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****************************************************************
The REALL News
****************************************************************
The official newsletter of the Rational Examination Association
of Lincoln Land
Volume 1, Number 6 July 1993
----------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic Version
If you like what you see, please help us continue by sending
in a subscription. See the end of newsletter for details.
----------------------------------------------------------------
In This Issue:
From the Editor -- Bob Ladendorf
From the Chairman -- David Bloomberg
The Alien "Booger" Menace -- Martin Kottmeyer
REALLity Check -- David Bloomberg
The Theory of Dark Suckers -- Author Unknown
Board Member Self-Portraits -- REALL Board of Directors
Call for Articles -- Bob Ladendorf
No-Back Back Page -- Martin Kottmeyer
----------------------------------------------------------------
Purpose:
The Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land (REALL)
is a non-profit educational and scientific organization. It is
dedicated to the development of rational thinking and the application
of the scientific method toward claims of the paranormal and fringe-
science phenomena.
REALL shall conduct research, convene meetings, publish a newsletter,
and disseminate information to its members and the general public.
Its primary geographic region of coverage is central Illinois.
REALL subscribes to the premise that the scientific method is the
most reliable and self-correcting system for obtaining knowledge
about the world and universe. REALL not not reject paranormal claims
on a priori grounds, but rather is committed to objective, though
critical, inquiry.
_The REALL News_ is its official newsletter.
Membership information is provided elsewhere in this newsletter.
Board of Directors: Chairman, David Bloomberg; Assistant Chairman,
Prof. Ron Larkin; Secretary-Treasurer, Wally Hartshorn; Newsletter
Editor, Bob Ladendorf; At-Large Members, Prof. Steve Egger, Frank
Mazo, and Kevin Brown.
Editorial Board: Bob Ladendorf (Newsletter Editor), David Bloomberg
(electronic version editor), (one vacancy).
REALL
P.O. Box 20302
Springfield, IL 62708
Unless stated otherwise, permission is granted to other skeptic
organizations to reprint articles from _The REALL News_ as long
as proper credit is given.
The views expressed in these articles are the views of the individual
authors and do not necessarily represent the views of REALL.
----------------------------------------------------------------
From The Editor
-- Bob Ladendorf
This issue of The REALL News makes a lot of sense -- or is that
senses. We see light and dark, as well as _not_ seeing the backs of
aliens. We get involved in alien olfactory stuffing efforts. We
can feel the purported, pseudoscientific cures for warts when reading
letters to Ann Landers. We can almost hear the televised assertions
of Noah's ark advocates and its refutations by scientists as described
in REALLity Check. And we can almost taste the controversial
"vitamin supplements."
That all may be a bit of a stretch, but we do have for you a
variety of interesting--and offbeat--topics, including a "light"
look at the "dark sucker" theory. Our lead article is from Central
Illinois writer Martin Kottmeyer, who is no stranger to The REALL
News. His article on "Pencil-Neck Aliens" was the feature in our
first issue. In this issue, he tackles alien nasal implants in humans.
I even left in his slang term for nose products. Even though readers
may cringe at reading such an oddly titled article, there is a
serious analysis of alleged implants of many kinds in human beings.
As always, Chairman Bloomberg's careful monitoring of print and
visual media offers refreshing--and often sardonic--views of the
failings, prejudices and sometimes balanced treatments by the media
in covering paranormal and pseudoscientific matters.
As a reminder, there will be no REALL meeting in July. We expect
to meet on August 16 at Sangamon State University in Room E of the
Public Affairs Center. Hope to see you there.
/s/ Bob Ladendorf
==============================
From the Chairman
-- David Bloomberg
[Editor's Note: Chairman David Bloomberg, and his new 4th of July wife,
Sharri, are taking their honeymoon in the Bermuda Triangle area. If he
is "lost" there, he wishes all REALL members the best of luck in the
future! Maybe he can at least see Elvis!?]
Here is his short column:
FAMILY MEMBERSHIP -- We have added a new type of membership. Now,
all the members of your family can enjoy the benefits of REALL
membership. The _family membership_ will be $30 annually, and one
newsletter will be sent to the whole family.
DISCOUNTED BOOK SALES -- REALL members can buy any book from the
Prometheus Books catalog for _20 percent_ off the list price, plus
$1 per book for shipping (if you can book up the book from us at a
monthly meeting). If you want a catalog, you can pick one up at the
next meeting or contact Prometheus at the Warehouse and Fulfillment
Center, 59 John Glenn Drive, Buffalo, NY 14228-2197. Phone: (716)
691-0133. REALL will also benefit from these sales.
