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OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE SAUCER & UNEXPLAINED CELESTIAL EVENTS RESEARCH SOCIETY

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EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Karl T. Pflock and Vince Ditchkus Volume 53, No. 4 May 1st, 2006 (Whole Number 390) MAILING ADDRESS: P. 0. Box 1709 Key West, FL 33041

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!

• IMPORTANT NOTICE
• TIDBITS OF TRASH
• NEWS BRIEFIES
• LETTRES TO YE OLDE EDITOR

Meanwhile, in a coincidence of timing, a researcher named Vince Ditchkus has been sending us twice-monthly stacks of good material from the Net, starting about a year ago. In many issues of "Smear", about a third of the news items are from this extremely helpful individual. We have therefore decided to add Vince to our humble staff as a Contributing Editor, along with Pflock.

We have never met Vince Ditchkus, but he tells us that he has been interested in ufology since the mid-1960s, having been inspired by a "Look" Magazine article about Betty and Barney Hill. He says that he is convinced there is something out there, but he's just not sure what. We feel pretty much the same way!

Tn "real life", as we like to call it, Vince has been a mainframe database specialist (whatever that is) for over thirty years. He is currently an independent software consultant residing in Alexandria, Virginia - just outside of Washington, D.C. Welcome Aboard!

• Via Barbara Snowberger we have received a Net posting from Lisa Davis, executive director of the NUFOC (National UFO Conference). Therein Lisa tells us a bit about this year's conclave, which will be either the 43rd or 44th in this seemingly endless annual series. (There seems to be an error here, in Lisa's text. She says 44th; we say 43rd.)

  In any case, the event will take place on an unnamed date in either August or October, and it will be in San Diego this time instead of Hollywood, California. Speakers include Budd Hopkins (eeek!), David Jacobs, Greg Bishop, Yvonne Smith, Travis Walton, Roger Leir, Dr. John Miller, and several others. Whether or not your "Smear" editor will be on the program again this year remains to be seen. We will keep you posted as additional thrilling details pour in!...

• There's much to comment on in the April 2006 issue of "UFO Magazine", edited by a ufological couple named Don and Vicki Ecker, with whom we really don't get along at all.

  Most amusing and confusing is the information on Page 5, which reads exactly as follows: "Confused about the new monthly schedule? Not to worry. If you signed up for six issues, then six issues you will get. The only difference is that your magazines will come every month instead of every single month." Maybe Don was hung over that day, or maybe Vicki forgot to screw her eyeballs in! What they are trying to tell us is that "UFO" has gone from bi-monthly to monthly. You will now get twice as much trash for twice as much cash. Way to go, Don & Vicki!

  Maverick whistle blower Larry Bryant is now a columnist for "UFO", and presents us with fascinating info about Phil Klass' negative relationship with the FBI. This same material is in the April 5th "Smear".

  Former Canadian Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer (pictured here) is mentioned in an article about the United Nations General Assembly having recently received a resolution about establishing diplomatic relations with advanced civilizations that may now be visiting Earth. (The key word here is may!) Heller, whom we have written about in a previous issue of "Smear", wisely states "UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."

  British writer Nick Redfern has come out with another new book which is somewhat less controversial than his recent book about Roswell. This one is called "On the Trail of the Saucer Spies", which tells us, as we already knew, that our government for many years has been monitoring UFO researchers & groups for various reasons. Presumably they still do so. Our favorite item in this article is the alleged fact that J. Edgar Hoover (former FBI director) possessed a copy of Gray Barker's classic MIB book "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers". Your "Smear" editor is mentioned profusely therein!

  Finally, on a more scientific note, there is an article called "Messages from the Hollow Earth", by a remote viewer named Dianne Robbins. Well, at least there is no science fiction in this issue of "UFO" and for that we should be grateful!

