OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE SAUCER & UNEXPLAINED CELESTIAL EVENTS RESEARCH SOCIETY
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EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
Volume 53, No. 5
MAILING ADDRESS: |
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EDITOR AND STILL SUPREME COMMANDER: James W. Moseley
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR:
Volume 53, No. 5
MAILING ADDRESS: |
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SMEAR NOW HAS A NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
Feel free to steer us onto anything you like, but these are the vague guidelines of what we actually use in our magazine: (1) Relatively brief UFO, Fortean, and paranormal stories, but only if they have a new or interesting twist - different in some way from "run of the mill" items. ("Filer's Files" is a good example of what we don't want!) - (2) We like updates on classic cases such as (groan!) Roswell. (3) We like current gossip about reasonably well known UFO personalities.
Let's see how this works out. Our sincere thanks to Vince Ditchkus for the idea. It is he who will do the work of sorting through the material (if any) that comes in, and sending the best stuff on to us, via "snail mail".
"Smear" has been on the Net for about ten years, at www.martiansgohome.com/smear. It is put there by another computer professional whom we have never met, named Steve Mansee. Not being on the Net ourselves, we have rarely seen his works but we have been told by several people that he does a very nice job indeed. Unfortunately very few people bother to phone or write us as a result of having seen this posting. Maybe the Yahoo site will create more action, or whatever.
One of the principal alien autopsy hoaxers is a "television cyber-presenter" (what ever that is) named John Humphreys. He claims he was the one who made the models for the alien dissected in the original fake footage. Rather than being shot in 1947 in the New Mexico desert as previously claimed, the film was actually made in an apartment, in north London. Humphreys also appears in the Roswell film as the chief surgeon! The bug-eyed alien models were filled with sheep brains, chicken entrails and knuckle joints bought from a nearby meat market. (ugh!)
As we already knew, a British video distributer named Ray Santilli claimed to have bought 14 reels of silent film footage from an unnamed retired American cameraman. But Humphreys says that the film was actually shot by himself, Santilli, and three others.
Apparently Santilli still claims that there really were 14 reels of genuine footage that were very badly damaged after being exposed to air after 48 years in the can. Thus the hoax footage was made in a precise way from these unusable but genuine images. Yeah, sure!
All we know for sure is that we were very unfavorably impressed the moment we looked at the alien autopsy video years ago, soon after it reached the USA. It was unthinkable that such a momentous event would be shot with just one hand-held camera, or that the autopsy would look so crude, sloppy, and downright disgusting. Yet, many "independent experts" claimed at the time that the video was probably genuine. Egads!...
Next, we have recently talked by phone to Tom Armstrong, a Roswell, N.M. entrepreneur whose business partnership owns 40 acres of land north of town. In 2008 he plans to open an amazing complex of buildings, mostly devoted to fringe science (such as crop circles), but not focused on UFOs at all. He says that he has no connection whatever with the International UFO Museum, and has never even met Julie Shuster, its esteemed director. Armstrong does not even seem to know, or much care, what crashed in the New Mexico desert back in 1947. He is apparently on a different wave-length, so to speak.
Themes of this new museum will include the various Mars probes, lost civilizations on Earth, newly-discovered species of animals on our planet, the Nazca (Peru) Lines, and such. One huge building will contain 485,000 square feet of space, and there will also be a theatre, hotel, and related amenities. The price tag for all of this is $35 million. The museum and exhibit hall will be non-profit, but the rest of the complex will be profit-seeking, profit-making, or whatever.
Obviously the Roswell location is an attempt to cash in on the famous crash that occurred there in 1947. Whether this plan will work or not remains to be seen. We were astounded to read recently that Erich van Daniken's famed "ancient astronauts" theme park in Switzerland is on the verge of bankruptcy due to low attendance. We had assumed they were doing well. (Our thanks to Vince Ditchkus, Dave Swink & others for this info.)...
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April 3rd, 2006 - from Paul Kimball's "The Other Side of Truth".
March has come and gone, and the poll results have been finalized.