==============================
{EXCLUSIVE}
The Alien "Booger" Menace
by Martin Kottmeyer
As if life wasn't silly enough already, UFOlogists are
warning us that aliens are flying around and sticking things
up people's noses. We all knew aliens are supposed to be
different, but who would have expected them to be as "geeky"
as that. On the matter of believing this claim, we'd suspect
even ole Ripley might pause and say, "NOT!"
Such claims do exist, however, and have become more
numerous in recent years. Stark incredulity may be the
proper response, but my doubt took the form of wondering how
such a notion came into being.
It seemed likely that UFOlogists didn't plant the idea
into their claimants' minds. Their comments exude
puzzlement. Mind control was the first guess, but David
Jacobs now includes at least four more possibilities in his
discussion in Secret Life. They might be tracking devices.
They might telemeter hormone levels in the body. They might
be transceivers to facilitate alien-human communications.
They might generate molecular changes necessary to transport
humans through walls.
Doubtless, there are future avenues yet to be explored.
Some that occur to me: they are industrial "boogers"
designed to harvest biochemical elixirs unique to human
nasal secretions; they are "booger" exchanges meant as an
olfactory sign of cosmic brotherhood (not blood-brothers but
"booger"-brothers); or they might be a ritual transcultural
initiation necessary as a legal formality before anyone from
their society converses with outsiders.
The problems common to all such guesses is that nasal
implants would be potentially fatal to their hosts. The
sinus passages are notoriously septic environments. No
surgeon would countenance such procedures. They are
impossibilities demanding to be treated as fantasy.
A difficulty specific to the idea that implants are mind
control devices is that implants have been tried and largely
abandoned by neurologists. Early experiments with electrical
probes in the brain elicited certain thoughts and sensations
which seemed to open the possibility that implanted
electrodes might one day be used to control behavior,
hopefully to curb violent impulses.
Wilder Penfield, the leading pioneer in these studies,
came away with a different conclusion based on what he was
seeing. Compelled behavior was never present and the brain
had the ability to reroute impulses and relearn behaviors
when brain tissue was removed.He declared mind control an
impossibility.
Other workers, inspired by the animal implant study,
dramatically displayed by Delgado in a bullring, continued
to try to develop the technology for human mind implants.
Elliot Valenstein, critically reviewing the previous work in
his 1975 Brain Control, suggested Delgado's work involved
animal confusion rather than control and declared the
obstacles to further advancement or refinement were of a
fundamental sort implicit in the neurological flexibility of
brain function. Penfield was right. Implants had little or
no practical value.
Brain implants were too deliciously insidious an idea to
ignore, and Hollywood used it more than once in their
products. The highpoint of the exploitation of the idea was
The Terminal Man (1973). A man is implanted with a series of
electrodes to help curb his psychopathic tendencies.
Unfortunately, the pleasure centers are activated in a
manner which sends him on a killing spree. Long before this,
aliens were forcing humans into sabotage as early as
Invaders from Mars (1953) and Battle in Outer Space (1960).
In the former, the victims were placed unconscious on an
operating table while a needle-like device forced an
explodable implant into the back of the neck. In the latter,
a man is driving along in his car when a strobing beam of
light surrounds him while aliens implant a radio control
device telling him he has become a new slave of their
glorious planet. He then experiences missing time and finds
himself blocking city traffic with a copy telling him his
forehead is bleeding.
I wondered for a time if an episode of The Outer Space
titled "The Man with the Power" might have been an influence
in originating the implant fad. A mousy fellow played by
Donald Pleasance volunteers to have a small device called a
"link-gate" implanted in his brain. It is implanted above
the nose with the intention of funnelling cosmic energy into
a form of super-psychokinesis. Raymond Fowler pointed out
that an anonymous UFO witness known to him was told by an
alien that an implant placed in the side of her body would
hopefully result in better communication and power. I know
of no other instances of implants being associated with
power. None of these implant dramas, however, involved
devices being stuck up someone's nose. (Well, yes, there is
Total Recall and that hilariously large implant being pulled
out of the nose, but that came too recently to be an
influence.)
Why was such a bizarre path of insertion being reported
by the abductees? A Freudian might suggest it was a form of
"displacement." Dreams often transform events in surreal
ways. Perhaps it was some sort of transmutation of sexual
intercourse. Ernest Taves suggested such a possibility in
the Winter 1979-80 Skeptical Inquirer, but I distrusted it
because the associated emotions didn't seem to jive with
such an interpretation, at least not with the Andreasson
affair's nasal implant.