• Then there is the March 2006 issue of the MUFON Journal, which asks us to renew our "Journal Subscriber" ("J.S.") status for the new astounding sum of $45.00 per year. Further along in the issue we see an unusually amusing (to us) article by our olde adversary, abduction guru Budd Hopkins. In it he tells how he was in frequent touch with Whitley Strieber in 1986 when Strieber's best-selling "Communion" book was being written. Strieber hired an artist to faithfully reproduce the exact facial features of the "Gray" aliens he had been seeing. Finally, the book and the cover painting were finished, and Strieber told Hopkins by phone that "the painting is uncanny. It is exactly (emphasis added) like the faces I have seen." Strieber was very excited about this fact, and raved on at length about his satisfaction with the artist's rendition.

  However, when Hopkins actually saw the painting, he was "shocked and profoundly disappointed". In Hopkins' opinion, there was a "staggering error" The cranium was much too small, virtually a pinhead, and the hypnotically staring eyes were so close to the top of the head that the result was "grotesque" - like a carnival freak. Egads!

  He told Whitley, "The aliens are universally described as having huge craniums, not little pinheads like this." Strieber quickly agreed. He said, "Now that I think about it, I remember that yes, they did have big heads". (WHY did he fail to notice the problem till Hopkins pointed it out? This makes no sense!) So these two true gurus managed to agree between themselves what a "Gray" should really look like! And many readers of "Communion" later wrote in, saying that the eyes in the cover illustration were great but the head was much too small. One wonders what objective truth, if any, we are supposed to get out of this.

  Our point here is that these "experts", and others like them, mold the image of an alien to suit themselves. An ancient Creek philosopher, whose name we can't quite remember, had a bed that fit every visitor perfectly. If you were too long for the bed, he would chop your legs off appropriately, and if you were too short, he would stretch you appropriately. No problem there! Abductions are real, in some sense. Hopkine and Strieber are not! (Profound thanks to Matt Graeber for this classic cartoon.)...

• Robb MacGregor is a loyal "Smear" non-subscriber and the co-author of a very interesting new book about the Bermuda Triangle, called "The Fog". He recently sent us two unrelated items from the Net, both of which unfortunately lack pertinent details - which is frustrating.

  One item is a paragraph from a long article about UFO enthusiast Senator Barry Goldwater, in which it is stated by the author (a former space shuttle official) that in February 2006, the Bush administration reclassified at least 55,000 formerly secret and confidential documents. It is not made clear whether these were about UFOs or other topics, nor does it tell us what the reason was for this action.

  The other item is even more intriguing. It is about the late John Mack of Harvard University, who wrote two highly controversial books about the alien abduction phenomenon. Now, "Unknown Country", a web site written by Whitley Strieber's wife Anne, tells us that Dr. Mack is sending messages from the "Other Side" to various mediums. However, she does not tell us the content of these messages other than "it has something to do with a connection between the close encounter experience and spirit contact". Inquiring minds would like to know more!...

• The latest issue of Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" Magazine (Vol. 12, No. 2) contains a very interesting article about Coral Castle, located on highway U.S. One just south of Miami, Florida.

  The Castle was built in the 1920s by a Latvian immigrant named Ed Leedskainin, who, with simple tools and a very limited education, was able to carve and move coral rocks each weighing tons. He built a large eccentric scene (see photo) of various huge stone objects, all in memory of his "Sweet Sixteen" - a Latvian girl who had jilted him at the altar many years before he came to Florida.

  After Ed's death in 1951, the Castle eventually became a well-publicized tourist attraction. Your editor visited many times and wrote up the story for the old "Saucer News". Our article was later commented on, in a book by little-known ufologist Otto Binder, and that page from Binder's book was displayed for many years on a wall of the Castle's gift shop, along with other clippings. Because of this, your editor was considered an authority on the subject, and we used to get free admission every time we went there!

  At one point in the 1970s, the Castle, together with about two acres of highway-frontage vacant land, was put up for sale. We met with the owner in a serious attempt to buy the property, but it was greatly overpriced. The gift shop had an income, of course, but no net profit. The place was eventually sold to others, and still exists as a tourist attraction. However, your editor's "ego sheet" is no longer on the wall.

