must be spinning in his grave by now!

  We gave the essence of the "Serpo" story in our last issue, and won't repeat it here.

  What we find intriguing is that the "UFO Magazine" editor and other quoted "experts" all seem to agree that the account from "Mr. Anonymous", even though incredible, contradictory in various details, and totally unproven, is nevertheless worthy of serious consideration.

  Most astounding is that former USAF Intelligence officer Richard Doty is one of these "experts". Doty left military service years ago, and the last we heard of him, he was a New Mexico state trooper. There, one would think, he could do little harm. Yet he chimes in, and even names some living military people who supposedly back up parts of the information from "Anonymous". Someone should check out whether these people really exist and if they really ever said what Doty says they said!

  Richard Doty is, of course, one of the main characters in the Paul Bennewitz affair, circa 19BO, which has been revived recently by Creg Bishop in his book "Project Beta". Doty is also a strong suspect in the release of the original group of MJ-12 documents. We have talked to Doty by phone, and were left with the feeling that, if this man said the sun was coming up, it would be a good idea to run outside and make sure!

  We sincerely hope that this issue of "UFO Magazine" is selling a lot of extra copies, because there could be no other excuse for this irresponsible sort of journalism.

  Incidentally, in a recent informal poll, their readers told the editor that they don't want the magazine to print science fiction. Why should they want it, when they are getting so much true-fiction already. Egads!...

• We haven't mentioned famed spoon bender Uri Geller in quite awhile, who still creates a stir in England, where he now lives. We have recently read that he is about to embark on a 20-date tour of his latest stage show, called "Url Geller Explains the Unexplained".

  Although he still bends spoons and repairs broken watches, Uri's basic message is "very motivational and inspirational". Says he, "I can almost guarantee that 95 percent of the children who come to this show will never smoke or take drugs in their lives."

  Years ago, we saw Geller perform in a shopping mall in New Jersey, and we were not very impressed. Later, we had a private meeting with Geller and his family at a posh hotel in Miami, where he performed a trick (?) for us that defied easy explanation. Maybe he does have Psychic Powers sometimes, but in our opinion most of his performances consist of bluff and trickery. James ("The Amusing") Randi had him pegged, but overdid his criticisms so horribly that he made Geller the underdog. Long story. (Thanks to Vince Ditchkus)...

• 2005 was a good year for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. There were four incidents last summer, one of which resulted in the first pictures since 2001. These were taken last October 15th by the owner of the Loch Ness Caravan Park, while he was walking his dog by the shore of the Loch. His five photos show a four foot high head and neck. He says that the "dark green and silvery" creature could only have been the Monster. Unfortunately, we have not seen the pictures. (Again, Vince Ditchkus)...

• Christopher Roth of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is a young man with a Ph.D. in anthropology who is a frequent contributor to our fair zine. Now he has appeared in print in a scholarly tome from Duke University Press, called "E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces".

  This title is kind of strange and the book's cover is even more so, consisting of a drawing that apparently shows stars in the background and shapeless blobs in the foreground. But the book is well worth the price we paid (=free), and Chris's chapter is the longest and most interesting of several chapters written by various scholars.

  Chris's contribution is called "Ufology as Anthropology - Race, Extraterrestrials, and the Occult". It deals mainly with (1) The 19th century and early 20th century occult and science fiction background that lead up to today's ufology; (2) The contactees of the 1950s and 1960s; (3) The abduction phenomenon that began later and (4) Hybrid extraterrestrial babies. We had not realized how much America's obsession with race has to do with all this. Roth should also have said more about our obsession with sexual behavior!

  Chris Roth's chapter runs 56 pages. In the conclusion, there is a statement that reads in part:

  "Differences - the very idea of ethnicity and race - are part of American cultural conceptions of what it is to be human. Insofar as aliens are incorporated into preconceived notions of humanity, they will be accomodated as a part of - not a transcendence of - existing evolutionary, racial, and ethnic dimensions on which our conceptions of human diversity are already arranged.

  "This is what gives us George Hunt Williamson projecting anti-Semitic fears onto an alien infiltration of our social institutions; Betty and Barney Hill abducted and probed by 'men' who morph from Irishmen to Chinese to specimens from an ethnological slide show) thousands of white middle-class Americans reporting that they have been kidnapped and raped by high evolutionaries trying to save their race and ours simultaneously; nightmare fantasies of genocide, for which we blame the aliens, not whites; and a growing number of abductees and their children believing that they themselves are downtrodden immigrants, adding grey or green to the palette of white, brown, red, black, and yellow Americans..."

  Roth goes on to say that he has deliberately avoided the question of what, if anything, contactees and abductees are really experiencing. We assume that he does not know, and neither do we!...