Serendipity stepped in to resolve the muddle with a goof
by Phil Klass [of CSICOP]. Discussing a recent addition to
the roster of nasal implantees, he asserted that [author
Budd] Hopkins never mentioned nasal implants in his books
and that [author Whitley] Strieber seemed to have started it
off. I was sure he was wrong and began to reread Hopkins to
freshen my memory about the details. I soon learned the
first claimant was Sandra Larson. Pulling out my old
paperback copy of Abducted! to verify Hopkins's research, I
found the puzzle instantly solved.
It all began in a hypnosis session dated Jan. 17, 1976,
when Larson unveiled an account of a space mummy (ala the
Pasagoula classic three years earlier) performing an
operation that did something to her brain. During this
operation, an instrument described as "like a little knife
or cotton swab" scraped the inside of her nose and made it
sore. The kicker is that the investigators note, inside
parentheses, that shortly before her UFO experience, Larson
had a similar operation for a sinus condition. It was quite
painful, and she had been scheduled for additional treatment
that she elected not to undergo. Now things start to fall
into place. The regression had been a reworking of her fears
about her sinus condition and its medical treatment.
The Larson story appeared in print in 1977 in a mass
market paperback by the Lorenzens. We quickly see the next
nasal implant turn up in a hypnosis session dated June 18,
1977, involving Betty Andreasson. Andreasson relives
Larson's sinus operation with enough fidelity to transform
the cotton swab ever so slightly with a small ball with
little prickly things. She adds an element of solidity to
the event by including a drawing of the instrument.
Raymond Fowler picks up on the likeness of Andreasson's
account to Larson's and, elsewhere, concedes that Betty's
familiarity with "uncritical UFO literature" might explain
parallels like this. Fowler's only rebuttal is that
Andreasson's story in its entirety contains parallels to
many different cases, some quite obscure, and on the whole
there are "too many similarities" to lay it all to
"cryptoamnesia." It is interesting to observe that Fowler
says nothing about Larson's pre-UFO sinus operation. This
omission is also notable in Budd Hopkins's discussions of
nasal implants in Missing Time (pp. 208-9, 217) and
Intruders (pp. 58-9).
Textbook companies routinely include minor bits of
misinformation in their textbooks to trip up plagiarists. A
copycat can ascribe similarities between texts to shared
accuracy of knowledge. No such defenses exists if
idiosyncratic errors also are being repeated. The phenomenon
of nasal implants is a fine proof of the cultural nature of
abduction accounts, for it constitutes a fingerprint of
borrowed material as surely as a textbook plagiarist
repeating the wrong birthdate of a president. Larson's alien
sinus operation is easily understood as the fantastic
artifact of a hypnotic regression_a bizarre misattribution
and error. By recurring in case after case of alien
abduction_Betty Andreasson, Meagan Elliot, Virginia Horton,
Kathie Davis, Linda Napolitano, Jennifer, and several
unknown others_it serves as a special demonstration that the
repetition of a motif may only constitute a repetition of
what others have said and not a corroboration of a
materially real menace by furtive aliens.
The proof has been right under our noses.
[Kottmeyer lives in Carlyle, Illinois, and has written for
several British publications.]
==============================
REALLity Check
by David Bloomberg
Noah Way!
This may come as a shock to many of our readers, but it
looks like some of the information in Sun Pictures' The
Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark, aired on CBS in February
and discussed in this very space, was untrue. Yes, yes, I
know that it's difficult to believe that such a wonderful
example of Creationist propaganda might not be fact-filled,
but that does indeed appear to be the case.
According to a July 5 Time magazine article, "Sun
filled the two hours with a mixture of fact, conjecture,
fantasy and arrant nonsense, while offering no clues as to
which was which." Time continued, in describing the pro-Ark
"experts" which were interviewed as "many of them
creationists who take the Bible's revelations literally and
reject much of modern science." The article also references
the terrorized fish fossils, mentioned in the earlier
"REALLity Check".
This story was brought to light by a fellow skeptic,
out in Southern California, Gerald Larue. After being set
up as a straw man by Sun for an earlier show (much the same
way Farrell Till was for Ancient Secrets of the Bible, Part
II, as described last month), Larue decided to expose the
"shoddy" research of Sun International. Thus, he coached
George Jammal, and Jammal went to Sun with a piece of wood
and an incredible story. He claimed to have found the wood
on Mt. Ararat, in a hole in the ice. In fact, the wood is a
piece of "contemporary pine Jammal soaked in juices and
baked in the oven of his Long Beach, California, home." He
also related the story about his companion who allegedly had
pictures of the Ark, but who had fallen and died in an
avalanche. That story was, of course, just as much a hoax.