  The question has always been - how did Ed, who always worked alone and weighed only about 100 pounds, manage to build all this? At One time in the 1930s he even moved the whole place several miles up the highway to a new location. It was said by some that he had help from the Space People or that he used miraculous means of various sorts. Many students of the offbeat wrote on the subject, but none could solve the mystery. Ed himself made no supernatural claims, but he often said that he had re-discovered how the Pyramids were built. The secret of how he constructed the Castle died with him!

  What is interesting is that William Stanfield, author of the "Skeptic" Magasine article, has no solution either! Says he: "We (skeptics) simply accept that at the present time the question of how Coral Castle was built remains partially unanswered. Even allowing for the possible use of power tools and the help of other people, Ed Leedskainin apparently designed and built - not once but twice - an awe-inspiring structure that remains an enigma to this day."

  Incidentally, we know from our own research that Ed did not have power tools or help from anyone.

  Go see the place yourself, some time. You will be amazed!...

• Several issues back, we told you about a very colorful & interesting ufologist named Paul Kimball, who has a web site called "The Other Side of Truth" - whatever that means. At that time he published a list of "Ufology's Top Ten" researchers and "Ufology's Bottom Ten". Amazingly, your humble editor made the first list. The late Phil Klass was the only person who made both lists!

  Now Kimball has come up with an opinion poll regarding "Who is the Greatest Ufologist Ever?" The winner by a landslide is Dr. Jacques Vallee. Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Stanton Friedman are tied for second place. (Is it just a co-incidence that Kimball is Friedman's nephew?) The late Dr. James McDonald comes in third. And guess what? Your "Smear" editor is tied with the late Major Donald Keyhoe for 4th place! Among those getting no votes at all are Phil Klass, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Walt Andrus, and Jerry Clark. Way to go, Jerry!

  According to a different reading of the same data by Kimball, it's Vallee, Hynek, Friedman, McDonald, and Moseley, in that order, i.e., Moseley comes in 5th.

  The problem here is that only a total of 64 votes were received for all candidates combined. Surely it seems reasonable that it would take a total of at least a few hundred votes for the results to have any scientific meaning at all. Maybe the MUFON membership of about 2,000 to 3,000 souls should have been sent questionnaires. (In that case former MUFON director Walt Andrus probably would have done a lot better!)

  If we were voting in this poll we would put Hynek first, Vallee second, and Friedman somewhere way down the list.

  It's all fun & games as far as we are concerned. What we get out of all this is that Kimball likes and respects us, and we are very favorably impressed with him as well. His ufological views are very similar to ours, which of course makes him a brilliant researcher indeed!

  Incidentally, Kimball has a companion poll in the same web posting, asking "What is the UFO Case with the 'Best Evidence' Ever?" The winner, with (only) four votes, is Cash-Landrum, and we agree...

  

• Dr. Roger Leir is the foot doctor who seems obsessed by the idea that aliens are implanting extremely mysterious small artifacts in our feet and elsewhere in our bodies. He is the author of four books on the subject of implants, including one called "The Aliens and the Scalpel". His lectures "explain the scientific analysis demonstrating that these objects may (emphasis ours) contain materials not of this world". Leir has conducted eleven video-taped surgeries on abductees, including one on famed UFO author Whitley Strieber, although we are not sure if Strieber really claims to be an abductee.

  If any of these recovered substances was really anomalous in a provable way, we would have heard it loudly by now, from Dr. Leir and his supporters. Obviously there are medical circumstances under which odd substances embed themselves in the human body, in some natural way. Has there ever been a "control" study of non-abductees who have found similar implants?

  Worst of all, no one has ever even attempted to explain the purpose of these substances, all of which are somewhat different from each other. Are they tracking devices or do they have some other sinister purpose? To us, the whole subject is the most ludicrous part of the whole abduction syndrome.

