Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc2/misc044.txt

Text File | 1995-10-20 | 88KB | 1,532 lines

Dear Folks,

What follows is Bruce Maccabee's rebuttal to the recently posted AIR #1 Report
put out by the 'Associated Investigators Group'. In addition, are two letters,
one by Richard Hall, the current chairman of the Fund For UFO Research (FUFOR)
and one by Bill Moore, that are also rebuttals to the AIR report.

Bruce Maccabee's letter contained extensive use of italics. These italics have
been denoted within brackets [..] . I also took the liberty of correcting small
typo errors that appeared in the original. Nothing major, and it doesn't affect
the content.

===========================================================================



                                                            Aug 9, 1993


Dear Ufologist,

    You have recently received a copy of the Associated Investigator's Report
(AIR) #1, "published" by the Associated Investigators Group (AIG). This report
was mailed directly to over 100 people known to be interested in UFO research,
although, it was not mailed to me nor to many of the other "attackees"
discussed in the paper. The initial recipients subsequently mailed copies to
others. If you mailed copies to friends, please also send each one a copy of
this response.

   A major part of the AIR report is concerned with my "secret" association
with the CIA. Other portions of the paper makes generally disparaging remarks
about me and several other noted UFO researchers..

  AIR #1 raises the question of whether or not my association with the CIA
impacted on my UFO investigations or on the activities of the Fund for UFO
Research. I can assure that that it did not, as is more fully described in the
enclosed paper. I feel no need to 'defend' my CIA association, inasmuch as it
is not based on UFO research, but rather on professional activities related to
my work for the Navy, which is totally unrelated to UFO research. I have
written this paper to clarify my association with the CIA and also for another
reason which is probably of more importance to ufologists who may be recipients
of further AIG reports.

  The claim made in the AIR #1 (see the last page) that there are no errors in
the paper and this is followed by the "promise" (or is it a threat?) of more
"good" research to follow. In other words the writer of AIR #1 claims for
himself, and for the Associated Investigators Group, godlike accuracy. This
sort of accuracy would, indeed be reassuring, if it were true, especially in
light of the AIR's which are promised on crashed saucers, mind control, CIA
projects, etc.

   However, I have discovered numerous errors in the paper. Therefore I feel it
is my duty to inform the ufo community that this paper is not as accurate as
one might hope. Furthermore, along with the errors is an overabundance of
innuendo and false logic. Hence I must caution the readers of this and future
papers against blind acceptance of what the AIR reports say. I'm afraid that if
this paper is any example, then we must be prepared for a lot of hot AIR.

   One more thing. The "ghost writer" of this paper is one Walter Todd Zechel
who was an important figure in UFO research about 15 years ago. His approach to
the UFO subject was to do anything which would advance his agenda, even at the
expense and I mean $$$, of other people. I know a number of people who suffered
economic loss as a result of WTZ's irresponsibility.


                             Bruce Maccabee




 * Forwarded from "UFO"
 * Originally by Don Allen
 * Originally to All
 * Originally dated 31 Aug 1993, 0:37

                              Hot A.I.R

                                 or

                         The Mark of Zechel

                                 by

                           Bruce Maccabee
                           (not anonymous)


(Special message: I have plenty of case investigations and analyses to keep me
busy. I don't need this crap, which forces me to use my precious time
responding to worthless charges.)

   "As you well know, there are a lot of people out there with particular axes
to grind or pet cases or theories to spread around. Some of these people would
like nothing more than to drag you down into the mud with them. I fervently
hope that you will continue to operate with the same brilliance and astute
logic and objectivity I've always admired in you. Please continue to demand
evidence and proof, and demand as much of them as you would me."

 (from a letter to Bruce Maccabee by Walter Todd Zechel, June 21, 1986)

   The UFO community has recently been "rocked" by an unpublished but widely
circulated paper entitled Associated Investigators Report #1 (abbrev. AIR)
which reveals, "for the first time anywhere," my [secret] association with the
CIA. It also levels charges of incompetence and/or outright fraud against
several other UFO investigators. After reading this report the intelligent
reader will, I'm sure, be somewhat puzzled. Why was it done? By whom? Was I
really a CIA mole inside the UFO community? What is the Associated
Investigators Group? Who wrote the report? Is it as accurate as it claims? Is
there a "hidden agenda" for this paper? Or is this report really just a lot of
[hot] AIR?

   The Associated Investigators Group members are not named, although 14
pseudonyms are given at the end of the paper. Even the writer of the paper is
not named. In an "appendix" following the main text there is the following
statement: "For the most part, this report is based upon interviews or
discussion with the subjects named herein, and have been stated as accurately,
candidly and forthrightly as possible. If there are any errors, which is
unlikely, they are probably the result of misinterpretations by the subjects."
(Subjects? Is this an experiment?) Clearly the writer assigns godlike accuracy
to him (her) self and to the AIG. This would be reassuring, [if it were true] .
The writer then advises readers to "not waste your time and energy attempting
to impede our investigations by attempting to guess our identities..."

   CAVEAT EMPTOR! Although gullible readers will probably fall for this crap,
the astute reader will suspect any investigative writing which proclaims
perfection! (The astute reader will also note one error immediately: "pellican"
is not the correct spelling.) The reader should also be wary of any writing by
people who (a) don't have the intestinal fortitude (read "guts") to identify
themselves as they accuse others and (b) have the gall to advise the readers
not to try and identify them. One wonders what these "stealth investigators"
have to hide. Could a similar paper be done about them?

  Finally, there is also a promise of more of this "good" research to follow
and [that is the reason for this paper]. Although there is no need for me to
defend my association with the CIA, since it is based on continuing
professional activities related to my job as a Navy physicist, I feel that I
must alert UFOlogists to the evidence of poor research, use of inference and
innuendo, errors of fact and just plain mudslinging in this paper so that
readers will be better able to [judge the level of accuracy of any future hot
AIR] reports. On the other hand, the promise of future investigative reports
may also be just hot air.)

SUMMARY OF THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST ME AND MY RESPONSE

  The perceptive reader will, of course, immediately realize that, had my
association with the CIA really been totally secret, the paper would not have
been written because [no one would have known about it].

  The writer essentially poses a legitimate question (which other people have
asked me already), namely, what has been the nature of my association with the
CIA and has it impacted on my UFO research and my activities in the field.
Unfortunately, however, the writer, goes on to argue, via innuendo and false
logic, that my association with the CIA has been poor judgement on my part, at
best, and, at worst, has negatively impacted the UFO field in two ways which
are treated separately below. In the following paragraphs I will answer the
legitimate questions. I will also identify the false logic and innuendo and
respond to it in a manner that rational people will understand.


ACCUSATION # 1: The writer charges that my support for UFO cases which, in the
mind of the writer at least, are "obviously" poor cases or frauds (New Zealand,
Kirtland Landing Case, Gulf Breeze, Guardian) has caused other researchers to
waste time and money carrying out their own investigatlons. (How horrible!) But
more germane to the issue which is the subject of this paper, my CIA
asociation, is the writer's allegation that my support for these cases has been
"CIA inspired." According to the writer, "This certainly would have served the
CIA's interest in keeping serious investigation of the UFO phenomena out of the
public domain." Also, according to the writer my support of these cases is
evidence for poor judgement on my part, and no one with such poor judgement
should be a leader in the UFO field (after all...I might lead people astray!)
(I guess the writer does not think much of the average ufologist's ability to
discern fact from fiction in UFO investigation.)

RESPONSE: The writer implies, without evidence, that a general policy of the
CIA, the "CIA's interest," is to suppress serious UFO investigation. That
implication runs counter my impression gained over the last nine years or so
which is that, at least the part of the CIA with which I have had contact, [has
no policy or "interest" regarding UFO investigation], although several
employees have expressed an interest and numerous employees have attended the
several UFO lectures (the term 'briefings' is too formal) I have presented
there. The writer alleges that my support for these cases has been "CIA
inspired." WRONG! The fact is that the my CIA acquaintances have never
indicated that I should support any particular sighting. In fact, the comments
they make tend to be skeptical or just plain negative regarding sightings and
[the reality of UFO phenomena in general]. My support for these cases has
nothing to do with the CIA and has everything to do with my own investigations
of them. The astute reader will realize that the opinions of these cases
offered by the writer are just that...opinions, unsupported by any evidence in
the hot AIR report. If the writer or any of the AIG group are intelligent
enough to have good arguments against these cases then they can send me their
arguments directly or even argue in public if they want to.

   The writer accuses me of poor judgement in supporting these cases. It's hard
to defend oneself against accusations of "poor judgement." It is like being
accused of "poor taste." People will have differing opinions about the same
subject. Which person is correct? It becomes more a matter of consensus than
establishable fact. At any rate, I will stand by my past investigations and
publications. I have rejected many alledged UFO sightings, but the particular
ones held in disfavor by the hot AIR writer are cases I did not reject for
reasons which I considered to be very good at the time and I still consider
them to be good. If others wish to disagree publicly with my conclusions they
should be willing to state their argument(s) ["nonymously"] as opposed to ["a-
nonymously."]