Larue said, "Carbon-14 testing would have revealed that
the wood was a modern forgery." In an AP wire story
reported by the Chicago Tribune (6/29/93), Larue added,
"They didn't test the wood. They didn't even check on
Jammal. They just bought into the story." The film's chief
researcher and field producer, Dave Balsiger, said, "We
couldn't test the wood in time for our deadline, but we were
very thorough in checking [Jammal] out." Obviously, not
thorough enough.
According to the Committee for the Scientific
Examination of Religion, quoted in the Tribune article, CBS
"acted irresponsibly in airing a so-called documentary that
was actually a propaganda vehicle for 'creationists' opposed
to the theory of evolution." And what did CBS have to say
about this? They are attempting to defend themselves by
claiming it was "an entertainment special, not a
documentary." Sure it was. That's why the host, Darren
McGavin, called it "an archaeological quest."
Looks to me like CBS and Sun were trying to pull a fast
one on their viewers. But instead, somebody pulled a fast
one on them.
The only thing that disappoints me about the handling
of the show by the news media is that, if there had not been
a hoax involved, I very much doubt the rest of the nonsense
contained in the show would have been mentioned anywhere in
the "regular" news media.
Unidentified Flying Steam?
Discover magazine's "Weather Watch" section in July
discussed a phenomenon that many, if not all, of us have
heard about in conjunction with UFOs. Ball lightening is
back in the news!
A University of Bristol researcher and expert on steam
turbines, David Turner, has a theory that he thinks may
finally explain ball lightening, described as "glowing,
grapefruit-sized spheres [that] seem almost alive." This
phenomena is often reported as a UFO.
Without going into too much detail, Turner thinks that
ball lightening is "a floating, self-sustaining chemical
reactor, in which certain chemical reactions between the
plasma and the surrounding air release heat and others
absorb it." The chemistry involves steam, nitrites,
nitrates, and other ions in the reaction. According to
Turner, it explains every aspect realistically ascribed to
ball lightening, including its weaving movement. Hopefully,
somebody can take the theory into the lab and test it, and
perhaps a few more UFO cases will be Identified.
Vitamins or "Alternative Medicine"?
Yes, there is that phrase that has appeared in almost
every "REALLity Check" to date. The question is: Are some
"vitamin supplements" really just alternative medicine under
a different name?
From my reading of the June 7 Newsweek, I would have to
say "yes". Most of the article deals with the fact that the
vitamin industry is currently almost totally unmonitored.
The FDA is raising the possibility of changing this, and
many vitamin (or "dietary supplement") manufacturers don't
like it. In fact, some have mounted a publicity campaign to
try to convince voters that the FDA is overstepping its
bounds.
While the executive director of Citizens for Health
claims, "There just is virtually no risk associated with
dietary supplements," L-tryptophan, an amino acid, has
killed 37 people and injured 5000 due to what some
researchers think was contamination during manufacture.
Another argument that brought the question of
"alternative medicine" to my mind was that from Gerald
Kessler, who makes Ultra Male. He is arguing that the
industry should be able to make their health claims if there
is any data at all backing the assertion. It seems to me
that this would throw the scientific method out the window,
as the implication is that contradictory studies would not
necessarily be heeded, and throwing out the scientific
method is one of the hallmarks of "alternative medicine."
Pennies and Bacon and Warts, Oh My!
Ann Landers, who normally doesn't support pseudo-
science (at least not as far as I have noticed), seems to
have faltered a bit in her July 14 column. Apparently,
somebody wrote to her about trying to get rid of warts.
Well, Ann got a whole bunch of letters about "simple" ways
to get those warts to go away. Unfortunately, she printed
many of them without much comment, saying only that the mail
she's gotten is "fascinating".
Among the suggestions were:
"Grandma came to visit... and when she saw the warts,
she said, 'We can get rid of them by magic.' She took a
piece of bacon, rubbed the warts, and said, 'Tonight when
the moon comes out, we are going to toss the bacon over your
left shoulder, and the warts will disappear.'"
"...take megadoses of vitamin C. Warts are cause by a
virus, and when the vitamin C tackles the virus, the warts
disappear."