  

• Among the several unnecessary UFO conventions this year is the 9th running of the symposium in Aztec, New Mexico, commemorating an event in 1948 in which a flying saucer supposedly crashed in a canyon north of the little town.

  Although there is some excuse for the annual Roswell Festival, commemorating the much better known 1947 event there, almost everyone agrees that the evidence for the Aztec crash is much more flimsy, at best.

  Among this year's speakers are "experts" including (you guessed it!) Stanton Friedman, even though, according to our understanding, he himself does not believe in the authenticity of the Aztec yarn. The Aztec story was first described in Frank Scully's discredited 1950 best-selling book "Behind the Flying Saucers". One of his key informants was a colorful character named Silas Newton, who was later convicted of fraud in an unrelated matter. (via Vince Ditchkus)

• We have previously written about an Englishman named Gary McKinnon, whom the U.S. government accuses of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time." A decision is expected soon as to whether or not he will be extradited to the U.S., where he would probably spend several decades in prison. There is also a two million dollar fine involved. In the meanwhile, he is free on bail in Britain.

  Our government claims that between February 2001 and March 2002, McKinnon hacked into dozens of U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Department of Defense computers, as well as sixteen NASA computers.

  McKinnon insists that he had no malicious intent, and that his reason for doing all this was to find out what information the government is withholding from the public on the subject of unidentified flying objects. He believes that the U.S. military has reverse engineered an anti-gravity propulsion system from alien spacecraft, and that this is being kept secret from the people.

  McKtnnon's obsession with computer hacking over a period of years eventually ruined his personal life, and he says he was actually glad when he finally got caught. But he is fighting extradition as hard as he can.

  Incidentally, McKinnon never did find the UFO evidence he was looking for. He claims he came across a few intriguing tidbits of info., but nothing definite to prove his theories.

• Not dead yet but nevertheless officially retiring from the saucer scene is George Fawcett of Lincointon, North Carolina. Now aged 86, he claims to have been "devoted" to unidentified flying objects since he was ten years old.

  Over the years Fawcett has written two rather unprofessional books, he has read exactly 1,768 books on the subject (or so he says), and he has donated a collection of about 148,000 UFO-related items to the International UFO Museum at Roswell - for a tax write-off, no doubt. He is therefore on their Board of Directors.

  Fawcett believes that "the government has information on UFOs which confirms their reality, but it has consistently tried to keep this fact hidden from the public." And whether he is still alive or not when astronauts make contact with life on other planets, he is sure that "we're going to find out when we get there that they have been waiting for us to arrive."

  Well, maybe. (Thanks to "UFO Newsclipping Service")...

• The banner headline reads: "UFO Mystery at Paisley Centre - Manager Convinced Aliens are Trying to Make Contact". This is from the Daily Express in Paisley, England, August 4th (our birthday!), 2005.

  The UFO connection is tenuous at best, but something very unusual did happen. A "crop circle" six yards in diameter mysteriously appeared on the flat roof of Paisley's leading shopping center. The circle is greyish in color and has gold-colored edges. It appears to have been burnt into the roof's gravel covering.

  Best of ail, its appearance followed the simultaneous malfunctioning of electrical equipment at the center, including the blow-out of a photo copier, a fax machine, and the vitally important CCTV equipment (whatever that is). The Paisley Center roof is a secured area not accessible to the general public. A satellite dish housed nearby also malfunctioned after the appearance of the circle.

  To add even more mystery to this case, an unidentified metal-like material was found on the roof after the above-mentioned goings-on. It was sent to a nearby university for analysis. "It could have something to do with UFOs", the center manager wisely speculated.

  If this isn't a blatant hoax, what is it? (Thanks to our old pal Lou Farish.)...

• Pat Marcattilio, alias "Doctor UFO", announces that his next glorious "Earth Mysteries & UFOs/ET Congress" will take place April Fool's Day weekend at the usual dreary Days Inn in Bordontown, New Jersey, near Trenton. Pat also states that this event will probably be the last in the series, as the motel is turning the convention space into a retail store, and for various reasons other motels nearby are not suitable in Pat' s opinion.

  These New Jersey conclaves have been taking place for quite a number of years - since about 1990 - and we will be truly sorry to see them end. Pat usually gets very interesting speakers (such as your "Smear" editor!), most of whom are true ufological stars. Due to a lack of publicity, the attendance tends to be pitifully low. Thus Pat is certainly not getting rich from his ufological endeavors.

  "Doctor UFO", recently retired from the U.S. postal service, has seriously considered relocating to the Orlando area of Florida, where he would open a real UFO museum. But the cost of such an undertaking appears to be far beyond his financial means. In a recent note to us, Pat suggests that your "Smear" editor open a skeptical UFO museum in Key West. Yes, this would probably attract as many as two or three paid attendees per year!