   On the other hand, these charges of poor judgement can be reversed. I
suspect that the AIG members, should they ever reveal themselves, will be
charged with poor judgement for having circulated this paper widely in spite of
the numerous errors, [ad hominem] attacks and argument by illogic and innuendo
(see below). They will also be charged with "unkind conduct" for [not even
having the courtesy to send me a copy first, although I am the main target of
their attacks!] I first learned that the paper existed during the late evening
of July 24 when Jim Moseley called me to ask me questions about it's
allegations. Over the next week I heard from other people who had received
copies. I learned that it had even appeared in England during the weekend of
July 24. But, oddly enough, of the "subjects" I talked to, [none of them had
received copies directly from the AIG.] I finally got a copy 6 days after this
"load" had been dropped on an unsuspecting world from a person who had received
his copy from the AIG in an envelope with no return address.

  Why was this report circulated widely before I got a copy? I presume it was
circulated by the [perpetrators] of this [travesty] in order to spread their
[lies and innuendo] as far as possible before I (and the others mentioned
herein) could respond. Furthermore, by not listing a return address or the name
of a real person to contact there is no "official" person to whom I can send my
response. I, therefore, must respond to the community in general.

   ACCUSATION #2: The writer claims that the second negative impact of my
association with the CIA has been its effect on the policy of the Fund for UFO
Research. In particular, the writer suggests that my association with the CIA
affected the decision of the Fund to reject a proposal by Walter Todd Zechel
(WTZ) to sue the CIA a second time. The writer further charges that my CIA
association also caused the Fund to support MJ-12 research in spite of
"knowing" that the MJ-12 papers are fakes.

   RESPONSE: WRONG and WRONG AGAIN! One fact that the writer has failed to take
into account ("don't bother me with the facts, this is what I want to say") is
that I did not "run" the Fund like an autocracy. I had one vote on the
Executive Committee of five people and each action required at least 3 out of 5
positive votes. My suggestions were voted down a number of times.


   In order to support his argument that my association with the CIA impacted
on the Fund decision to reject MJ-12's proposal the writer has resorted to
incomplete reporting and biasing of the facts. I present my version of the
story of this particular incident below. Before beginning, however, I would
like to point out that most of the information used in the AIG was supplied by
WTZ. I know this because much of the information which is in the report I
supplied to him, alone. The report also contains information which he, alone,
told me (and which I didn't tell others...I kept his confidence, but obviously
he didn't return the favor!). In fact, the whole paper bears the [Mark of
Zechel]. This leads me to speculate that WTZ's intent is to use this paper to
get me off the Executive Committee of the Fund. With me not on the Executive
Committee he could once again propose to re-sue the CIA without having to worry
about my presumed interference or alerting of CIA officials (which I didn't do
the first time and wouldn't have done at any time!). If that is true, then WTZ
may be surprised to learn that I had, in fact, stepped down in favor of Richard
Hall at the end of March, 1993, [months before there was any hint of the AIG
paper]. I am now, after 13 years of continual "duty" with the Fund, Chairman
Emeritus, with all the privileges that title bestows (none!). (My "golden
parachute" leaves a lot to be desired.)

   Now let's get to the core of the matter, the rejection of WTZ's proposal to
re-sue the CIA and the subsequent funding of Stan Friedman's MJ-12 research,
the pertinent portion of the hot AIR paper page 8, last paragraph) reads as
follows (I have labelled the abstractions from the paper with numbers for later
reference):

     (1) "It must be pointed out that the Fund rejected a detailed proposal to
re-sue the CIA under FOIA submitted by Todd Zeche1 a few years ago. Zechel had
outlined a plan to go after [the 15,000 documents described by Maccabee's
friend, Kit Green], and had asked for a [paltry $500] to get the effort
rolling, using a diligent attorney who had volunteered to do the work. The Fund
quickly rejected Zechel's proposal, but later handed $16000 to Stan Friedman in
an effort to validate the MJ-12 documents." (my emphasis)

     (2) "Unfortunately, we are forced now to re-examine the motives of Dr.
Maccabee. We must ask if his CIA contacts had any input into this (or any)
decisions regarding proposals. This input may not have been so obvious as one
would first think. Consider the scenario wherein Maccabee's CIA contacts
express subtle hints suggesting to Maccabee that there may have been an MJ-12,
this may have been enough to influence his decision to make such a large grant.
Conversly, who knows what input the CIA had in Maccabee's rejection of Zechel's
modest proposal."

   I would like to answer the last implied question immediately: [the CIA had
exactly no input to the rejection of WTZ's proposal, nor did it have any input
to any of the decisions of the Fund For UFO Research. Period!] Of course the
writer, and WTZ, could have learned this (whether or not they believed it) by
just asking. But their approach is more consistent with that of paranoid
delusionals who have fun speculating about being "under constant attack by dark
forces" (in this case, the CIA) and don't like to ask direct questions and
receive direct answers because they don't believe the answers. Furthermore, as
I pointed out above, even it I had attempted to interject a "CIA perspective"
into the internal deliberations of the Fund - [which I never did], the other
members could equally well argue from their own perspectives. And when it came
to the final "showdown", I had only a single vote. But, again, this logic is
irrelevant according to the writer whose attitude is "don't bother me with
logic or the facts; I like my own conclusions."

   Referring, now, to section (1) of the paragraph above, why did the Fund
reject WTZ's? proposal? The very short answer is that it was at the wrong time
and by the wrong person. More specifically, there are four basic reasons. Three
of these are WTZ's own fault, and one was "bad timing." To understand these
reasons the reader needs to know some history that is not generally available
(see CLEAR INTENT by Greenwood and Fawcett for more information on the CIA
lawsuit).

   The original 1977-1978 CIA lawsuit was prosecuted under the rights granted
by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (FOIPA...sometimes abbreviated
FOI). The suit was filed on the behalf of a UFO group, now defunct, called
Ground Saucer Watch (GSW). The success of the suit came about largely as a
result of WTZ's own effort in conjunction with New York attorney Peter Gersten
and with considerable help from Brad Sparks. The lawsult was carried through to
a surprising (to most of the world) conclusion: in December 1978 the CIA
released [hundreds] of pages of UFO related material spanning some 30 years
after claiming for months that it was involved for only a short time in late
1952 and early 1953 (the time leading up to the Robertson panel fiasco and the
subsequent panel report which proposed "debunking" as the solution to the UFO
problem). The fact that the CIA had lots of pages of material was not
surprising to WTZ and others involved in the suit, however, because they had
been "led to believe by the CIA's legal staff that the number of documents to
be accounted for would be in the area of 10,000." (quote taken from the draft
of "For Your Eyes Only," a paper written in January, 1987, by WTZ). (Years
earlier, in the January 1979 bulletin of the Citizens Against UFO Secrecy,
"Just CAUS," WTZ wrote that in September, 1978, "U.S. Attorney William Briggs
led CAUS officials to believe that the CIA had located in excess of 5,000
documents. Evidently somehow over the years this number was doubled.)
Furthermore, according to WTZ in his proposal to the Fund, a "reliable CIA
source of mine" pointed out that most of the "components" the CIA which were
searched were the wrong ones. Hence, presumably there could be unreleased
documents in other components of the agency.


  The release of a mere 900 pages dismayed WTZ and the others and they began
planning, [in the spring of 1979], for another lawsuit. (This planning was
going on when I met a CIA employee who suggested that there could be many more
pages of material. Although this incident plays a large role in the AIR
reconstruction of the events, [it played no role] in the Fund decision. My
contact with the CIA is discussed more fully below.) However, for various
reasons there was no second suit of the CIA in 1979 and WTZ subsequently
dropped out of UFO research leaving a trail of unpaid bills and a "few pissed
off people in my wake" (quote from his proposal).

  Move ahead, now to December, 1986 (not exactly "a few years ago," as implied
by the hot AIR paper). The Fund received a proposal from WTZ to re-sue the CIA
for the presumed thousands of documents that hadn't been released. The
Executive Committee of the Fund reviewed his proposal and made its decision
based on the following factors:

(a) WTZ did not present a strong case that more pages would be released under a
new FOI lawsuit. First his "evidence" that there were more documents was
largely speculation based on hearsay or on information from confidential
sources about which he would say nothing. In other words, he provided no
[proof] that there were thousands more pages to be released. (In fact, one goal
of the suit was a search to find out if there were more more documents.)
Second, the previous suit had been successful only in retrieving documents of
Secret classification and below. Both the CIA and later NSA (National Security
Agency) lawsuits showed that the government could appeal to "national security"
to withhold documents. There was no reason to believe that the same excuses
wouldn't be used again to protect the "really good stuff" we wanted. In other
words, they might locate some more, even many more, documents and simply refuse
to release them all or in part for national security reasons. Hence the
Executive Committee did not see much hope that a new lawsuit would produce
hundreds or thousands, or [any], more documents than we already had.

(b) Had this proposal been sent by someone else we might have been more
favorably disposed toward it. Although proposals to the Fund are evaluated more
in terms of the capability of an investigator than his personality and personal
history, in this case we could not overlook WTZ's actions in the past. Although
he had established himself as a good, persistent investigator of UFO crashes
and government cover-up, his meteoric rise (1976-77) and fall (late 1979) was
well known to all of us. As he admitted in his proposal, his complete obsession
with uncovering the cover-up overpowered his good sense in dealing with other
investigators. When he left the field, some might say "drummed out," he owed
money for phone investigations he had carried out at other people's expense. He
had, to use his phrase in the proposal, "left a few pissed off people in my
wake" when he vanished from the scene in late 1979, having been "burned out."
The Executive Committee felt that the Fund would be condemned by many or most
other researchers if it supported Mr. WTZ in [any] activity.