The question was "Who is the greatest ufologist ever?" The winner? Dr. Jacques Vallee. The rest of the top five, in descending order, were Dr. J Allen Hynek, Stanton T. Friedman, Dr. James McDonald, and, in what some might see as a bit of a surprise, James Moseley, Supreme Commander of Saucer Smear. I'm a big Moseley fan, so I'm glad to see he got solid support. Moseley has a base of support who appreciate his his "Court Jester" role within ugology (and the serious contributions he's made over the years, which are often forgotten or overlooked.) |
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"...What has happened to genuine in-depth nuts-and-bolts research and exploring the real (UFO) phenomenon - instead of the day-dreaming we're getting now - chatter about science fiction like Project Serpo, as released by (a man calling himself) 'Request Anonymous'? What distresses me is that not one single shred of evidence whatsoever accompanies this story, yet hoards of people are jumping into the debate as if this could indeed be real..."
We agree completely with Mr. Ecker, for once. But our question to him is this: If the above statement is indeed true, then why did "UFO Magazine" devote 40 pages to the Serpo story in its previous issue? Inquiring minds would certainly like to know!...
A fictional movie about UFOs, etc., called "Earth's Original Sin", is being prepared (the meaning of the title is not explained), and the expected profits from this commercial film will be used to build a costly UFO research center somewhere on the West Coast. But as Kimball explains, this is not a sound business method of raising money. The profits from the movie, if any, will have to be repaid to investors, so where will the money for the research center come from? It makes no sense! It is fair to say that Kimball,an easy-going sort, was seriously unimpressed with Dr. Leir...
This is the story of a space being named Val Thor (short for Valiant Thor) who looks just like a handsome young Earth man who never ages. Stranges is aging, however,and we really wonder when, if ever, this venture will be completed. Dr. Stranges admits that this "true" story will be jazzed up with fictional sex and action scenes to make it more appealing to the public. We can hardly wait!
More information on the very colorful Dr. Stranges can be found in our 2002 hard-cover book "Shockingly Close to the Truth", which is still available from us for $25!
George was a retired aircraft engineer who enjoyed telling people he once worked for Howard Hughes - which was probably true. In the 1950s and 1960s he sponsored wonderful outdoor New Age conventions every year at Giant Rock, about three miles from the Integratron. There he and his family lived in a hollowed-out portion of the Rock. Your humble editor attended three of these legendary conclaves, and in spite of our reputation for skepticism, George alwaays treated us with kindness and respect. We even made short speeches to the assembled masses from a wooden platform overlooking the crowd.
After Van Tassel's death, the Integratron went through various phases. It is currently owned by three sisters who, with the help of an organizer named Barbara Harris, sponsored a weekend extravaganza there in late April of this year. Lisa Davis of NUFOC and researcher George Knapp of Las Vegas were among the several dozen people there. The event included talks by New Age old timers and tours of Giant Rock, now grimy with graffiti and missing a big chunk that fell off in 2000 due to a minor earthquake.
O for the Good Old Daze!...
Finally, here's a bombshell (if true!) from a letter to "MUFON Forum", written by someone named Warren Aston, as published in the May issue of the MUFON Journal: "... The one person on earth who is presumably closer to Whitley Strieber than any other - his wife - has affirmed to multiple people that everything he has ever written is fiction. In the presence of Clennys Mackay, MUFON's coordinator in Australia, and several others, she volunteered that information when we brought the Striebers to Brisbane for an International Conference in 1999."
This time everything will be different, according to Wilkinson. He promised to keep in touch, so we should learn more details as time goes by. Hopefully the outcome of this project will be worth the wait. We're sure Gray would be pleased to be remembered so long after his untimely death in 1984...
Could something as specifically detailed as this have been marsh gas?? Probably not! Air Force investigator Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who arrived a few days later to investigate, apparently thought so, or more likely he just pretended to think so, to please his employer. In any case, his explanation created a furor that lasted for months. One of its effects was to propel your humble "Smear" editor to the forefront of UFO authorities, because in those days the press didn't know who was (or was not) able to give them an informed opinion. We even managed to drive Major Donald Keyhoe off the college lecture circuit (by working cheaper!), till driven off, ourselves, by the omnipresent Stanton Friedman. There is much more to this story, but you'll have to read our book....