  We heard Dr. Leir speak once at a UFO convention, and got a very bad "vibe" from his manner, as if he were some kind of egotistical nut. In any case, his latest lecture was at one of Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation seminars in New York City.

  As we keep saying, there is something to abductions, but the evidence is flimsy and the proof is lacking. (Our thanks to Tom Benson for this one.)...

• As previously noted, long-time researcher Dennis Crenshaw publishes a great online zine called "Unraveling the Secrets", which has a print version that we receive. This used to be called "The Hollow Earth Insider" - a title that we still love.

  In the latest issue Crenshaw includes an item by one Greg Szymanski about the counter-culture hero William Cooper, who was killed by Arizona police on November 5th, 2001 in a "pre-planned ambush, originally planned on the morning of 9/11". This claim is made by Doyel Shamley, who was Cooper's best friend and co-worker, according to the article. We knew Cooper fairly well because of his UFO claims, but we have never heard of Doyel Shamley.

  Shamley says that Bill Cooper was "brutally murdered in an ambush by minions of the New World Order". Actually, the state police were merely trying to serve an arrest warrant on Cooper, who opened fire on them and was killed in the ensuing shoot-out.

  Shamley raves on that Cooper "was gunned down in cold blood at his rural home in the Arizona desert in a plot hatched by Illuminati higher-ups, wanting desperately to erase him from the planet for getting too close to their demonic secrets".

  Bill Cooper was the author of "Behold a Pale Horse", a best-selling conspiratorial book that also deals with UFOs. We drank excessively with Cooper several times at Timothy Green Beckley's series of western UFO conventions, years ago. The man clearly had a death wish, and died exactly in the manner he wanted to!

  Meanwhile, Shamley continues to vigorously promote Cooper's controversial ideas...

• One is from Orange County, near Los Angeles, where two technicians have been scaring the neighborhood with home-made 4-foot-diameter brightly lit saucer shaped models which are remotedly controlled. The men sometimes let as many as four of them zigzag at low altitude around the night sky. (See photo, which hopefully is intelligible. )

• ...A new theory about the Loch Ness Monster has it that the legend was created by circus elephants near the Loch back in 1933. Nessie could be the trunk, head and back of a swimming elephant. No word about the sightings before and after 1933!

• ...Perhaps the least-documented sighting of all times is one from Idaho, which took place "almost 40 years ago." Two admittedly drunken youths were driving home one evening when they supposedly saw a blinding flash, and a small flying saucer appeared in front of their car. The dome of the craft opened up and a very ugly 3 1/2-foot-tall creature floated into their car. There is more, but unfortunately the sighting has no believable confirmation from anyone.

• ...Rick Hilberg of Cleveland, Ohio has lurched forth with another of his $8 postpaid mini-books, this one called "Weirdology II". It is related to his quarterly mag of the same name. It is - what can we say? Weird! Write to 377 Race Street, Berea, Ohio 44017

• ..... Another key Roswell Incident figure has died. He is J. Bond Johnson, who photographed the highly controversial crash debris as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The wreckage was being displayed on the floor of the office of General Ramey, who was the base commander. The six pictures that he took are the only known photos of the wreckage, and five of them still survive. (Credits Wm. Moore)

• ...This past March, a policeman in Argentina was supposedly chased by two short aliens with red eyes, who gave him unspecified "telepathic commands" and messed up his memory. He ended up in the hospital, where he was reluctant to tell his story, saying (in Spanish, of course) "I don't want to be taken for a nut."