(c) WTZ shot himself in the foot by indicating that big money - that's BIG
money - was soon to follow. He wrote in his proposal that he was authoring two
books, one of which would be a hardcover with a "six figure advance...currently
being negotiated." There would also be a feature film budgeted at another six
figure number. He was expecting to submit part of the book to a publisher in 3
months. The Executive Committee members read this and asked, "if there are
megabucks only a few months away, why does he need us?"

(d) The fourth and final "killer" reason was bad timing. Perhaps WTZ, not being
active in the field, did not know that in 1985 the Fund had volunteered to put
on the "Fortieth Birthday Party" in the Nation's Capitol. I refer to June 24,
1987 as the 40th anniversary of Arnold's sighting, and the party was the
International MUFON Symposium. The Executive Committee had decided to make this
as international as possible by inviting researchers from all over the world.
We knew that this would take money...more than we could take in "at the door"
from the attendees alone. By the fall of 1986 we were activitely searching for
donations (and beginning to chew our fingernails). We expected to have to raise
some $15,000 or more in donations [beyond] the expected registration fees. By
December, 1986, when we received WTZ's proposal, we had not yet achieved our
goal...[although we had already committed to a number of speakers from
overseas]. Our collective finger nails were getting shorter.

   It was in this context that we evaluated WlZ's proposal to re-sue the CIA
for a "paltry 500 to get the effort rolling," as it says in the AIR. WRONG! Had
it [only] been $500, and if it had been someone other than WTZ, we just [might]
have been interested. However, it wasn't just $500. The suit would have
required an "initial contribution of $500 to cover basic expenses in preparing
the suit" and "once the suit was ready to file...[an additional contribution of
about $2,000 as a retainer for the attorney(s)"] (from WTZ's proposal). There
was no mention of a "diligent attorney who had volunteered to do the legal
work." Since WTZ's time scale was measured in months, we could see that the
$500 right up front would be followed soon by another $2,000, for a total of
$2,500 [that would be needed during the spring/summer of 1987 for his lawsuit].
Since we were trying to save every penny toward the MUFON Symposium, still 6
months away, [we weren't about to commit to anything until we had paid for the
symposium]. In other words, we had our own problems with money. Now reread
reason (c) above. The Executive Committee members wondered why he needed a
"paltry" $2,500 from us when, it he waited a few months, he would be [rolling
in dough]. (Note: evidently his book and movie proposals also fell through.)


   As you may well imagine, the combination of these reasons was enough to
cause the Executive Committee vote against the proposal. My "CIA connection"
(reference section (2) above) had nothing to do with the rejection. In fact, I
never discussed his proposal [or any other proposal] with my CIA contacts.
Furthermore, I had no "protective feelings" for the CIA...and I still don't. I
still think they're holding onto something we want and if someone should
propose another lawsuit, then have at it!

  So now you see that the version of this "rejection incident" as reported in
the AIR, where any errors are "unlikely," is a lot of hot air...just as their
claim to investigatorial perfection!

  The Fund's decision not to fund the CIA lawsuit apparently did not sit well
with WTZ. In the draft of his last issue of "For Your Eyes Only" written in
January, 1987 he refers to his offer to "launch a new suit against the CIA,
this time seeking the 15,000 documents that were never scattered throughout the
CIA's files as it contended, but were instead held in one location, as would be
expected if UFOs are considered a serious intelligence target. But it appears
UFOlogists are more concerned with [holding conventions] where everyone can
propose their latest theories and wallow in the comradery of fellow believers,
than they are to get down in the trenches and slug it out with those
responsible for making UFOs a laughing matter and relegating the subject to the
science fiction section." (my emphasis) As the reader will note, this
disparaging reference to "holding conventions" is a low blow; the Fund was
already committed to holding a convention. We didn't have the money to do both,
and we couldn't arbitrarily cancel the convention to support WTZ's speculative
proposal.

   Referring, now, to paragraph (1) above and the research into the MJ-12
documents, the hot AIR paper says that the Fund "quickly rejected Zechel's
proposal, but later handed $16,000 to Friedman.." It does not point out that
Friedman received support for MJ-12 research [2 1/2 years later], under
conditions that were considerably different from the conditions under which
WTZ's proposal was rejected. The MJ-12 papers, more precisely referred to as
the "Eisenhower Briefing Document," (EIB) were released in the late spring of
1987, just before the 1987 Symposium. Charges and countercharges began flying
around immediately and continued into 1988. In the summer of 1988 the Fund took
a poll of contributers to determine what interested them the most. MJ-12 came
out on top. The Fund then made a public appeal for a $16,000 proposal by Stan
Friedman to try to prove or disprove the validity of the document. We all knew
it was a shot in the dark, but only by dilligent searching of old records could
we hope to learn anything. Everyone who contributed to the special MJ-12 effort
knew exactly what the money was going for. The Fund did not use general funds
over which the community had no control.

   Referring to paragraph (2), above, the writer questions whether or not my
"CIA contacts had any input to this" and suggests that they may have hinted the
MJ-12 documents were real, thus influencing me to "make such a large grant." As
I have stated above, however, the CIA contacts never advised me one way or the
other and never influenced the Fund decisions one way or another. I'll go
farther to say that they never hinted that the MJ-12 documents were real. They
were as puzzled and skeptical as everyone.

   The writer has alledged that I supported MJ-12 research while knowing that
the EIB was a fake. WRONG! I [still] don't know whether it is fake or not, or
whether it might be partially true and partially false. Numerous investigators
have provided circumstantial evidence on both sides of the question. Many of
the "conclusive" arguments against the document have been shown to be ill
conceived. Yet we have yet to find conclusive proof of its reality.

MORE HOT AIR

   Having discussed...and dispensed with...the two major allegations of this
paper I will now deal with the other allegations. This is done in the Appendix
on an item-specific basis. My discussion of the various items listed there
illustrates the errors in this paper. Without trying to analyze each slanted
word and sentence, and continuing most of my discussion to events, etc., which
are directly connected to me or which I know about, I have found 19 errors of
fact, illogic or innuendo in the self-proclaimed "perfect" paper. One person I
spoke to about this paper pointed out that whenever he gets something like
this, loaded with [ad hominem] attacks and verging on libel and slander, he
automatically assumes that maybe 50% is completely false, 50% is basically
true, and that the true 50% is written in such a way as to make it look bad for
whomever the paper is about. I guess that person hit the nail on the head this
time.

   But what is important now is not this widely circulated paper. The "cat is
now out of the bag" regarding my "CIA association" and from now on I'll
probably be be viewed with suspicion by the more paranoid members of the UFO
community. The important question for the UFO community is how to view the next
AIR paper which may report on items for which there are no independent checks.
As this paper shows, the AIG members are not infallible (far from it!). Hence
readers of any such reports should be prepared to view very skeptically any
further hot AIR reports.

(P.S. Now re-read the abstract from WTZ's letter to me in 1986 at the beginning
of this paper.)

                              APPENDIX


   To avoid having to virtually retype the AIR, I refer to the items of
interest by listing the page, paragraph and line which contains specific words
of interest and these words are [italicized]. The reader is invited to use the
AIR as a reference for the context of the items and to keep track of the number
of factual errors and inferences presented as fact in order to better assess
the claim that any such errors are "unlikely." Errors are expressly designated
as ERROR followed by a # sign.


   ITEM 1 - pg 1, para. 1, sentence 1: "long standing [secret] relationship
with the CIA and U.S. Intelligence community." Although my first contact with
the CIA was UFO related (see below), my contacts since 1984 have been as a
result of my Navy work. Although I have not publicized this information, WTZ
knew, as did the members of the Fund and various other members of the UFO
community. Hence it has not been a real "secret." If it were, this paper
wouldn't have been written because no one would have known.

   ITEM 2 - pg.1, para. 1, sent. 1: "[briefing them about various UFO matters
and Investigators]." I have discussed UFO matters with several employees who
have expressed an interest in UFOs and have provided them with my opinions on
various cases and people [just as I would with any other persons interested in
the subject including other ufologists, newsmedia reporters, etc]. The use of
the term "briefings" is too formal. Casual discussions or, for groups of
people, informal lunchtime lectures would be more appropriate. The CIA invites
people with many different interests to provide entertainment lectures for the
employees. (I once heard Tom Clancy speak there.)

  ITEM 3 - pg.1, para. 9, sent. 2: "At the same time and for undisclosed
reasons, Maccabee briefed the CIA men on the CIA's own UFO files released under
the Freedom of Information Act." After the 1987 MUFON Symposium in Washington,
D.C., where the MJ-12 papers were discussed publicly for the first time Ron
Pandolfi invited me to give a general lecture to employees on UFOs and MJ-12. I
took the opportunity to inform the CIA men and [women], which included
employees of all "ranks" including secretaries, about "their own documents"
because (hold your breath....here is the formerly [undisclosed reason]) I
wanted them to know what their own employer had been doing. I also wanted to
see what the response would be. After all, CIA documents would, presumably,
have some considerable level of credibility so I tried to make the case for
UFOs based largely on those documents. After that I discussed the MJ-12 papers
in the context of having built a case for UFO reality using the CIA documents.
I learned later what the response was: many of the listeners became interested
in the subject and started snooping around in whatever files they had access
to. Ron said that I created a lot of "spies" in the agency. However, I have no
evidence that anyone found anything not already contained ln the FOIPA document
package.