  We wish Pat well. When the Space People finally land, they should give him a giant cosmic "E" for Effort!...

• A recent episode of the science fiction animated cartoon TV series "Futurama" spotlights the famed Roswell Incident in garbled form. Somehow Fry, Bender, Lisa and their friends come back in time from the 31st Century and crash their spaceship at Roswell in 1947. There's an alien autopsy, witnessed by President Harry Truman of course, and other details of the "real" incident.

  Fry's intended grandfather happens to be stationed at Roswell at the time, and gets killed in an atomic test on the desert. Fry then becomes very friendly indeed with the woman who was about to become his grandmother, and thus (somehow) becomes his own grandfather! In spite of this, everything is back to normal at the end of the half hour episode, when the spaceship returns to the good old 31st Century...

• Admittedly this is a new low even for "Smear", but our hero Charles Fort was interested in all mysterious substances that fall from the sky, and we must follow in his footsteps.

  A Michigan man named Timothy Rohn has had his second experience in two months, in which human waste rained down from the sky, hitting his house and yard in exactly the same way both times. For reasons too grim to give here, he is sure it is human waste rather than anything else.

  One clue is that Rohn lives in the flight path of airplanes going to and from the local airport. But planes cannot discharge waste in flight because the mechanism that opens the hatch is only accessible from the outside of the craft. However, something has obviously gone wrong. Holy Shit!...

• And in far-away India, a huge chunk of ice fell out of the sky for no apparent reason at all, this past January. A weather expert states: "This sounds absurd. The atmospheric condition is not favorable even for hail. This can't be a meteorological phenomenon."

  Within minutes, hundreds of villagers flocked to the playground where the chunk was lying. The jagged and melting piece was lying in a crater about a foot deep. Within hours it melted into a chunk about five kilograms in weight. People were asked to preserve some of the ice so it could be tested...(Again, thanks to Vince Ditchkus)

• Sadly, we learn from Karl Pflock's wife Mary that his illness has progressed to the point that he will no longer be able to contribute material to "Smear" on a regular basis. As most of our readers know, about a year ago Karl was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This condition gets worse over a period of time and is inevitably fatal.

  Karl will continue to keep in touch with us and will send contributions to "Smear" when he is able. We wish him well!...

• Finally - there's a new book out by the well-known ufological scholar Michael Swords. It is published by the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) and is entitled "Grass Roots UFOs t Case Reports from the Timmerman Files".

  This book consists of about a thousand UFO cases, most of which were reported first-hand to John Timmerman during a period of about twelve years when he had a 40-foot-long UFO information exhibit on display at various shopping malls around the country. None of the cases have been researched beyond the testimony of the witnesses, so scientifically all of this can be called "raw data". Nevertheless, it is unusually interesting, informative, and written with an agreeable touch of humor. Timmerman, an 82-year-old retired bank executive living in Ohio, has devoted a vast amount of time and energy to ufology for many years, having had at least one UFO experience himself. He is a sincere and genial man, but unfortunately (like most of us) he has a "blind spot". On the phone he tells us that flying saucers can only be extraterrestrial vehicles and nothing else, whereas ghosts and all o๑her paranormal events are "crazy". Unfortunately, one could write a book just like this one and devote it to what a thousand paranormal experiencers have to say. They are equally sincere and not necessarily any more deluded than UFO experiencers. The mystery of "off beat" phenomena is by no means as simple as John Timmerman would like us to believe!

  "GrassRoots UFOs" is available from FUFOR for $20 plus $2 shipping & handling. For some reason only 300 copies have been printed, so get yours now!

• CHRISTOPHER ROTH, mentioned at length on Page 3 of this issue, writes:

  "I was interested to read in the February 25th 'Smear', the 'information' on Project Serpo. There's a planet in Zeta Reticuli called Planet Serpo? It seems that the borrowing here from science-fiction themes and moods is very shameless. Lizards from Mars? One would have thought that the past decades' great leaps forward in understanding the physical conditions of distant star systems - and in understanding the peculiar, accidental, sheer unlikelihood of our own poor planet's particular evolutionary paths - would inspire the tireless concocters of ufo lore to use a little informed imagination now and then. But this is asking a lot. I suppose there is nothing new under the sun, or orbiting any sun!

  "I'm glad to read about the Church of the SubGenius in your pages. I had college friends who were devotees of it and formed a funk band called Slack - 'slack' being the central theological concept of the SubCenius faith, if I remember correctly, analogous to 'grace' in Christianity or 'karma' in Hinduism. I was never really sure if Ivan Stang was a real person or not, and I still wonder if being a 'Smear' non-subscriber is proof that he is or was one. He didn't share a post office box with Robert Anton Wilson by any chance, did he?..."

