Leslie Kean Update: the Fly is Still Flying High!

And still they fly!
 
On the afternoon of April 13, Leslie Kean finally posted to the Huffington Post her promised update on the highly-controversal video from El Bosque Arifield in Chile, exactly one month after her initial story about it. The video supposedly shows an unknown craft maneuvering, but is widely believed to be just a fly buzzing around. (My March 21 Blog posting explains the fly-analysis in detail.)

Strangely, unlike Kean's initial story ("Is this the case UFO skeptics have been dreading?"), there does not seem to be any link to the update on the Huffington Post home page. However, the update appears prominently on Kean's Facebook page. It almost seems that she does not want to bring any new readers into this controversy, and is writing only to maintain credibility with those already involved. (I suspect at this point Kean wishes she had never heard of the Chilean Air Force UFO group CEFAA, but having embraced this Tar Baby, she is unwilling to admit that her new dress is covered with tar.)

Her new piece is titled "Update on Chilean UFO Videos: Getting the Bugs Out." Surprisingly, this update changes almost nothing: we don't really learn anything that we didn't know before. She quotes Alberto Vergara, "an expert in digital imaging," who stated that "When we examine the whole scene frame by frame, we have been able to realize that [the object] has, apparently, moved at a speed far superior to any flying object of known manufacture." Neither Kean nor Vergara explain how he could possibly know the speed of the object without knowing how far it is from the camera. But Vergara is an "expert," so Kean doesn't question this obvious absurdity.

A strange metallic flying object - Lucilia Sericata, the common  Green Bottle fly

Kean complains that "Skeptics caused quite a stir by taking it upon themselves to do their own "analysis" of the video clips and then to declare, with bravado, that the object of concern was simply a bug. Often this involved misquoting or misrepresenting me and the CEFAA in accompanying text." [Kean does not specify what supposed "misquotes" or "misrepresentations" she is referring to]. "The question of qualifications aside [we skeptics, you see,  are not "qualified" to analyze these videos, but somebody like Vergara is], these individuals were handicapped by one even more overwhelming problem: They were working without the necessary data required to make a proper analysis, and, most importantly, they were looking at video clips pulled from only one of the multiple cameras."

This is a very strange complaint: if people are "working without the necessary data," it is because the CEFAA refuses to release any more data (although in reality, the clips from the single video already released contain plenty of information to conclude the "UFO" is an insect). So she blames investigators for looking into this case prematurely (a case she suggested was "the case UFO skeptics have been dreading"), rather than blaming the CEFAA for being secretive. And people "were looking at video clips pulled from only one of the multiple cameras" for a very good reason: the CEFAA has only released video clips from one camera, and people cannot analyze what they're not allowed to see.

"In accordance with the wishes of the scientific team in Chile and these new analysts, General Bermúdez will not be releasing any more videos now, so that the public can be fully informed and maximum understanding achieved when the full package is released. Those involved agree that the new studies should be completed first." In other words, the message to those who want to investigate this high-profile case is: sit still, shut up, and we'll let you know when our "experts" have all of the answers for you.

Then Leslie Kean gets into a discussion of beetles, largely, I suspect, to deflect attention from flies. She presents some pretty good arguments to suggest that the object in the video probably isn't a beetle. Beetles fly more clumsily than the object we see. That's why I think that the insect in the video is probably a fly.

General Bermudez has been stating  that UFO photo analyst Dr. Bruce Maccabee has examined the video, and has concluded that it represents an unknown object. However, there is nothing about this on Maccabee's website, or anywhere else I could find. I asked Maccabee about it. He replied, "As for the CEFAA video, I have been studying it or them, but things are not straightened out yet as to how many independent videos there are, what they show and when they show it.  No conclusion yet." In other words, he hasn't had any more success getting the full data from the CEFAA than anyone else has!

Interestingly, the UFOlogist A. Gevaert in Brazil reports "the two major and oldest official UFO research organizations in South American, one from Uruguay (founded in 1979) and other from Chile ([CEFAA] founded in 1997), have decided to establish a cooperation agreement to work together to both investigate new cases, to evaluate new and old cases and to promote Ufology in general among the scientific community of all South America, but, of course, concentrated in both countries." So it appears that, in Chile and Uruguay at least, the government-sponsored UFO investigative organizations are trying to strongly promote UFO belief. That gives us a little bit of perspective into what is going on with the Fly Saucer story.