   ITEM 4: pg.1, para. 5 sent. 1: "Maccabee first [approached] the CIA in early
1979..." (after visiting New Zealand as part of my investigatlon of the world
famous New Zealand Sightings of December, 1978). WRONG! Actually, I never
[approached] the CIA. The CIA contact was made, [not at my request], by a
scientist who worked for the MITRE corporation. (See below) ERROR #1

   ITEM 5: pg.1, para. 5, sent. 2: "...Maccabee, for [unclear reasons] decided
the film represented some sort of probative evidence of UFOs and [set out to
bring it to the attention of CIA officials]." WRONG! I [never] "set out to
bring it to the attention of CIA officials." My reasons for viewing the New
Zealand sightings as valid evidence may be unclear to the writer, who has
probably never studied them (and quite possibly [couldn't understand the
technical arguments even if he did!]), but they are clear to numerous other
people who have heard the lectures I have given and read the published papers,
including papers in [Applied Optics], a technical journal. The claim that I
[set out] to inform the CIA couldn't be [farther] from the truth. Informing the
CIA had never even crossed my mind. After all, the CIA was the "bad guys" who
had just two months before, been caught with their pants down when they
released hundreds of pages of material. ERROR #2

   ITEM 6: pg. 1, para. 5 sent. 3: "He then [put out feelers through his
contacts with companies performing tasks for the CIA]..." WRONG! The way this
is presented the reader might assume that the writer (or WTZ) has some
evidence, as, for example, by checking with companies that perform tasks for
the CIA. However, this is a (one of many!) false impression created by the
writer. I never contacted any companies. What I did was tell Jack Acuff,
Director of NICAP at the time, that I would like to speak to experts in the
field of radar. He, in turn, put me in contact with a scientist, Dr. Gordon
MacDonald, at the MITRE corporation. I was invited to discuss the NZ sightings
with him and several other scientists at MITRE in McLean, Va. and I did (and
they generally agreed with my conclusions). Then, a week or so later, I learned
that MacDonald had contacted a man at the CIA who contacted me and offered to
provide technical consultation if I would provide a [briefing] to some CIA
employees. At first I was leery of doing anything with the CIA, but I knew they
had radar experts, so I stipulated that if they would give me some feedback I'd
tell them what I know. So I briefed them and I received some helpful comments.
There were some minor criticisms but no strong disagreements with my analysis.
(I had concluded, by the way, that in certain instances there were correlated
radar-visual observations of unidentified objects.) ERROR #3.

   ITEM 7: pg. 1 para. 7 and pages 2 and 3. This presents the hot AIR version
of my interaction with a CIA employee and his [supposed] statement that there
were "15,000 UFO-related documents." The actual history is as follows:


   After I discussed the NZ case one employee, Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green
(KG), invited me to visit the CIA again a week or so later to have a general
UFO discussion with him and a couple of other employees. It was at this time,
during a discussion of the CIA lawsuit, that he made a general comment that
there [could] be more pages because he knew, from the compartmented
organization of the agency, that other parts of the agency could have
information of which he would not be aware, even though he thought he was the
"custodian" of the UFO files. In other words, [he knew that he would be unaware
of any UFO files that might be possessed by "custodians" in other components of
the Agency]. This all happened in late March and early April, 1979. I knew that
WTZ and Peter Gersten were interested in going after more agency documents, so,
about a month later I revealed my "secret" meeting and KG's comment that there
might be more, perhaps 15,000 more, pages. This I did to support his WTZ's
effort. I don't remember exactly what I said, but, since WTZ recorded my
conversation (without telling me) he can perhaps supply me with a transcript.
Whatever I said, it is clear that WTZ interpreted it as meaning that KG had
said there [were] 15,000 UFO-related documents. Almost immediately WTZ wanted
to know if I would reveal the contact's name, which I didn't. Then he wanted me
to find out if the contact would be willing to testify to the existence of 15,
000 more pages. I called KG and he made it clear that he didn't [know] that
there were thousands more pages. He could only testify to what had been in his
own file, which he had given to the FOIPA coordinator, a thousand pages or so.
All else was speculation. When I told this to WTZ and Gersten they appeared to
get angry and wanted to sue [me] for covering up information. I managed to
convince Gersten that I didn't know anything and that I couldn't force KG to
make any statements that he didn't want to make. That ended the situation.

   ITEM 8: Pg. 2, para. 7: "It was clear from Maccabee's statements to Zechel
that Maccabee intended to cooperate with the CIA on a continuing basis..."
WRONG! I didn't reveal KG's name because I felt it was not my perogative. If
WTZ and Gersten wanted to sue the hell out of the CIA that was their business.
I didn't want to get KG in trouble if there were a lawsuit simply because he
had inadvertently leaked information, [if] it was valid information. I didn't
expect to continue my contact with the CIA and had no further contacts until
1984 (see below). ERROR #4

 ITEM 9: Pg. 3, para. 2, sent. 2,3 : "At one point Zechel asked him directly,
if he was working for the CIA. [You might say that, Maccabee replied]." I would
like to state that I have never been employed by the CIA nor paid by the CIA.
The hot AIR paper should have pointed out that the context of this statement
was a casual conversation with WTZ. I pointed out that by talking with Ron
Pandolfi or other employees I was providing them with information, and [in that
context] I was "working for" the CIA. I was saving the employees some effort to
learn what they could by themselves by other means. However, I didn't tell them
everything. In other words, I have withheld information from Ron and others. I
never mentioned WTZ's proposal to re-sue the agency, for example.

   Regarding my employment, I might add that, although I am a civilian employee
of the Navy, I have never been in Naval Intelligence or any intelligence
agency. Nor have I been advised in any way related to UFO research activities
by any agency of the government except that the laboratory where I work has
said "keep our name out of it."

   ITEM 10: pg. 3, para. 2, sent. 4 : "In [April 1990], however, Maccabee began
to back-pedal on what he'd been told by the UFO files custodian in 1979.....In
this version the CIA man had merely been speculating about the totality of the
CIA's collection, judging by the one or two thousand he had control over."
WRONG! Evidently WTZ has "conveniently" (because it makes a better story?)
forgotten that the "back pedalling" had all occurred in [May, 1979] . For the
reader who doesn't know who is telling the truth I ask whether or not you think
that WTZ would have failed to pursue this point (i.e., are there 15,000
documents or aren't there?) in the spring of 1979 when the subject was
hot...[he needed to know whether or not there were thousands more pages for the
next lawsuit]. I submit that WTZ did the logical thing in 1979 and asked me at
that time to clarify the situation: was my contact aware, or wasn't he aware,
of "15,000" pages? The writer's indication that this "back-pedaling" didn't
take place until 1990 is part of the poor investigation evident in this paper.
ERROR #5

   The AIR paper continues in the next several paragraphs to build an argument
which the writer portrays as logical (the "custodian" should know how many
documents there are). However, the truth or falsity of the claim that there are
thousands more pages of UFO documents cannot be determined from the information
I was given. The simple fact is that, because of the compartmented nature of
the CIA (and other intelligence agencies), [it may be that no one who knows how
many pages there are].

   ITEM 11: pg. 3, para. 7, sent. 3: "Green was awarded the CIA's National
Intelligence Medal for his work on a "classified project" from 1979 to 1983
[precisely the years in which Maccabee was meeting with him at CIA
headquarters]." WRONG! (Way to go, Kit!) It appears that the writer/WTZ is
trying to imply that the "classified project" was related to UFO research and
my contacts. I don't know what the "classified project" was, but I do know it
had nothing to do with my contacts from 1979 to 1983 because [there weren't
any]. After that last meeting with KG in the spring of 1979 I didn't see him
again and had no contact with the agency until June, 1984 when I was contacted
by Dr. Ronald Pandolfi regarding my Navy work. He had been tracking
developments by the "other side" in that field of research and wanted to know
what the US state of the art was. ERROR #6


   During my first meeting with Ron we discussed my Navy research. I didn't
mention my previous visit to the Agency 5 years before, nor did I mention
anything about UFOs because I didn't want him to think I was "nuts." However, I
subsequently learned that he discussed my visit with someone who did remember,
because soon afterward I got a phone call in which he brought up my UFO
interest. I didn't quite know how to take this and approached the situation
with some caution. So, over the next few years, when we met to discuss LIS
research and projects we would occasionally also discuss UFO cases I was
working on and ufology in general. There were several people who were mildly
interested in the subject, but none, to my knowledge, was actively involved in
research. In the summer 1987 after the release of the MJ-12 papers and the
MUFON International Symposium in Washington, DC, where the MJ-12 papers were
discussed publicly for the first time Ron asked if I would be willing to give a
lunchtime talk at the CIA. That sounded amusing, so I said yes. My talk to
all-comers, secretaries, messenger boys, researchers and spies (?), centered
around the papers which the CIA had itself released, and, of course, the
already controversial MJ-12 papers. Although I gained no new information, Ron
said that I created a lot of "spies" in the Agency, as everyone tried to find
documents on their own. (Clearly most of the employees were not familiar with
the UFO phenomenon in general and the CIA documents in particular.)
Subsequently I spoke there in 1990 about the Gulf Breeze sightings and most
recently about a magnetic case that occurred in Gulf Breeze last September
(1992). In each case I presented lectures that I had already given to other
audiences. The most recent lecture was a repeat of my presentation of the
magnetic case at the April, 1993, meeting of the American Physical Society in
Washington, DC.