• Finally - we have Robb MacGregor, who has sent us an update on the Falling Ice Phenomenon (FIP), which has become much more frequent of late. Strieber's "Unknown Country" web site says that this is being caused by global warming. Since the Bush Administration does not believe in global warming, we are understandably a little hesitant to discuss the subject. But here goes:

  According to Strieber's information, the falling ice occurs because of the increasing temperature difference between the troposphere (= lower atmosphere) and the stratosphere (= upper atmosphere). The ultra-cold stratosphere causes large ice blocks to form out of jet contrails or ice that forms on airplane wings, and sometimes from water in rain clouds. These are the ice blocks that fall to earth. People who live under aviation flight paths are most often the ones affected, and this is why they falsely assume the ice comes from airplane toilets (though once in awhile it really is from airplane toilets.)

  It's no coincidence that Strieber and radio's Art Bell have a "groundbreaking" book on this subject, called "The Coming Global Superstorm".

  Rob has included a personal note together with this mailing: "Hi Jim. I know you're a fan of falling ice blocks - if not Whitley Strieber." Come to think of it, we have bashed Strieber more than enough in this particular issue of "Smear". May the "Grays" forgive us'

• Hard-core skeptic JOHN MERRELL writes:

  "Long overdue, after a good many years away from the paranormal scene, I humbly return and provide my 'token gift' to the Commander. Since first sitting between Phil Klass, Gary Posner, and James Randi at a CSICOP conference almost 25 years ago, my own humble skeptic past has also come full circle.

  "As the only skeptic (to my knowledge) to have lost a lawsuit to a psychic (Noreen Renier in 1986), I can inform you that I have recently filed a lawsuit against this same 'psychic detective' for a 'breach of settlement' in our legal agreement. My name appears more than 50 times in her 2005 book 'A Mind For Murder'...

  "So perhaps, Commander, there is a connection between spinning UFOs and a psychic who claimed to see the future and claims my downfall. This is the same psychic who claimed to have described something 'round and round' which later police officers connected to a cement mixer truck in a murder case. Of course it should come as no surprise that Philip Klass is responsible for this latest collision in the inter-dimensional paranormal cosmos.

  "If I manage to win this round after 20+ years, somewhere Klass will smile that a 'dead and buried' skeptic managed to come back, and at least a few folks like Randi, Dennett and Posner might suspect that 'round and round' was a psychic vision more likely based upon reoccurring legal battles than a cement truck...

  "I bow to your esteemed longevity, Commander. I'm quite glad too at finding your cartoonist still at your side. Even skeptics enjoy his two-dimensional artistic antics..."

• WILLIAM ("Bill") MOORE, that ufological icon of yesteryear, writes:

  "...I received your latest 'Smear' yesterday. I can't say that the FBI's attitude toward Phil Klass comes as any surprise. He was considered to be a crackpot and a loose cannon as far back as the early 1980s, but at the same time he occasionally served as an unwitting 'useful idiot' for planting certain disinformation about aerospace technology that those who planted it wanted the Soviets to see. As to the bit about leaking classified data and the feds not being able to prosecute without disclosing the information, didn't someone break that story years ago but no one would believe it? It might have been Todd Zechel who revealed that bit in one of his rants against Klass. Maybe one of your non-subscribers will recall.

  "I'm sorry to hear the very troubling news about Karl Pflock's condition. I don't know what else to say except to note that Stephen Hawking suffers the same debilitation and continues to be productive...I've not always agreed with Karl, but he has always made an effort to be factual, logical, and thought-provoking, which are qualities one comes to respect when dealing with this subject.

  "As for the Planet Serpo thing, the UFO angle is a cover for something else completely unrelated, at least one of the major players is sailing under false colors, and that's all that can be told, at least for now.

  "On another front, it seems Bob Lazar is trying to resurrect the notoriety he enjoyed back in the '80s with his moonshine stories about Area 51 and element 115. Apparently he's counting on a new generation of ufoologists being unaware of the discrediting he suffered, or the criminal activities he was allegedly involved with at the time of the last go-round."

• Famed researcher WENDY CONNORS writes, not directly to us but to her fans on the Net:

  "...I've been doing much thinking of late about the current situation regarding the Roswell Incident. It's time to retire this dog, if not bury it completely. Why? Simply put, the case has become so muddled by inexperienced researchers and those who earn their living off of the case - such as the alleged International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, that the case languishes more as a joke than a bonafide case. That's really a shame.