The Day the Skeptics Society Wasn't Skeptical - "Best Evidence for UFOs"

Normally the Skeptics Society is a pretty reliable source of information concerning paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims. So imagine my surprise (and dismay) to read in the weekly E-Skeptic of March 28, 2012 a totally uncritical review of Leslie Kean's book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record. Titled "Best Evidence for UFOs" by George Michael, it praises Kean's "numerous credible eyewitnesses to UFO encounters and authoritative sources." He thinks she makes an " impressive case," and praises her "academic rigor." Plainly, either Michael did not read the same book I did, or he was entirely hornswoggled by the way that the crafty Kean disguises her hard-core UFO belief as respectable agnosticism.

Michael is totally uncritical of  the claims and statements in Kean's book. Given that the title of the magazine is "Skeptic," why did it never occur to him to question any of the assertions made by Kean, instead of just accepting each and every one as Gospel truth? Did it not occur to him that, in a book written by a hard-core UFO believer (Kean's mentor in UFOlogy was the late Budd Hopkins), one needs to verify the accuracy of the picture the author is trying to paint? Are all these UFO cases really unexplained? What have we skeptics been doing, sitting on our hands, or scratching our heads, during the decades since these Oldie-But-Moldy UFO claims were made?

The author is obviously totally clueless about the history of the UFO controversy. Otherwise, he would realize that many of Kean’s “unexplained” cases have been explained in detail by Philip J. Klass and others, years ago. Kean simply ignores all explanations and commentaries that she doesn’t like. To me that does not constitute "academic rigor," as Mr. Michael seems to think. But he apparently has never read any of Klass' UFO books, and I suspect doesn't even know who Klass was (or else he would have asked himself, "What did Klass write about this case during the 70s or 80s?"). I have already written a review of Kean's book, “‘Unexplained’ Cases—Only If You Ignore All Explanations,” that was published in the Skeptical Inquirer, March/April, 2011. I have now placed a copy of that review on my website, for those who would like to see what a critical analysis of Kean's dubious pro-UFO claims might look like.

The British UFO skeptic Ian Ridpath wrote:

In his review of Leslie Kean’s book, George Michael too readily takes the author’s word for various UFO cases that have turned out, on investigation, not to be quite as the author describes them. A case in point is the Rendlesham Forest incident of 1980, which he calls “Perhaps the most notable reported military case involving a UFO”. A little research (even a glance at Wikipedia, for example) would have shown that explanations for all major aspects of that case have been in print for over 25 years. To address the points he raises: No unusual radiation was detected at the site, the supposed landing marks were made by forest animals, and the story of examining a landed craft for 45 minutes is something that was made up many years after the event by one of the witnesses, apparently bent on becoming a UFO celebrity. I would not expect to learn that from a book by an uncritical UFO proponent such as Leslie Kean, but I would have expected to hear it in a review on these pages... There are quite a few other cases he needs to learn about, too.

Peter Brookesmith, longtime paranormal researcher and regular contributor to Fortean Times, says

This review contains what must surely be the most distorted version of the Rendlesham Incident to see the light....where was the wary & informed editorial control? It's not even as if this worthless tract has never been kicked in the fundament (and not only in hard-line skeptical journals) by other reviewers: it's been out & about for a while. So the real question is, how come the review was published by E-Skeptic at all?

(The correct spelling is "Oberg")

As far back as August, 2010 skeptic James Oberg wrote for MSNBC that Kean's book was based on a "questionable foundation." He quickly glanced at a list of supposed "unexplained" cases given by Kean, and immediately pulled out ten that he knew to be caused by Russian space launches.

E-Skeptic is probably unaware that Kean's book was also made into an equally bad one-sided pro-UFO documentary on the History Channel. I have also written a critique of the misrepresentations made on this show.

Apparently Mr. Michael is also unaware that the big controversy underway in UFOlogy at the moment involves Kean promoting a video of a fly buzzing around as being possibly "the case UFO skeptics have been dreading."   Even many of the UFO proponents are choking on that one, as her position is so obviously illogical. Had Michael known that Kean was vigorously defending such an obvious absurdity, I cannot imagine how he possibly could have written such a fawning review.

Unfortunately, now Leslie Kean will be able to boast to reporters that her book has been given the 'seal of approval' of Skeptic magazine for its "academic rigor." As Ian Ridpath noted, if Michael had even bothered to check Wikipedia, he would have seen the problems in Kean's version of the Rendlesham case. Let us hope that in future articles concerning UFOs, the Skeptics Society will utilize the services of authors and reviewers whose understanding of the UFO controversy is better than paper-thin, and who will check out the validity of pro-UFO claims before credulously swallowing them.

Flying Saucer, or Fly? Is this the case UFO skeptics have been dreading?