  ITEM 12: pg. 4, para. 3., last sentence: "[..Bill Moore's best known
creation--the MJ-12 hoax]." WRONG! It is my belief, having known Bill and
having known about his investigative approach for more than 13 years, that the
suggestion that Bill faked the MJ-12 papers (EIB) is [extremely hot air]. WTZ
has his own reasons for claiming that Moore faked the document. Part of WTZ's
"hidden agenda" (hinted at in the paper) is to discredit the Roswell/Corona
crash and the MJ-12 papers in order to build up his own baby, the Dec. (5,6,7 -
pick a date), 1950 Texas-Mexico border crash (see pg. 7, para. 1,2, of the AIR
report). [There is no evidence that Bill Moore created the MJ-l2 documents. If
they are a hoax, it is not his fault]. ERROR #7

  NOTE: THE ASSERTION THAT MOORE CREATED THE EIB/MJ-12 PAPERS LEADS TO NUMEROUS
OTHER ERRORS IN THE PAGES FOLLOWING PG. 4. I HAVE NOT ENUMERATED THEM.

   ITEM 13: last sentence at the bottom of page 4: "There are probably
thousands of people all over the country suffering from the same sort of
[paranoid delusions] as Paul Bennewitz." YES! And the writer of this paper
seems to be one of them. Presumably the AIG members are others.

   ITEM 14: pg. 5, para. 3, sent. 4: "In fact, Moore told Todd Zechel in early
1980 that "I'll bet you've heard that you can't [make money off UFOs?] Well, I
proved that wrong!" For WTZ to accuse BM of trying to make some money off UFOs
is like the pot calling the kettle black. WTZ has established a track record of
grand schemes to make movies and books that would lead to BIG BUX.

   ITEM 15: pg. 6, para. 8, sent. 2: "[Quickly] Moore set about circulating
this material.." WRONG! The EIB was received in late December, 1984. Bill and
Jamie told only a couple of people about the EIB over the next couple of years
and did not generally release it until after it was published by Timothy Good
in England in the late spring of 1987, [three and a half years later]. ERROR #8

   ITEM 16: pg. 8, para 1, sent. 1: "...[thanks' to Maccabee's influence] ..."
WRONG! Here the writer implies that I had some influence on how Whitley
Streiber in MAJESTIC and how Howard Blum in [OUT THERE] portrayed Moore and
Doty. WHAT AMAZING GARBAGE. Sure I knew Whitley, but I had no involvement with
his book. He met Moore on his own and formed his own opinion, I presume. As for
Blum, I never had a discussion or contact with him before his book came out [or
since]. Hence I could not have influenced him. ERROR #9

   ITEM 17: Pg. 8, para. 5, sent. 2,3: "How much involvement did he have in
spreading the MJ-12 hoax? How much influence did Ron Pandolfi have over his
conduct during this whole affair?" Answer 1: I supported, and continue to
support, legitimate investigation into the EIB/MJ-12 papers which are not yet
proven to be a hoax. Answer 2: NONE.

  ITEM 18: pg. 8, para. 6, sent. 2: (referring to my paper "UFO Landings near
Kirtland AFB or Welcome to the Cosmic Watergate") The report was [co-authored
by Bill Moore]. WRONG! I wrote the whole report based on my investigation.
Afterward I sent it to Bill and asked him to write an addendum outlining what
he knew. He did so. The title page of the report, which anyone can obtain from
the Fund for UFO Research, reads "(the above title) by Bruce Maccabee with
comments by Bill Moore." Bill's input to the paper is confined to the "notes"
on pages 29 and 30 of the 30 page report. I made no changes in my text as a
result of Bill's notes. This is hardly what one could call "co-authored." ERROR
#10.


   ITEM 19: pg. 8, para. 6., sent. 4: "A careful examination of the
circumstances surrounding the documents ([and Maccabee's own report]) clearly
shows that the document is a fraud created by Doty." WRONG! There is no
evidence that it is a fraud. Furthermore, there is testimony by people
mentioned in the report which indicates that it actually happened. In
particular, Maj. Ernest Edwards confirmed the details about the sightings of
the Manzano Guards, but, unfortunately, too late for me to include this in my
paper. If the writer has any conclusive evidence that it is a fraud, as opposed
to [innuendo and "wishful thinking"] (he hopes it is a fraud because it makes
his story better), then I would like to see it. ERROR #11

   ITEM 20: pg. 8, para. 6, sent. 7: "Maccabee now privately admits that the
whole MJ-12 mess is [probably a hoax]. WRONG! I would agree that it is,
[possibly] a hoax (NOT BY BILL MOORE), but I have seen no evidence that makes
me think that the EIB itself is probably a hoax. [If it is a hoax, then it is
extremely sophisticated, utilizing historical details that were not previously
known. It certainly isn't "crude," as has been suggested by some considerably
less-than-brilliant skeptics]. ERROR #12

   ITEM 21: pg. 8, para. 6, sent. 2 : "When did Maccabee know the MJ-12
material was fraudulent, was it before he provided Stan Friedman with $16,000
of Fund money?" WRONG! This sentence is evidence of the argument by innuendo
and interence with some slanting of the data included. I didn't know that the
document was fraudulent before Friedman's investigation and [I still don't].
[Final judgement awaits evidence...none of which is presented in the hot AIR
paper].

   ITEM 22: pg. 8, para. 7, sent. 2: "...and had asked for a [paltry] $500 to
get the effort rolling, using a diligent attorney who [volunteered to do the
legal work]." WRONG! Here is WTZ's listing of "Costs to the Fund" : "I seek an
initial contribution of $500, which would cover my basic expenses in preparing
the suit for filing. Once the suit was ready to file, I would need an
additional contribution of about $2,000 as a retainer for the attorney(s)."
ERROR #13

The subject matter of this paragraph is more fully discussed in the main text
of this paper.

  ITEM 23: pg. 9, para. 7, ". ..all this should be viewed...in light of Dr.
Maccabee's (hence FUFOR's) [concurrent relationship with the CIA]. WRONG! More
ultimate claptrap. The allegations in this paper should not be viewed in the
light of my CIA association. [The Fund has never had a "relationship" with the
CIA]. Furthermore, as I pointed out in the main text of this paper, my CIA
acquaintances had no impact on my UFO activities with respect to MJ-12 or any
other aspect of government cover-up investigation. ERROR #14

   ITEM 24: pg. 9, para 8., sent. 3: (regarding my analysis and support of the
Gulf Breeze Sightings) "...most serious researchers have come to the conclusion
that indeed the case is a hoax." Is that so? Does the writer, or WTZ have any
evidence of this? Did they take a poll? Where is it published? Just how many
serious researchers, as opposed to those who merely [read] papers about the
case, are there? How do they explain all the other sightings? I suggest that if
the AIG really knew how to investigate sightings, as opposed to writing
scurrilous "expose" papers, they ought to look more carefully into Gulf Breeze
(and New Zealand and Guardian).

 ITEM 25: pg. 10, top para. sent. 2: "Or is his technical ability to analyze
photographic evidence really that poor?" More unmitigated garbage. Would the
writer like to challenge me to an analysis duel, perhaps? My analysis of the
Gulf Breeze photos has recently been reviewed and expanded by Jeff Sainio.
Perhaps the writer would like to smear him, too.

   ITEM 26: pg. 10, top para. sent. 3: "...one could [speculate] that Dr.
Maccabee's public support for the case might have been [encouraged by his
intelligence contacts]." WRONG! One could also speculate that the writer is a
moron or a childmolester or a sexual deviate (pick one...or several).
Speculation is easy. Why didn't the writer simply ask me, "Did your
intelligence contacts "encourage" you to support the Gulf Breeze sightings?" I
would have answered...[NO]. Although they didn't try to advise me one way or
another, their comments were more to the opposite, since they were skeptical of
the sightings. ERROR #15

  Oddly enough, the writer provides support for my claim in the previous
sentence that my CIA contacts [didn't] encourage me to support the Gulf Breeze
Sightings by stating that Pandolfi told "others" that he considers Ed Walters
to be a "total fraud." Not only has he told others, he also said that to me.
However, he pointed out that he has no evidence that Ed is a fraud.


   ITEM 27: pg, 10, para. 7, sent. 2, 3: (Referring to the Guardian
investigation by Maccabee and Oechsler) "[It is not known] whether any Fund for
UFO Research monies were expended in this investigation...again, [it is
unknown] whether Fund for UFO Research monies have been expended." In keeping
with the "slant" or bias throughout the paper, the writer publishes a simple
question [for its value as innuendo or suggestion of wrongdoing]....a simple
question which could have been answered before the publication by a simple
phone call to the Chairman, Richard Hall, or to any of the other members of the
Executive Board. The answer is NO (a thousand times, no).