  Robert Anton Wilson (=Bob) is still a real non-subscriber, and tells us that Stang is real, though 'Bob', the god of the SubGenius cult, was named after him! - Editor.

• Researcher JERRY BLACK writes as follows:

  "I read with amusement your article concerning Whitley Strieber and some information he related to Dr. John Mack back in 1999. Whitley Strieber has got to be the biggest joke in the history of ufology. First he had several frightening encounters with 'Demons' at his cabin in New York State. Then we had his alleged implant that would not stop moving!

  "Finally Mr. Strieber has been chosen by the alien beings to be a sex object. Give me a break! We have to thank Mr. Art Bell, Mutual UFO Network, NBC-TV, and other UFO conventions for keeping this hoaxer around.

  "About six years ago I did an investigation into the work and claims made by Whitley Strieber. I concluded that there was no evidence to support his claim of contact with 'Demons' or alien beings. There was, however, some evidence to support the idea that Mr. Strieber's claims of alien contact were a hoax."

  We happen to believe that Strieber is sincere- but misguided, whatever that means. - Ed.

• Skeptic MICHAEL DENNETT writes:

  "I was sorry to read in your last issue about the death of Wayne Aho. He was an avid UFO enthusiast and local (Seattle area) promoter of interest in the subject. In the late 1970s he proposed making a UFO landing strip in the vicinity of Mount Rainier - a project that did not see fruition. He was active in the New Age movement. We first met on a television program about flying saucers, and I remember he talked about the Giant Rock (contactee) space conventions held in the Mojave Desert in the late 50s.

  "My most remarkable encounter with him was an invitation to debate him on a local radio program. Apparently I said something that made him mad, because when the host broke for a commercial Wayne said he was going to punch out my lights (or something similar) as soon as the show was over, I wasn't concerned; he was 40 years older than me, He cooled off and by the time we were exiting the building he was chatting with me like we were old friends and even offered to buy me a cup of coffee, which unfortunately I had to decline.

  "Please keep up the good work, and don't let the bad guys, or the Greys, get you down."

  We remember when Wayne Aho changed the pronunciation of his name from Aho (long "a") to Aho ("a" as in father) - presumably because the long "a" made it sound too much like Ahole. His brother Art, however, kept the original pronunciation. This was somewhat confusing. - Editor.

• Our olde pal MATT GRAEBER writes:

  "In response to Martin Kottmeyer's whimsical comments on modern-day aliens being horrid little Greys - as opposed to C.G. Jung's angelic aliens of the long-gone contactee days, I offer this brief commentary and NO cartoon!

  "The authors of the UFO books of olde wrote about what the contactees were describing. The contactees were the 'saucer celebrities', while the authors were in fact their ufological publicists. Today, the abduction experts/authors are also the celebrities because it is they who define (through totally nonsensical research methodologies) both the character and tone of the alleged abduction experience, as well as alien descriptions which are said to have been hypnotically elucidated by the abductee(s).

  "If an alien should be reported to have a big nose, fingernails or pointed ears by an abductee - that information is routinely discarded as the result of misperception, confabulation and alien-induced screen memories. That's why the Greys are predominately represented in the contemporary UFO literature. An active field investigator and objective witness interviewer would know this to be a fact, whereas an armchair researcher would be completely at the mercy of the self-appointed abduction expert's highly 'inventive' and grotesquely slanted written words!

  "At least Dr. Jung let Orfeo Angelucci have his say in his landmark 1958 book, 'Fly-ng Saucers - A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky'. Hopkins, Jacobs, et al, would have said it for Orfeo - and that's the difference between reporting objective empirical observations and wallowing in the delusional muck of leading and demanding 'amateur' hypnotic interrogations..."

• And, RUSS TYNDALL writes:

  "I have just finished reading 'Shockingly Close to the Truth!' ...I somehow stumbled across 'Saucer Smear' on the dreaded internet. I found your sense of humor absolutely delightful and your writing style enormously entertaining. Needless to say, 'Shockingly' quickly found its way onto my bookshelf!

  "Someone has said two things about UFOs: They remain an enduring mystery, and they attract the nuttiest people around. Your exploration of Saucerdom in 'Shockingly' brings that statement into very sharp focus. Although I am sure you grow tired of accolades, I must say: well done!

  "I do not know what the future holds for Saucerdom. I would hazard a guess that it will continue as it always has, rising to a crescendo every decade or so, then retreating back into silence for some period. I do believe we (mankind) will find some form of answer to the mystery one day - maybe tomorrow or a million years from now..."

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