On March 13, 2012 the well-known UFOlogist Leslie Kean wrote a story for the Huffington Post titled "UFO Caught On Tape Over Santiago Air Base." Kean, the author of the 2011 New York Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, described a supposed UFO caught on video during an air show in Chile (although nobody saw the supposed UFO until it was seen in the video afterward). The video was provided by CEFAA, the Chilean Air Force's equivalent of the USAF's disbanded Project Blue Book. The video was said to have been subjected to "intense scrutiny" by a panel of "scientists from many disciplines, aeronautical experts, and air force and army photogrametric technicians." They found it unexplainable. (Kean is very impressed by panels of supposed "experts," no matter what stupid things they might say, like the French COMETA.)  She asks provocatively, "Is this the case UFO skeptics have been dreading?" She obviously thought she had an extremely strong UFO case here, and provided the following video:

Kean claims that the object was captured on seven different videos, by seven different people, each from a different vantage point. However, the video released seems to represent just one of the seven videos, and even that one was not complete, but instead we see only some carefully-chosen snippets. Somebody seemed to be "stage managing" this case to let us see only certain portions of the "evidence."

Kean said, "Each video included three different, mainly horizontal loops flown by the UFO within seconds of each other. The object made elliptical passes either near or around each of three sets of performing jets. It flew past the Halcones, F5s and F16s at speeds so fast it was not noticed by the pilots or anyone on the ground below." She continued, "This extraordinary machine was flying at velocities too high to be man-made. Scientists have estimated the speed, depending on the size of the object, to be at least 4000 - 6000 mph." She should have realized that speed estimates are only valid if one knows for certain the distance from the "UFO" to the camera, which in this case we obviously don't.

The Chilean "UFO" close-up, from Leslie Kean's article

Kean continued, "Images show it as a dome-shaped, flat-bottomed object with no visible means of propulsion. The rounded top reflects the sun and appears metallic; the bottom is darker and flat, emitting some form of energy which is visible in photo analysis. Infrared studies show the entire object is radiating heat, just like the jets." She did not explain how it would be possible to do an "infrared study" of the object captured by an ordinary video camera with no infrared capabilities. She seemed to not even realize that this claim is absurd.

Almost immediately, I am happy to say, many people began finding flaws in this supposedly game-changing video and its analysis, even in places like the conspiracy-oriented Above Top Secret forum. Many noted the object's resemblance to that of an an insect flying wildly close to the camera. Poster UFOglobe compared the close-up of the "UFO" with that of a swarm of bees. The resemblance is easily seen.

"UFOglobe" posted a video frame  (with close-up) of a swarm of bees

A detailed discussion and analysis of the CEFAA video appears on the website of The Hoax Killer (whose excellent work exposing the recent Jerusalem UFO video hoaxes I earlier cited). He downloaded the highest-resolution version of the video from the Huffington Post site. He writes,"After studying the videos very closely I discovered the objects are passing in front of the hills a couple times.  I was also looking for other insects that might be flying around closer to the ground and found what I think is one that is visible for moment." He posted the in front of the nearby ground. Case Closed: this "UFO" is a flying insect.
following short 30-second video to YouTube, highlighting the "UFO" as it is seen not only flying in front of the distant hills, but

UFO skeptic Tim Printy notes, "What this demonstrates is that the original video that was posted was edited in a way so one could not see the UFOs with the ground in the background." In other words, somebody - presumably in the CEFAA - edited the video with the deliberate intent to deceive. Otherwise, it would have been obvious that this is a bug. Blogger Kentaro Mori noted how the CEFAA recently released another supposed UFO photo touted as the "best evidence" yet for a UFO, but was almost certainly a light reflection. He noted that the CEFAA was then, as in the present instance, unwilling to release any additional images or information. Clearly, any future UFO claims from Chile's CEFAA must be viewed with great suspicion.

A giant metallic flying object - Lucilia sericata, the common Green Bottle Fly

Somebody should give Leslie Kean a can of Raid so she can eliminate annoying insects in her future UFO investigations.

[Several follow-ups to this story. Enter "Kean fly" in the search box, upper right.]

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 5 of 5.

[With revisions, May 2023]. On Friday evening I watched The Montauk Chronicles, a documentary on supposed sinister paranormal experiments carried out on innocent boys by the U.S. military at Montauk, Long Island, NY. (See p. 124-126 of my book Pyschic Vibrations). Supposedly tens of thousands of young boys, if not hundreds of thousands, were taken off the streets, imprisoned, tortured and molested, all for the purpose of unleashing hidden paranormal powers. [This bizarre claim was reportedly the basis for the highly popular TV series Stranger Things, which premiered on Netflix in 2016] The Montauk project reportedly ended when one of the youngsters was able to manifest a Big Scary Monster that ran amuck attacking people. By some accounts, the monster still runs amuck at night, when the moon is full and the fog sits upon the moor - wooo. The movie is quite well made. I met the writer and director, Christopher P. Garetano, who seems like a nice fellow but apparently lacks the gene for critical thinking. He cannot decide whether this huge, bloated, absurd tale is true or not. Good Lord!