   ITEM 28: pg. 11, para. 2, last sentence: (referring to the Fund's non-
support of the demonstration by Operation Right to Know) "But given Dr.
Maccabee's relationship with the CIA, the actual reasons for this opposition
are in question." As I have pointed out before, my "relationship with the CIA"
had no effect on the policy and decisions of the Fund for UFO Research.

   ITEM 29: pg. 12, para. 3 In this paragraph it is suggested that my CIA
connection had something to do with the decision to "terminate" Larry Bryant's
membership in the Executive Committee. WRONG! The decision was based on
internal Executive Committee deliberations and my association with the CIA had
nothing to do with it. [In fact, I was not in favor of terminating his
membership]. ERROR #16

   ITEM 30: pg. 12, para. 3: "For some reason Bryant's request [angered the
CIA].." WRONG! Angered the CIA? What the hell would the CIA care about a
request for FBIS reports [which are not classified] (as the AIR paper correctly
reports)? I have no information that Bryant's request "angered the CIA." ERROR
#17

   ITEM 31: pg. 12, para. 3: "...Maccabee was scolded by Pandolfi" because of
Bryant's FOI request. WRONG! He never mentioned it to me. ERROR #18

   ITEM 32: pg, 12, para. 3: "Bryant's action '[could jeopardize the Fund's
relationship wlth the CIA].'" WRONG! More misinformation. [There never was a
"Fund relationship wlth the CIA"], so Bryant's action could not jeopardize it.
ERROR #19

   ITEM 33: pg. 12, para. 5. This paragraph, entitled "Maccabee Disinforms
FUFOR" is more complete poppycock. First of all, "disinformation" includes
falsehood. Providing disinformation is different from providing incomplete
information. It is true that I never told the Fund members everything about my
CIA contacts. After all, most of my contacts were professionally related and
they had no need to know.

   I have ignored numerous other innuendoes and "truth-stretchers" because I
don't want to end up writing a paper that is several times longer than the AIR
itself. I think it is clear that the writers are not infallible and that if
future papers are like this one, [LET THE READER BEWARE]!


** End **

--
Don Allen - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: [e-mail]





From: [e-mail] (Don Allen)
Subject: Hot Air - Richard Hall
Date: 31 Aug 93 07:03:24 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:2430/2112.3 - The Temples o, Springfield IL


 * Forwarded from "UFO"
 * Originally by Don Allen
 * Originally to All
 * Originally dated 31 Aug 1993, 0:47

                                                 4418 39th St.
                                           Brentwood, MD 20722
                                                August 5, 1993

To Whom it May Concern:

    I have read the so-called AIR#1 report and Bruce Maccabee's reply entitled
"Hot Air." Although W. Todd Zechel told me on the telephone that he had no
control over some of the content of AIR#1, and that there is primarily one
other person responsible for it, I agree that the paper bears all the earmarks
of Zechel's work and clearly is a reiteration of his past writings. If there is
another primary author, aside from being a total coward he or she apparently
doesn't have an original thought in his or her head. I shall call him or her
"Air-Head."

     It must be emphasized that, other than Zechel's obvious role in it, the
paper is totally anonymous and the list of alleged AIR members is totally
fictitious. None of the people attacked personally in the paper or (like the
Fund for UFO Research) smeared by it were afforded any opportunity to reply to
the allegations in advance, nor is there an official author or address to which
a rebuttal can be sent. The paper is full of half-truths, innuendo, and totally
false statements. Nevertheless, it has been widely circulated with obvious
intent to do harm to Bruce Maccabee and/or the Fund and so we must reply. The
fund is preparing its own separate statement, but I wish to go on record as
stating that I have known Bruce Maccabee for over 25 years and have no reason
to doubt his personal integrity. We disagree about the merits of some UFO cases
that he has worked on, but disagreement and dialogue among colleagues is part
of the scientific method. There is nothing devious or "evil" about the
positions Bruce takes on a given case, despite insinuations by Air-Head. His
position may be mistaken in sole respects or even wrong, but who among us is
perfect? He also may be right. That is for scientific research to determine.

    Bruce is absolutely correct in stating that the Fund never has had a
clandestine relationship or any other with the CIA, and it never will as long
as I am Chairman. There is at worst "an appearance of impropriety" for Bruce,
as past Chairman, to have given talks or information to parties in CIA, which
he did as a private individual. When he mentioned some of his meetings with CIA
people to us over the years, we cautioned him that it could cause a problem.
However, I find his explanation of what his relationships were with some CIA
personnel to be entirely credible and they had virtually nothing to do with the
Fund.

    At no time did the CIA have any influence over any decisions made by the
Executive Committee or National Board of the Fund. Suggestions by Air-Head to
the contrary do border on paranoia. As he points out, Bruce had only one vote
and in fact some of his ideas were voted down (some of mine have been voted
down too). For any decision by the Fund to support any given project or to take
any particular action, there is joint responsibility by the Executive Committee
and, for major funding decisions or other fundamentally important matters, by
the full 15-member National Board. The Board members are independent-minded
people whose names and track records are known, not "tools of the CIA."

     Finally, Bruce Maccabee served honorably as Chairman for 13 years
providing important leadership to the Fund, and remains a respected member of
the National Board. Whatever "mistakes" he may have made during that period may
be attributable to human failings, but not to sinister plotting or devious
behavior.


                                   [ signature ]
                                Richard Hall, Chairman
                                Fund for UFO Research

--
Don Allen - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: [e-mail]






From: [e-mail] (Don Allen)
Subject: Hot Air - Bill Moore
Date: 31 Aug 93 07:03:25 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:2430/2112.3 - The Temples o, Springfield IL



 * Forwarded from "UFO"
 * Originally by Don Allen
 * Originally to All
 * Originally dated 31 Aug 1993, 0:48

    T H E  F A I R - W I T N E S S  P R O J E C T  O F  L. A.
   FOUNDED 1984: RESEARCH, PUBLISHING & MEDIA CONSULTING SERVICES
     SPECIALIZING IN INFORMATION ABOUT UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA
   4219 W. OLIVE AVE., SUITE #247, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA  91505

                                        August 10th 1993

                    ***AN OPEN LETTER***

Bruce Maccabee
6962 Eylers Valley Flint Rd.
Sabillasville, MD 21780

Dear Bruce:

Thanks for the note and accompanying material. Yes, I have a copy of the "AIR"
Report. They sent me one, believe it or not (post-marked, by the way, "Suburban
MD MSC 206," which translates to somewhere in Prince George's County).
Apparently I'm the only principal to have received one directly from the
source. Interesting.

There is no doubt that Todd Zechel figures heavily in this thing, although he
apparently chooses to deny having actually written it. His words reportedly
were, "I didn't write it, but of course I can't be responsible for what others
may do with information I provide them." Certainly we are dealing with some
sort of vendetta group here, and if I had to guess at the membership aside from
Zechel himself, I would finger an unholy alliance of the usual Zechel gadflys
with perhaps a couple of naive newcomers. Anyone who's been around the UFO
community for any lenqth of time knows the type of people he prefers to
associate with. Naming them would only give them more notoriety than they
deserve. Stylistically speaking, the writing resembles that of Zechel more than
anyone else.

As for the accuracy of the piece at least insofar as the material about me is
concerned  what few things the writer does have right are taken so badly out of
context or so heavily embellished with outright fabrication, invective and
innuendo that it's hardly worth my time to comment. Certainly I have never
claimed (or "confessed" to be "a government disinformation agent."  (A tran-
script of my 1989 Las Vegas speech is available from me in case anyone wants to
read my exact words.)  Certainly I did not "create" the MJ-12 papers!  As far
as I know, Rick Doty never attempted to make "big money" or in fact any money
at all "by concocting phoney UFO stories."  And if money and greed are my
motives, why am I always on the edge of poverty?  (Anyone who thinks money is
my God simply doesn't know me very well.)

In addition, the writer confuses the matter of the so-called Carter Briefing
Documents (the ones I photographed in a motel room) with the Eisenhower
Briefing Document. This is all set out in 'The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical
Report' which the writer gives no indication of having read.

Equally confused is the account of Rick Doty's involvement with the Kirtland
documents, a matter which is also set forth in detail in my above referenced
'MJ-12 Report'. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, Doty has never
offered to sell either information or documents on UFOs to anyone. Indeed,
during the thirteen years I have known him, Rick has never expressed any
interest in receiving money for anything, and on the couple of occasions when
money was offered (just to see what the reaction would be) it was quickly
declined with a wave of the hand.  Nor, for my part, did I ever accept any
money for my own involvement.

I do not know whether Rick Doty ever slept with Linda Howe or not, and frankly
I do not care! I do know that I have never discussed any such allegation with
Ms. Howe. Furthermore, the HOT-AIR Report's assertion that "up to this point,
Howe had never in her life spoken with Moore" is untrue. I first met and had a
fairly long conversation with Linda in mid-1980, six months before my
involvement with the Bennewitz affair and several years before the time frame
outlined in the so-called Report!

There's a lot of other stuff as well, but why bother?  To have me bragging to
Zechel, in early 1980 (!), about making lots of money off UFOs, is ridiculous.
Hell's bells-- the sum total of my contribution to ufology at that point was
perhaps half-a-dozen pulp magazine articles. Yes, I had made some money off the
Phil/Ex book, but that wasn't really a UFO book. Strangely enough, that meeting
marked the only time I have ever met Zechel face-to-face, and Maccabee was
present. I knew something of Zechel's curious reputation even at that early
date, and as a result I said damn little about anything at that meeting. (It
seems to me that he was living in a flea-bag hotel and working as a clerk at Le
Sexe Shoppe, a sleazy Hollywood porn palace, at the time.) I wonder if his
flawless memory can recall where we met and what the circumstances were. I can.