"Anyone who wants to get rid of warts should rub 20
pennies on the warts and then give the coins to a beggar."
"People can 'will away' warts by the sheer belief that
they are able to do so."
"...cut a raw potato in half, [rub] the juice on the
warts."
She may call these "fascinating," but I can think of
other terms that would be far more appropriate.
==============================
{On the light side}
The Theory of Dark Suckers
For years it was believed that light was emitted from an
electric light bulb. Recent information has proven
otherwise! Dark is sucked into the bulb. Therefore, the bulb
is a dark sucker. This theory also proves dark is heavier
than light. A few examples follow:
ELECTRIC BULBS -- There is less dark near an electric bulb
than at a distance of 100 feet when it is operating;
therefore, it is sucking dark. The larger the electric bulb
the more dark it is able to suck. This is easily proven.
Also note that when an electric bulb becomes full of dark,
it ceases to suck dark and is itself dark, indicating that
it is full of dark. This phenomena can also be observed in
fluorescent bulbs; the ends of these bulbs indicate when
they are becoming full of dark.
CANDLES -- These are primitive dark suckers. The center core
is a dark sucker protected by a soft insulator to extend its
life expectancy and maintain rigidity. Proof of its dark
sucking ability is relatively simple. Examine a new unused
candle. Notice that the center core is not dark. Now, ignite
the center core and allow to burn for five minutes. Notice
the lack of dark around the candle! Now, extinguish the
candle and observe the center core. It is now dark, proving
the candle has sucked dark. Moving a pencil through the
flame further illustrates the dark-sucking capacity of the
candle. When this is done, the pencil blocks the flow of
dark, and dark is deposited on the pencil.
DARK IS HEAVIER THAN LIGHT -- Dark always settles to the
bottom of lakes and rivers. This can be proven by descending
into a lake or river. The deeper you go the more dark there
is! This phenomena can be observed when looking into deep
holes where dark has fallen, proving dark is heavier than
light.
DARK IS FASTER THAN LIGHT -- If you were to open a drawer
very slowly, you would notice light going into the drawer.
(You can see this happen.) You cannot see the dark leave the
drawer. Go into a closet, close the door, and turn off the
dark sucker. Now, have a friend open the door about one
inch. Neither you nor your friend will see any dark leave
the closet. Now, open the door until the closet is half
dark. Since two objects cannot occupy the same space at the
same time, you will not feel any change in pressure by
compressing the dark. So, it is logical to assume that dark
is faster than light.
[-- Author unknown, reprinted from the Arkansas Rockhound News
(June 1989), Sophia Brents, editor. Courtesy of Betsy Alley.]
==============================
Short Self-Portraits of New Board Members
[Editor's Note: Below are brief self-portraits of new members of
the REALL Board of Directors. Self-portraits of the founding
members--David Bloomberg, Chairman; Wally Hartshorn, Secretary-
Treasurer; and Bob Ladendorf, Newsletter Editor--can be found in
the first issue of The REALL News.]
Ronald P. Larkin -- Vice Chairman
Ron is a wildlife ecologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey
in Champaign. He also teaches graduate students at the University
of Illinois, including a course in hypothesis testing and scientific
skills. Ron's research has involved perception outside the ordinary
five human senses and tracking of unidentified flying objects. His
father was once cured of a serious affliction by laying on of hands.
Steve Egger -- At-Large Member
Steve is an associate professor and Chair of the Criminal Justice
Program at Sangamon State University. He has worked as a police
officer, homicide investigator, consultant, trainer and educator.
He is considered an international expert on serial murder and is
currently writing his third book in this area. He is an avid reader
of mysteries, true crime and science fiction. As a skeptic, Steve
is constantly critical of the mass media and their role in perpetrating
myths and falsehoods about violent crime, satanic crimes, psychics
and new age balderdash. His pet peeve -- "Journalists who almost
never research the subject they are reporting."
Frank Mazo -- At-Large Member
I currently work as a forktruck operator at a Mattoon factory. Even
though I have been skeptical of the paranormal since junior high,
fringe beliefs and those who accept them always have been of interest
to me. The mindset of people who are susceptible to strange beliefs,
such as channeling and numerology, is what I find most intriguing
about this subject. I hope that the psychological dynamics behind
such thinking will be discussed at a future meeting of REALL.