David Sereda and Stan Romanek test that the laws of electromagnetism are still working

The Saturday sessions began with Ben Hansen, host of the SyFy channel's Fact or Faked, on the Interplay of Media, Technology, Hollywood, and Validating Evidence of ET Contact.  He raised the question of how to tell, given all this technology, which photos and videos are genuine, and which faked. Technology, he said, is our best friend, but also our worst enemy. It seemed to be more "enemy" that morning as many of his video excerpts were unable to be played. The genre of "found footage," he said is now so popular that if real footage of ETs is ever found, it might not be believed. He decried the "wolves" who damage the credibility of UFO research by making sensational claims for their own fun and profit. Unfortunately, he did not name any names.

Whitley and Anne Strieber

When I first saw the celebrated mega-best selling author Whitley Strieber and his wife Anne seated on a panel, I remarked to myself how their demeanor reminded me of the couple in the famous painting American Gothic. I had not seen Anne before; however I had written up an account of Strieber's very odd behavior during my previous Close Encounter with the Great Confabulator. For his talk, Strieber promised he would be Solving the Communion Enigma, but somehow never quite did. He did promote his website The Unknown Country, especially the paid subscribers' pages. Anne read some letters they had received, telling of peoples' highly-emotional experiences with "the visitors." In mankind's struggle for political and personal freedom, he said, we CE-ers are on the cutting edge.However, it is common for CE people to have a "tragic background." A wave of "strange sounds" around the world, mentioned earlier by Maussan, were discussed.

I got out of my seat to get photos of the speakers, without flash so as not to disturb the video being made. I was looking at the photos as I returned to my seat. The fellow next to me asked "were there any orbs above them?" No, not this time, I replied. Streiber returned to the theme of contact with the dead that he first began to promote in his book The Key (see my Review, "He Sees Dead People," in the Skeptical Inquirer, July/August, 2011). Dead people, he says, dress in a brown monk's cowl, "Jesuit clothing." Some of the visitors think it is possible for mankind ro Evolve, while others apparently are not so optimistic. That is why the visitors are so cautious and stealthy. Afterward, mankind will be changed completely, and come face-to-face with the dead. Strieber still says he does not know exactly who "the visitors" are, but he knows that The Dead play a large role.

Whitley Strieber signing autographs

General Ricardo Bermudez spoke about Chile's Official UFO Agency. I didn't hear much of his talk. He was having serious Audio-Visual problems. He spoke about UFO reports that were being received in Chile.

Next the celebrated Steven Greer of CSETI (not to be confused with real SETI) spoke on Contact: Countdown to Transformation to his largely-credulous and adoring crowd. "Disclosure has already happened," said Greer unexpectedly, borrowing a line from John Alexander, who Greer normally disagrees with about everything. Greer didn't explain that remark. Greer showed a photo of Bijou, an ambassador from the Andromeda Galaxy whose acquaintance was made in one of CSETI's desert Skywatches at Joshua Tree, CA. Bijou has now become like a sort of pet alien for Greer, often playing peek-a-boo when it's least expected. It takes a great deal of imagination to see Bijou in the original photo at left, even after they have helpfully cut away his outline (right) - more imagination than I have, I'm afraid. Greer also has equally-fuzzy photos of blips that he says are alien spaceships, many of them only partially materialized in our dimension.  Every time they go out, says Greer, they spot UFOs. Every time. This confirms my suspicion that no matter what light they see in the sky, they think it's a UFO.

 

Greer says there's an alien hiding out in this photo.

Voila! It's Bijou, Greer's alien familiar

Greer claims that electro-gravitic devices were built by long ago. He said the only reason the conspirators had not yet killed him is because he is too well-known. He accused the conspirators of "murder" in the cancer death of his friend Sheri Adamiak, and in the non-fatal cancers of other researchers, including his own. Apparently they have some sort of 'cancer ray' that they use against UFOlogists who get too close to the truth. Which brings us to this Rambo guy that I saw with Greer Friday night when Greer first arrived. He was dressed in black combat fatigues, and appeared to be wearing a bullet-proof vest. I thought this was odd, but I didn't pay much attention to him. Arizona is a state where people carry around guns the way people in other states carry umbrellas, although there are "no weapons" signs posted all around the facility. I heard later that Greer has taken to traveling with bodyguards, undoubtedly for the theatrical effect. Rambo, however, was not to be seen on Saturday when Greer spoke, and especially when he went into the hallway to sign autographs, which is when Greer would need protection the most. I heard an unconfirmed rumor that Rambo may have gotten himself into trouble bringing guns onto the Indian Reservation. For whatever reason, Rambo wasn't there, leaving poor Steven Greer defenseless. I am happy to report that Greer survived his stint at the UFO Congress.