  "The UFO Museum in Roswell has not produced anything of note regarding the case. All new information has come from private researchers. This alleged bastion of 'research' done by the UFO Museum adds up to diddly-squat. About the only thing this dog and pony show has done is fleece the tourists' pockets by providing cheap Chinese alien figures and putting up some exhibits that even smaller museums out-class in design, scope and factuality.

  "No, if you head to Roswell for vacation this year, I suggest going to the McDonald's hamburger joint built in the shape of a UFO. At least you'll get something in your stomach instead of the bellyache you'll get by visiting a 'research facility' that produces zero research.

  "In the beginning, the International UFO Museum and Research Center had a lot of promise. But, like all big ideas borne in tribal mentality, it has failed miserably."

  And, writing directly to us, Wendy says in part: "Nice to read that you're doing well and that "Smear" is still under your able control." Gosh! We now regret having included Wendy in our recent "Saucer Smear" "Hall of Shame"! - Editor.

• Ace ufological scientist STANTON FRIEDMAN writes:

  "Just a quick note to point out that your comment about me and Aztec in the April 'Smear' is a few years out of date. I have spoken at a few earlier Aztec conferences. Years ago I was indeed dubious about the Aztec case, thanks to Bill Steinman, Silas Newton, etc., etc. However, once I did my homework, visited the site, and spent time with Scott Ramsey and others who have been doing theirs, I became convinced that indeed a saucer crashed at Hart Canyon near Aztec in March, 1948, and its retrieval was indeed, as one might expect, covered up by the U.S. Government. Scott has really dug into the documentation, and found witnesses, etc. I would probably still rank Roswell the number one crash. The research for Roswell was in many ways easier because of all the press coverage and because I got a much earlier start. Unfortunately, we keep losing the races with the undertaker."

• PAUL KIMBALL, UFO researcher & head of Redstar Film and Television Production, writes:

  "Thanks for the mention in the latest issue of 'Saucer Smear', which was waiting for me when I finally wandered into the office this afternoon. The front page/lead story! Wowee - my ufological career has hit a new high!

  "The Klass stuff was interesting when I read it. Of course, just because the FBI seems to have had a low opinion of him doesn't mean that some other government agency wasn't using him - or so I've been told by some people who still can't accept that Klass was what he appeared to be - nothing more and nothing less. But that's ufology, isn't it?"

  We will have more to say about Kimball's glorious opinion polls in our next issue! - Editor.

• Long-time ufological researcher CHRIS ROTH writes:

  "First of all my heartfelt thanks for your review of 'E.T. Culture' in the latest 'Saucer Smear'. There's very little one can do to raise the visibility of a scholarly book outside of a scholarly audience, so this is a great help (not that I get any royalties, as a mere lowly contributor!)...

  "I am enclosing a Web clipping which I assume you have seen, from Paul Kimball's 'The Other Side of Truth' blog, reporting your winning fifth place in a 'greatest ufologist ever' poll, behind Vallee, Hynek, Friedman, and McDonald. Congratulations! You beat out Donald Keyhoe and any number of others...

  "I'm saddened, by the way, to hear about Karl Pflock's progressive illness. He's one of the sharper minds in the business, and I enjoyed interviewing him on my radio show way back when."

• Cartoonist, etc. MATT GRAEBER writes:

  "...I just wanted to tell you that vintage 'Smear' - like vintage Moseley - is still a ufologist's delight and an acquired taste that lingers (like Limburger) on the intellectual's mental pallet. Not only is 'Smear' read by Believers, but skeptics and debunkers enjoy it too. So, you MUST be doing something completely wrong! Call it bad chemistry, dumb luck or misguided alchemy, you seem to have concocted an elixir that tickles and intoxicates the funny bone. Are you sure you're not a ufological sociologist for the FBI?"

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