The story is revived in a recent article from a Capitola, California newspaper which is reproduced in Lou Farish's latest zine. The heading is "The Great UFO Scare of 1896". Several years before powered flight became a reality, the California coast was nevertheless visited by a single unidentified "airship" seen by hundreds of residents of several different towns over a period of a few weeks. Descriptions varied, but the object generally hung around long enough to be seen clearly. In those days, the concept of interplanetary spacecraft was barely mentioned, if at all.
The Capitola account takes an unduly cynical tone. It says in part: "As elsewhere, with the Santa Cruz County witnesses, it was said that the luridness and detail of their observations seemed to be in direct proportion to the amount of alcoholic beverages recently consumed. It is perhaps enlightening to note that the overwhelming number of these sightings by the 'airship clan' were in the airspace above the Front Street saloon and brothel district."
More to the point is that shameless hoaxes by newspaper reporters were common in those days, as historian Jerry Clark has pointed out in his various writings on the subject. On the other hand, one should note that the "airship", after disappearing from California in late 1896, gradually made its way across the nation in early 1897. Some of the accounts are really intruguing, and it is hard to believe that they were all made up!
We have always been interested in the 1896-97 "flap", and we have been looking forward eagerly to a book that is finally due out any day now. It is written by Dennis Crenshaw of "Hollow Earth" fame, and co-authored by an artist/researcher named Pete Navarro. The title is "Secrets of Dellschau - The Sonora Aero Club and the Airships of the 1800s". (Sonora is a small town in California.) The story is strange and complex, but the gist is that the 1896-97 events may have been created or inspired by a secret society of German airship fiends, back in the 1850s. "Smear" will print a relatively detailed review of this book as soon as we get our hands on it!
In our opinion the secret society in Sonora, California, is probably a myth, but there is much more to the story than that.
RE KARL PFLOCK: He is still able to talk on the phone occasionally, but is not doing well. Presumably his ALS disease will gradually get worse.
"Thanks for another scintillating issue of 'Saucer Smear'...I have enclosed a couple of recent columns from 'The Other Side of Truth' for your amusement. I don't know exactly what the title means either, but it sounds cool."As for the opinion polls, you did get a couple of small details wrong. There were well over 100 votes for each, which still doesn't make them a scientific sampling, but which is a bit more than you indicated in 'Smear'. Further, you must have mis-read the 'top cases' poll, because Rendlesham came in at number one. Cash-Landrum was a few spots back.
"One of these days I hope I'I1 get down to the Key West area and I'll have the opportunity to meet you in person. You're right when you say I 'like and respect' you and your work over the years. Ufology (whatever that is) is better for having you around!"
The trouble with Paul's poll results is that he posts the preliminary totals, and later posts the final results which are based on a larger total number of votes. But either way, we are (or seem to be) #5 in Ufology. Wheee! - Editor.
"...Perhaps you have seen the April 24th issue of the 'New Yorker', which features a lengthy profile of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the unhinged autocratic leader of Kalmykia, an autonomous republic within Russia, near the Caucasus region. Among other eccentricities, he ...'often comments on his ability to communicate with aliens.' In 2001 he told journalists that he had recently been on board a UFO. 'The extraterrestrials put a yellow spacesuit on me. They gave me a tour of the spaceship and showed me the command center. I felt very comfortable with them.' I wonder: Does this make him the highest placed contactee ever? The article ends quoting Ilyumzhinov saying vaguely: 'Tomorrow, aliens will fly down here and say, "You guys are misbehaving", and then they will take us away from the earth. They will say, "Why are you fighting down here? Why are you eating each other?" And they will just put us in their ships and take us away." Ilyumzhinov is also an admirer of George W. Bush's iron fist, and of the unhinged chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer..."I am surprised to hear that Paul Kimball is actually a nephew of Stanton Friedman, since to judge from Kimball's blog, he is your biggest fan!...
"I was intrigued by your information from Whitley Strieber on anomalous ice falls. Just in case falling ice is from airplane toilets, it's always a good bet never to use chunks of ice from such anomalous falls for one's cocktail!...