In summary, I view the HOT-AIR Report as nothing more than the product of
seriously twisted minds who have banded together out of sheer desperation in
order to attempt one last hurrah.  The reason Zechel is a nobody today has
nothing to do with me or anything I might have done. The cess pool he wallows
in is entirely the product of his own profligacy. How sad that people who have
descended to such depths so frequently believe that the only way they can make
themselves look good is to make others look bad. Even the Nazis used the
technique, although it is now widely accepted that heavy use of amphetamines
was responsible for at least some of Hitler's erratic behavior. I wonder what
drugs Mr. Zechel is doing nowadays???

In any case, HOT-AIR is clearly nothing more than a hatchet job effort by
individuals inimical to Maccabee and myself. Ufology has always been hesitant
to give credence to anonymous sources. Why should these cowards be treated any
differently?

                           [ handwritten note indicating
                             this is from Bill Moore but
                                     not signed ]

--
Don Allen - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: [e-mail]






From: [e-mail] (Don Ecker)
Subject: Maccabee & CIA
Date: 8 Sep 93 03:51:02 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 9:1012/3.0 - <ParaNet ALPH, Los Angeles CA


This file is provided to ParaNet by UFO Magazine. All rights are
reserved. You may distribute this file freely as long as this
header remains intact.

Date prepared: September 7, 1993
Contributed by: Don Ecker/ UFO Magazine

****************************************************************
Intelligence and UFO Research
by  Don Ecker/Director of Research
*UFO Magazine Vol. 8 No. 5 -- All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************

During the third week of July, 1993 *UFO Magazine received a
written report from an organization calling itself the
"ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORS GROUP". There was no return address on
the envelope, and the members listed on the back were all
pseudonyms. Some of the pseudonyms were fairly easy to figure
out, some were not. However the report itself was extremely
inflammatory. The first paragraph read; "One of the nation's
leading sponsors of UFO research and investigation, the Fund for
UFO Research, has had a long-standing secret relationship with
the CIA and the U.S. Intelligence community. Dr. Bruce Maccabee,
an optics and laser specialist with the Naval Surface Weapons
Laboratory near Washington, DC, one of the Fund's founders and
member of the group's Executive Committee, has been secretly
meeting with CIA officials since 1979, briefing them about
various UFO matters and investigators."

*UFO Magazine immediately called the Fund for UFO Research
Chairman Richard Hall to get the Funds stance on these
allegations. Hall right off stated that he had just spoken with
Todd Zechel, one of the primary accuser's alleging CIA
connections with the Fund and Dr. Maccabee. Zechel denied being
the sole author of the document, but according to Richard Hall,
refused to name the other authors.

Hall stated when asked that the Fund was aware of contacts that
Maccabee had within Central Intelligence, but had not been aware
of any extensive relationships. When asked by Hall if he felt
there may be other "moles" in the Fund for UFO Research he stated
"No I don't and I have to say that I think this has a potential
to be over blown. All we are dealing with here are some fairly
major indiscretions by Bruce Maccabee." When asked if Hall
thought Maccabee would have reported back to the Agency on
persons in the field he said "I have no way of knowing, is the
honest answer, but I sort of doubt it because my reading of his
personality and character". "In 1979 Bruce went to New Zealand
for, I think it was NICAP, it wasn't for the Fund, and when he
came back he told us that he had briefed some people at CIA on
the case. As the years went by Bruce said he had talked to CIA
people and had contacts over there. When it became obvious that
they were ongoing things several members of the board met with
Bruce and told him this wasn't right, we can't have you going
over there and talking privately with those people. We are
dedicated to the position of getting information out on this
subject and this will look bad, you can't do it. We told him this
could backfire on the Fund, we had no idea of how deeply involved
he was."


According to the document from the ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORS
report, and from Richard Hall, the point man at CIA that Maccabee
knew was Roland "Ron" Pandolfi, Directorate of Science and
Technology. Hall stated that "making some inquiries of my own, he
(Pandolfi) is notorious for dealing with a whole bunch of people
in the field. He is probably dealing disinformation in the
field."

Hall then stated for the record that because of many of
Maccabee's favorable statements about the Gulf Breeze case, the
Fund was unable to do any balanced presentation of negative
information about the case because the Fund had asked several
people to report on it and they refused because of reservations
about Maccabee.

Maccabee recently vacated the Chairmanship of the Fund for UFO
Research when Richard Hall took over. Maccabee is still a member
on the Board.

Todd Zechel was next contacted. When asked what initiated the
release of the ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORS REPORT, Zechel said the
report was done because Maccabee was found to have briefed CIA in
Langley on May 28th, 1993. The briefing was, according to Zechel
on "residual magnetic effects found in the Gulf Breeze incident."

Zechel stated "I knew Bruce quite well in the seventies. I got
started in the field in 1976 and I always respected and admired
him because he seemed to be a very responsible scientist. He was
very cautious and not making outrageous pronouncements." "One of
the concerns we had with all this is was that Maccabee felt more
loyalty to the CIA than he did to his friends at the Fund."
Zechel was then asked why the names listed on the report were all
pseudonyms and not the actual persons involved. He said "The
basic reason is stated in the last page of the report. There are
several confidential investigation going on, and when they are
completed the people will then be identified." Zechel then said
that "I may as well put my name on it since I will be blamed for
it anyway."

"One of the inferences that you can draw from the situation is
that before 1979 was quite cautious, seemingly afraid that he
might loose his government classified research job, and after
1979 when he began meeting with the CIA he seemed to abandon all
those cautions, and got involved with a lot of things that
seemingly going up against the government. Being one of the lead
sponsors of the MJ-12 investigation. If MJ-12 was legitimate,
which I don't believe it was, then Maccabee was certainly taking
a number of risks with his security clearance. The fact that
nothing happened to him obviously indicates that no one was
displeased with what he was doing."


One of the main points Zechel presented concerned the aftermath
of Maccabee's New Zealand trip, and his briefing at CIA. Maccabee
told Zechel on the record that he had met the CIA's custodian of
the UFO files. Zechel states he has Maccabee telling him on audio
tape that this unnamed CIA officer had told him (Maccabee) that
the Agency had over 15,000 UFO documents. Zechel had brought this
point up twice as he told *UFO "This was a critical point because
we were in the middle of litigation with the CIA and we were
trying to prove the CIA had lied to the court, and lied about
their search (for records). Obviously this was a major crime if
they have filed all sorts of affidavits to the U.S. District
Court swearing that their total files consisted on only about
1,000 documents."

The contact at CIA that Maccabee had that purportedly told him
about the 15,000 documents was Dr. Christopher C. "Kit" Green.
Green is now reportedly chief of Biomedical Sciences Dept. at
General Motors. His replacement at CIA is now Roland "Ron"
Pandolfi in the Directorate of Science & Technology.

Later Zechel said that while speaking to Maccabee he asked him if
he were working for the CIA. According to Zechel Maccabee stated
"You might say that." Zechel said that with Maccabee's background
he was recruited by the CIA to work on classified national
defense work involving "Star Wars". This in would fit into normal
governmental contract work given Maccabee's background in optical
physics and his expertise.

Zechel was asked about the allegation in the AIG report that
Maccabee was identified as a member of the infamous "Aviary" (Sea
Gull) of UFO researcher William Moore. When asked how this was
verified Zechel stated "It was verified through him (Maccabee) to
me within the last month. (July 1993) He talked about receiving a
form message from Bill (Moore) in which Moore had sent a memo out
to the Aviary that U.K. researcher Armen Victorian was doing an
investigation on the "birds", and the memo stated to not worry
about it, no one was worried about being exposed. Maccabee told
me that it was funny that Moore said no one was afraid of being
exposed, no one asked him, and he was afraid of being exposed!"

*UFO then called Dr. Maccabee. Maccabee was told that *UFO had
called Richard Hall at the Fund, and that Hall had verified that
the Fund was aware of his involvement with the CIA since 1979,
and that Hall had told Maccabee that they were afraid that if
this was publicly known it could reflect back on the Fund.
Maccabee stated that "I have a professional relationship in the
sense of what I do, and in particular I was working on lasers,
and I became of interest to them in 1984. This UFO stuff came up
as topics of mutual interest. This paper (AIG) misrepresents
things and that is one of many things." Maccabee was asked if he
did contact CIA in 1979. Maccabee stated he did brief CIA on his
New Zealand investigation.  However Maccabee stated that the
report was wrong about him contacting CIA. "Coming back from New
Zealand, I had looked for help in my analysis, or for people to
review what I had done in terms of the radar aspects of the New
Zealand case. I had told Jack Acuff of NICAP I would be
interested in technical experts in radar. I learned from Jack
there was a scientist with major credentials with a corporation.
He had become aware of NICAP because of sonic booms, like sky
quakes, which were taking place at the time (in the late
seventies, after the Concord starting flying.) People were
phoning in reports about these booms, and were seeing lights in
the sky. The scientific community got interested, and the guy I
ended up talking to, Gordon MacDonald, decided to do an
investigation with the Naval Research Laboratory, and they found
to their dismay that most of the information that is available is
in the files of UFO groups. So they contacted NICAP among others
for information, so that is how MacDonald got in touch with NICAP
and Jack Acuff. When the New Zealand case came along, I was given
this guy MacDonald. I met with him and he agreed with some of my
conclusions and offered a couple of suggestions. About a week or
so later, he called and asked if I would like to brief some
people at the CIA where they had other radar experts. I said ok,
and then a guy from the CIA called up and invited me to come
over. Apparently MacDonald had contacted the CIA on his own. So,
here on this report (AIG) is a paragraph which is written in a
slanted and fabricated manner."



