Project UFO/Project UFO (Disk 4 of 6).adf/INSD0788.ASC

Text File | 1980-01-09 | 9KB | 150 lines

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INSIDE UFOLOGY
July 1988
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CUFOS MEMBERS DO ABOUT-FACE ON GULF BREEZE

ParaNet  Alpha  07/03  --  "History  tells us that [UFO] pictures that look
fake...ARE  fake." Those words, written by ufologist Jerome Clark, may come
back  to  haunt  him.  Clark edits the International UFO Reporter, organ of
the  Center  for UFO Studies, and is a longtime contributing editor to FATE
Magazine.  His words were part of an editorial for the March/April issue of
the  IUR, entitled "Ill Breeze," and referred to the series of photos taken
by  "Mr.  Ed"  in  Gulf  Breeze, FL, of an object that Clark said resembled
"something that you use to cover a lightbulb with."

      Clark  was echoing the view held by many CUFOS staffers that the Gulf
Breeze  photos just look too "hokey" to be real. Indeed, sentiments seem to
be  running  along  almost strictly organizational lines: Don Schmitt, Mark
Rodeghier,  Michael  Swords,  George Eberhardt, and Robert Boyd, CUFOS mem-
bers  all, have each expressed extreme doubts about the case and its inves-
tigation,  while  most  MUFON  higher-ups,  including Dennis Stacy and Walt
Andrus,  have  maintained a "wait and see" posture -- at least, in the case
of  Andrus,  when  they weren't gushing about the case being the "most sig-
nificant  in history," etc. This schism gave the appearance of signifying a
chill  in  the  usually  friendly  relationship  between the two groups, an
appearance that Schmitt told ParaNet was illusory and unwarranted.

      Feud  or  not,  a  thaw is most definitely in the air. Shmitt told us
that  the  problem  seems  to have been one of miscommunication. "There's a
lot  to  this  case  we  hadn't seen before," he said. And now, ParaNet has
learned  that  Jerry Clark has changed his mind and is expressing "support"
for the case.

      The  turning point seems to be the presentation by Dr. Bruce Maccabee
at  the  1988  MUFON  Symposium  in Lincoln, at which he showed the results
thus  far  of  his photo analysis work. "We can only learn from this case,"
said  Maccabee.  "If  its a hoax, we will learn about a new kind of hoaxer,
one  who  seeks  no  notoriety  for himself, who is well-established in his
community,  who  cooperates  fully with investigators, even going so far as
to  build  a special camera mount to our specifications, and who is so con-
fident  in  his  work that he uses a special, sealed 3-D camera provided by
investigators.  Obviously,  if  its real, we will learn a tremendous amount
about the nature of the UFO phenomenon."

      Among  other  things,  he  had  determined the object in at least one
photo  to  be  around  18  feet  in  diameter  and 14 feet tall. Use of the
special  dual-camera  mount  referred  to  earlier  had determined that the
image  is not a double exposure. And triangulation of the two images showed
it  to  be  not  less than 150 feet from the photographer, out over the bay
that separates Gulf Breeze from the mainland of Florida.

      One  by  one,  Maccabee either refuted or clarified objections to the
case  raised  by,  among  others,  Robert Boyd of CUFOS...27 points in all.
Even  Phil Klass was impressed enough to compliment Maccabee, and seemed to
be at a loss for major objections.

      In  the  meantime,  Schmitt  is  not letting MUFON completely off the
hook.  He  still  objects  to the comments of some of the principals in the
case,  most  notably  Andrus, Don Ware, and Budd Hopkins. He maintains they
were  "hasty"  and  "unprofessional" in their early exposure of the details
of  the  reports,  and  in some of their positive, seemingly over-credulous
comments.  And he wishes MUFON had shared some of the more positive details
of  the  photo-analysis earlier, before either group had published in their
respective journals.