I would offer my full services as co-author of "Grave Robbing for Fun and Profit', but I don't think having such a title on my resume would enhance my close working relationship with Native American tribes. I hope you understand. Perhaps if there were a change of title..."
The following is in reply to your snail mail received on April 28. As you know I served on the Board of Directors of the UFO Museum in Roswell for a couple of years. I have always had a strong interest in the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, space travel and all that goes with the subject. My career in Industrial Design, Graphics, and packaging provided me with the skills to create a mural and other exhibits, including the I-Beam for the Roswell UFO Museum & Research Center.I was, therefore, surprised to see a new version of the fabled Roswell Incident I-Beam for sale on the internet with the caption, "Created and produced by the Jesse Marcel Family". How could this be? I had worked very closely back in 1994 and 95 with Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. to reproduce an authentic appearing I-Beam Replica from the 1947 Roswell Incident crash site. Every minute detail was taken into consideration including cross-section, length, color of both the I-Beam and its graphic symbols. Even a description of the fractured ends was used to help in accurately reproducing the I-Beam replica. Dr. Marcel even had shown my symbol drawings to his mother, Viaud Marcel, and she concurred with their general appearance. Now another version, totally different in color and appearance, from the original replica was being offered for sale on the internet at twice the price of the one Dr. Marcel had approved as being accurate on 14 Jan 1995. I had fabricated 1,000 of these I-Beam Replicas. They were sold via mail order and through two museums, one on the east coast and the other, the UFO Museum in Roswell. Something was very wrong. I didn't like to think of the 1,000 buyers of the approved original being told their purchase was nothing more than a novelty and/or artistic representation. I needed an explanation.
I called Dr. Marcel this morning at home in Montana. He answered the phone, and we had a very pleasant chat. I opened the conversation with the news about Karl Pfiock's failing health status. He had not heard and offered regrets. My next subject of interest was what I'd seen on the intemet regarding the Marcel Family's Second Generation I-Beam now on sale. His reply: "That's my son's project in Spokane". I asked Dr. Marcel if he was in agreement with this drastic change after more than ten years. Dr. Marcel made it very clear to me that the replica I had fabricated working with him back in 94 is still valid, and there is no reason for his opinion to ever change.
Whether you agree or disagree with what may have happened in July of 1947, Dr. Marcel, who was eleven at the time of the Roswell Incident and his mother, Viaud Marcel, were the only two living witnesses who could approve the I-Beam's appearance on 14 January 1995.
"What is this 'Blasphemy' concerning the Holy City of Roswell?"I read your May Day issue of 'Smear' and was delighted to see that Ms Wendy Connors has fearlessly expressed her feelings concerning the Roswell International UFO Museum and Research Center's apparent lack of UFO research contributions, along with its noteworthy approach to the promotion of its many business and tourist enterprises. Ms Connors even goes so far as to mention the shoddy contributions of the inept saucer sleuths who are attempting to fill in the Museum's research vacuum.
"If it were not for the fact that some of the chief officers of this desert-town business venture are alleged to have been key eyewitnesses to the fateful 1947 crash, one might suspect that a wee bit of P.T. Barnumology is going on in the Holy City (?).
"Perhaps the UFO Museum and 'Educational' Center would be a far more suitable description of the business. Perhaps even The UFO Museum and 'Trinketorium' would be even more fitting (?). As Ms. Connors aptly points out, they do have those cute little inflatable greys (in assorted colors) on sale. Come to think of it, Wendy even mentioned something about 'Fleece', or was that 'Fleecing' tourists too?
"Hey, wait a minute, Jim! I thought you and Wendy were UFOes, not Ufriends. You mention that you now 'Regret' having included Ms Connors in your 'Hall of Shame' listing. Hmmmm. Photos of you two are bound to mysteriously appear on the walls of the Museum's public restrooms now that Wendy has so shamelessly become a 'Smear' non-subscriber and caustic missive contributor too. (Eek!)"
Saucer Smear Index
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 Please note that letters for Smear editor James Moseley should be snail-mailed to PO Box 1709, Key West, FL 33041, insofar as Cdr. Moseley is proudly computer-illiterate and determined to stay that way. |
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