Maccabee was asked if it were true that after the New Zealand
briefing he was taken aside by a CIA official and reveled to him
that this man was custodian of UFO files, and that these files
consisted of close to 15,000 documents, and then later on at some
point he (Maccabee) later retreated from that statement. He said
"Yes there is" and then he was asked if it were Dr. "Kit" Green,
Maccabee said yes but he never mentioned the name. "Zechel found
that out on his own."

"After the briefing, this Green asked me if I would come back and
we can talk about the UFO situation in general. I was interested
knowing that the government and CIA had just coughed up a bunch
of documents, and he may have wanted to talk about the subject
for his own reasons whatever they were. I went back again and
sometime in the conversation we got into the documents. From what
I recall and I do not recall it specifically, Green probably said
there were many more documents, maybe as many as 15,000
documents. At any rate what is left out of this (AIG report) is
what happened afterwards. I told Zechel about that because I knew
he was dealing with that lawsuit. I thought he should know there
might be more documents. I did not know of Zechel's independent
information. Zechel had a covert source of his own. Plus, Gersten
(Zechels attorney) had been led to believe by the CIA attorney
there might be 10,000 pages." Maccabee stated then that in
conversations with Green, Green told him that he personally only
personally had approx. 1,000 documents.

Maccabee's denial to Robert Hastings occurred in 1979 as opposed
to the AIG report which states 1990. Maccabee stated "As far as a
denial to Hastings, he had no need to know what I was doing 7 or
8 years beforehand. I was not about to spread it around, and it
is very possible I denied it, I do not remember."

When asked how with his job and security level, and with his
public and private UFO interest, how could he continue with his
UFO investigations and not be censored and not suffer the
consequences that others in government service have suffered with
a public UFO interest. Larry Bryant was one example offered.
Maccabee said "I just played it cool, Larry did not play it as
cool. He started sending around paid advertisements to armed
service newspapers, and when some of them wouldn't publish his
stuff he got mad and sued them and stirred up a big stink." "I
never knowingly passed any disinformation, nor was I given any
information or disinformation to pass."

Maccabee was then asked if it were true that as late as May 28th,
1993 if he had once again briefed interested parties at CIA on
the magnetic effects of the Gulf Breeze case and he answered
"yes".  Maccabee was asked if he had passed on information to CIA
on any cases or personalities in the research community. "What I
have done is talk to people that are interested in the subject on
material that they could get elsewhere. At one time they were
interested in tracking what was on bulletin boards (computer),
with Lear and Cooper (Milton) and all that. I did not tell them
anything that was not in the open literature. The Gulf Breeze
briefing is a case in point, it was a lunch time talk, anyone
could come to it,
secretaries, street sweepers or the heads of covert departments,
whatever. I did not know who showed up. CIA invites lots of
people on lots of subjects and they will talk to people that are
interested in those subjects. I been there a couple of times just
like it said in this paper."


Maccabee then stated that another misrepresentation in the AIG
document concerned the years from 1979 to 1983. The paper states
that Maccabee had a continuous and ongoing relationship with CIA.
"FALSE" he stated. After the spring of 1979 I did not have ANY
dealings with CIA until after 1983. In 1984 I was contacted by
Pandolfi in regards to my work. I was asked to come over and give
a briefing on my work which I did. Nothing about UFOs. I do not
talk about UFOs unless the person I am talking to is amenable to
it." After Maccabee gave the presentation on his work, he said
that Pandolfi asked him about his 1979 presentation on New
Zealand. "I couldn't deny it" Maccabee said, and "after that we
got into conversations on the subject".

"The implication of this document" said Maccabee, "is that I had
continuous and ongoing relations with the CIA all the way through
and that I was supplying information to the CIA on UFO stuff for
years and years. This is not true."

The one area where Maccabee was not open concerned the question
about his being SEA GULL in William Moores aviary. Maccabee
claimed he did not know if he were SEA GULL. When asked if he had
received any documents addressed to SEA GULL he maintained he did
not know.

After conducting a number of interviews, I do not think there was
any malicious intent on Maccabees part, but without a doubt some
poor judgment. Walt Andrus was contacted to see if MUFON had any
position on this. Andrus said that MUFONs position was "It is not
a crime to talk to the CIA, after all they are a part of America
to." Without a doubt they are, however after almost 50 years of
lies and deceit where the UFO subject comes in, and considering
historical events like the Robertson Panel, it is time for the
government to come clean with the information on hand. There is a
phenomenon, it has apparently interacted with human-kind for
years. Agencies like CIA have hidden behind national security
with information on UFOs, while claiming that UFOs do not
threaten national security. You can't have it both ways and
undoubtedly Maccabee will be another casualty in the long line of
people who tried to have it both ways. Somehow only the
phenomenon and the  intelligence services seem to win this one.

--end of file--

--
Don Ecker - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: [e-mail]




From: [e-mail] (Don Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo
Subject: The Mark of Zechel
Date: 2 Sep 93 02:49:02 GMT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:2430/2112.3 - The Temples o, Springfield IL


 * Forwarded from "UFO"
 * Originally by Mark Harris
 * Originally to Don Allen
 * Originally dated 31 Aug 1993, 17:16

Hi, Don;

If the "Hot Air" report was really written by Todd Zechel, and at
this point, I would have  to say there's some substantial support
for that allegation [including the fact that  I,  too,  recognize
the style], I'd say we need a rather large grain of salt.

When my wife left me, in  October of 1985, I moved from our house
outside of Prairie du Sac, WI to an apartment in the village.  It
was a second story apartment, and just below me lived a wonderful
retired couple, Walter Zechel and his wife.  I got to  know  Walt
pretty  good;  he  remains  to this day one of the kindest people
I've ever met.  He  was  retired  from the Badger Army Ammunition
plant, located between PDS and Baraboo, and to make ends meet, he
did routine maintenance around the apartment complex,  for  which
he got $5 per hour and the apartment he lived in.

I  often  went  fishing with Walt, and got to hear much about his
children.  In spite of the long  talks we had, however, the first
I knew he had a son named  Todd is when Todd himself showed up at
Walt's door about 11 pm one night, with a suitcase, an old manual
typewriter, and not much else.  That  would  have  been  sometime
around  June  of  1986 or so, if I recall the date correctly.  It
was before my divorce was final,  in August of 1986; I'm guessing
as to the specific month.  Todd had lost just about everything he
owned in some unnamed disaster, and came to live with  Mommy  and
Daddy until "things got better".

It was the only time, before or since, I ever  heard  Walt  yell,
about anything.

The  reason I hadn't heard anything until then about son Todd was
that Todd, according to Walt and later confirmed by Todd himself,
had never once held down  a  regular  job for any length of time.
He had always aspired to  being  an  author,  or  I  should  say,
Author.   I  knew  about his involvement with UFO's, since it was
one of the few topics Todd would be fairly straightforward about.

During the months Todd stayed  with  his parents, he held exactly
one job, and then only when Walt threatened to have the cops come
and move him out.  He took a "telemarketing" job, which  he  held
for  something like two days, when he was fired.  Walt told me it
was because of  alcohol  use  on  the  job,  though  I don't have
anything more than circumstantial proof of that.  I do know  that
Todd  would drink, sometimes to excess, when he could get someone
to give him some  money;  he  used  to  sit  at  one of the local
taverns, introducing himself as an Author,  but  when  you'd  ask
what  books  he'd  written,  he'd  go  on about how they're under
pseudonyms, and he didn't  want  to  cite  actual titles since he
didn't want a lot of personal publicity, or to have to  autograph
books when he was in town largely "on sabbatical".

He  spent  most  of that time working on a book, or so he said; I
used to  hear  typing  from  downstairs  for  hours  on end.  His
parents reluctantly allowed him to stay  during  that  period  of
time,  with the provision that when he submitted his book and got
paid, he'd leave.  I also know  that  he was caught by Walt on at
least one occasion with one of his mother's books,  copying  page
after  page  out of it, not in any act of plagiarism, but to give
the impression that he was, indeed,  writing a book, when all the
typing was just noise.

Todd  may  have  done  some  solid  work  early  in  his life, in
investigating  the  UFO  phenomena,  but  after  meeting  him and
getting to know him for a few months, I'm not  very  inclined  to
take him seriously, or to grant him any credibility regarding his
more  recent  investigations.   He  was  a sorry picture of a man
then, who frequently tried  to  characterize  himself as a man of
some importance while not providing any  information  with  which
someone  could verify his status.  To coin a phrase, he was "full
of Hot Air".  (G)

Regards,

Mark R. Harris




--