Kevin Brown -- At-Large Member
Kevin is employed by the Illinois State Police's Bureau of Information
Services and is working towards an undergraduate degree in history
at Sangamon State University. An interest in the paranormal led to
a book that solved the Bermuda Triangle mystery, followed by books
by James Randi and the _Skeptical Inquirer_. He is an "incurable
joiner" and is the newest member of the REALL Board of Directors.
==============================
A Call for Articles & Clippings
REALL encourages its members to submit articles they have
written or newspaper and magazine clippings about paranormal and
pseudoscience activities they have found to either its chairman,
David Bloomberg, or its newsletter editor, Bob Ladendorf. (Send
to the REALL P.O. Box or call -- see page 2.)
Letters to the Editor
In addition, we encourage letters to the editor about any
article or topic covered in The REALL News. We want to make this
a forum for _all_ our members. (Letters may be edited if too long.
Name, address and phone number must be included with the letter.)
Suggestions
Any suggestions for content or layout changes are welcome.
-- Bob Ladendorf, _The REALL News_ editor.
==============================
No-Back Back Page
by Martin Kottmeyer
[Electronic version note: Obviously, there is no "back page" to
your version, but this article appeared on the back page of the
paper version of the newsletter.]
In an article for the Journal of American Folklore back
in 1989, Thomas Bullard observed that Carl Higdon hadn't
seen the back of the aliens that abducted him. The detail
caught his attention and made him wonder if this no-back
behavior might be compared to ancient fairylore about
misshapen backs being an object of concern to dwarfs.
I had read Leo Sprinkle's investigation of Carl Higdon a
number of times over the years, but I must confess I didn't
recall anything about this no-back behavior when I first saw
Bullard's comment. I had to skim it more than once before I
found it. I missed it because Higdon himself did not draw
attention to this being odd. An interviewer had asked Higdon
if the alien's uniform went over the shoulder, and he
answered in an offhand sort of way that he couldn't tell
because he never saw the back of them. He doesn't elaborate
on it, like how they would have to move presumably with
awkwardness to accomplish this odd feat, and the interviewer
doesn't challenge him on whether that sounds likely.
Frankly, the detail slid by me, too, so I'm in no position
to criticize.
I don't know if there is any real significance to the no-
back behavior. One could write it off as mere
inattentiveness or forgetfulness. It might be an artifact of
the sometimes sketchy nature of dream productions and
fantasies. I would, however, hate to miss the chance to
point out one other possibility. It could be that Higdon
based this behavior on one movie alien who also exhibited no-
back behavior: The Astounding She-Monster (1958). As it
happens, this alien was behaving more rationally than
viewers might have thought, as Bill Warren explains in Keep
Watching the Skies:
In the first day of filming, the She-
Monster bent over to kill one of the
characters and ripped the suit in the
back; there wasn't time in the 4 day
shooting schedule, said Mark McGee, to
repair it, so in all the subsequent
scenes, the She-Monster makes exits and
entrances facing the camera. Of course
this means she is walking backward much
of the time, but aliens are weird."
(volume 2, p. 3)
(To be continued, or as the Terminator said, "I'll be
back!")
==============================
----------------------------------------------------------------
Predictions for Future Issues
Psychic Detectives
Survey Results
Current Research Updates on Top Ten Paranormal/Fringe Science Activities
The End of the World
Glossary of Terms
Paranormal Beliefs in Medieval Times
How to Write a Letter to an Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------
Skeptics Online
If you have a computer and a modem, you owe it to yourself to
participate in the skeptic message areas on the computer BBS
networks. Here in Springfield, call The Temples of Syrinx at
(217) 787-9101. David Bloomberg operates this BBS, which carries
the FidoNet SKEPTIC, EVOLUTION and UFO conferences, internationally
distributed message areas for discussing topics of interest to
skeptics. He is also carrying ParaNet conferences, all dedicated
to UFO and paranormal topics. You can also find a wide variety of
skeptic text files.
The Temples of Syrinx -- (217) 787-9101
----------------------------------------------------------------
MEMBERSHIP FORM
Regular membership includes _The REALL News_ and all of the benefits
of membership. A subscription to _The REALL News_, without membership,
is available. Full-time students can join at the discounted rate.
A patron membership includes all of the benefits of a regular membership,
plus a listing in _The REALL News_ and our eternal gratitude (where
"eternal" is defined as "one year").
Name: _________________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________________
City, State, ZIP: _____________________________________________
Phone: ________________________________________________________
Interests: ____________________________________________________
___ Regular Membership ($20/Year)
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Bring to a meeting or mail to: REALL, P.O.
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Springfield, IL 62708