      And  Jerry  Clark? Well, he's changed his mind before. His address at
the  symposium  was on the return of the nuts-and-bolts theory of UFOs, and
how  the "paraphysical" and "psychic" explanations were just cop-outs. This
from  a  man who had co-written a previous tome, with Loren Coleman, on the
psychic aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

      [For  the  record,  the ParaNet rating of the Gulf Breeze case stands
at  S5/P5,  Highly Strange, Data Unreliable/Probable Hoax; however, whereas
it  previously  bordered on P1, it is now very close to becoming a P3. Fur-
ther photoanalysis results, if in any way conclusive, will have a great in-
fluence on the rating.]

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AND NOW YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY....

      Back  in  June  of 1978, a retired Air Force Colonel appeared on TV's
Merv  Griffin  show to discuss his UFO sighting of 1954, when he was a B-52
pilot.  "We were cruising at 10,000 feet when we spotted a target somewhere
around  20,000  to  25,000 feet. It was about seven miles in front of us to
our  right,  and  we  were overtaking it. It then started descending across
our  flight  path,  and  I decided to check it out. So I advanced power and
began  closing  a  little faster and descending. We kept getting closer and
closer  and  pretty  soon  we were within a mile of the object, flying over
trees at 345 MPH."
      The  plane  closed  to  within an eighth of a mile of the disc-shaped
object.  "It  was about 60 feet in diameter and 10 or 11 feet thick through
the  center,"  he  said.  "It  had  what looked like a titanium-type finish
(silver  gray).  I  pulled up and made a hard turn that put it out of sight
for  roughly  four  seconds. We whipped back to pull up alongside of it and
it  wasn't  there.  I zoomed up to 1500 feet. `There it is!' I said. It was
about  2  miles  in  front of us going across a field leaving a dusty trail
behind  it.  I guessed its speed at about 170 MPH." After another dive, the
crew  lost  sight  of  the  object. "We never saw it again," said Air Force
Colonel  William  Coleman,  former  Public  Information Officer for Project
Blue  Book,  who  until that broadcast, had emphatically denied that he had
ever had such an experience. [Source: MUFON Journal, June 1988]

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MJ-12's DAY IN COURT?

      The  war  of words between MJ-12 proponent William Moore and debunker
Phil  Klass  is heating up. After releasing a venomous attack on Klass' ob-
jections  to  MJ-12 through his publication, Fair Witness Focus, Moore pub-
lished  a similar monograph in the proceedings of the 1988 MUFON Symposium.
Since  Moore  failed  to show for the event, the paper was never delivered,
but  Klass  responded  to the charges of "straight-out lying" and other ob-
fuscations  by  implying  that  he would be contacting attorneys about pos-
sible libel charges.
      Moore,  in the meantime, has sent an open letter to Klass in which he
outlines  19  incidents in which he feels Klass has strained the boundaries
of  objective  investigation, through the use of "vicious, vituperative at-
tacks,"  "insinuation,"  and  "innuendo." Moore's major objection is Klass'
alleged  implication  that  he,  Moore,  may be a willing accomplice to the
forgery  of  government  documents in the MJ-12 affair. For example, in the
December  15,  1987 issue of "Saucer Smear," Klass is quoted as saying in a
letter,  "In  my  opinion,  Moore's  behavior in the past six months is NOT
that  of  an  innocent victim of somebody else's hoax." (Emphasis in origi-
nal).
      Moore  ends the letter by demanding of Klass "written acknowledgement
that  you do not now and never have possessed proof positive that the...MJ-
12  documents...are  fraudulent."  Further,  he  wants Klass to acknowledge
that  his public statements were not intended to imply that Moore or any of
his  associates  were  involved  in  a hoax; and predictably, Moore wants a
written  apology.  The  possibility  of  legal  action  is  also dangled in
Moore's closing.
      Now,  would  anyone  care to speculate on the outcome of a jury trial
in which the MJ-12 documents were the central evidence?

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AND FINALLY...

      ParaNet  has learned that a major TV project on UFOs is in the works,
one  that  is,  naturally,  hoped to "blow the lid off the whole thing." We
can't  be  more specific at this time, except to say that parts of it might
actually be done live. (No, Geraldo Rivera is NOT involved).

      --Jim Speiser
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