Alien technology, he says, offers us free energy so that we won't need oil or coal any more. However, this is being opposed by the greedy oil companies, and the military-industrial complex. Greer said that he was offered a bribe of $2 BILLION by the conspirators to stop investigating UFOs, which he bravely and selflessly declined. (Me, I'd sell out for a mere two million. 😉)

Steven Greer is embraced by one of his many admiring fans. But where is Rambo?

Colin Andrews, the world authority on Crop Circles, spoke on that subject. He said that it really doesn't matter which of the crop circles are man-made, and which are real. (I'm still trying to wrap my head around that!). There are profound changes coming, as a "switch" will be thrown on December 21, changing, well, something really important.

As is well-known in UFOlogy, in the 1990s Laurence Rockefeller donated a significant sum for the study of UFOs. Less well-known is that he also donated money to fund a two-year study of Crop Circles,  and that Colin Andrews was chief investigator. Rockefeller's people said they wanted the  "best assessment" possible. They had enough money to buy the newest equipment, and even use helicopters. When it was completed, the conclusion was that 80% of the Circles were made by people, but 20% were unexplained. This conclusion was very controversial in UFO and Crop Circle circles; many people thought of it as a "debunking" study, and turned against poor Colin.

I first met Andrews two days earlier, when I was returning to my seat after my mini-confrontation with Steve Pierce and Travis Walton during the Q&A. He stopped me, introduced himself, and asked me for my card. I guess he wanted to find out what this was all about! I replied that I knew who he was, and we agreed to meet later and chat. When we did, I pointed out that some of the statements he'd made earlier about 2012 "alignments" were rather confused. I was surprised to see that he was trying to figure this out by himself using planetarium software, but not really understanding the parameters. His maps were so broad as to be very confusing. I told him I'd written quite a lot on those "alignments," and I sent him by email the links to the three Blog entries I did a year ago about that (http://badufos.blogspot.com/2011/02/2012-peter-gerstens-leap-of-faith.html and the two following it), for which he thanked me.

At that point I had to get back home so I could go to see the final performance at the San Diego Opera of Jake Heggie's west coast premiere opera Moby Dick., which was amazing.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 4

Written after the Friday sessions:

The Friday sessions began with Rosemary Ellen Guiley - ETs, Shadow People, and Djinn. Of those three types, Shadow People are seen the most. They are shadowy forms and often move in and out of children's closets (see Monsters, Inc. ). Stan Romanek has them in his home. They are allied with the Djinn, who are fighting ETs when they're not stopped up in bottles or lamps. The Djinn are seeking hybrids who have staying power in our dimension. Unfortunately, all three groups harass whoever investigates them. If you haven't already had enough of this twaddle, Guiley's website is www.djinnuniverse.com .

Bryce Zabel - Life After Contact. Bryce is the producer of the UFO conspiracy-oriented TV series Dark Skies. Contradicting those who say that government agents are promoting alien-themed shows as part of some "disclosure" project, he says Hollywood loves aliens because they sell tickets.

Zabel says that future calendars will be labeled "A. D.", meaning "After Disclosure," because the inevitable disclosure of the alien presence will have world-changing consequences. He compared the disclosure movement to the civil rights movement, and urged UFOlogists to avoid highly-controversial and sensational claims that will alienate people from the main cause, which is disclosure. Zabel is obviously a very intelligent man, and an excellent speaker, although in my view he suffers from insufficient skepticism of verbas.  He says that After Disclosure, there will be hoarding and panic buying, civil unrest, Congressional hearings, lawsuits, etc., as people seek damages from all the government deception. If such a conspiracy exists, and if it ends, then Zabel's scenario is probably farily accurate. But that assumes a whole lot. Zabel should talk to John Alexander, who strongly believes in ET UFOs, but believes there is absolutely no government conspiracy.

Randall Nickerson - Researching the Ariel School incident. This refers to an incident occurring in Africa on Sept. 16, 1994. In Zimbabwe 62 children ages 6-12, both black and white, claim to have seen a landed UFO with "strange beings" during morning recess. Unfortunately while all of the children apparently saw it, no adult did. Nickerson and the late Dr. John Mack went there to investigate the incident, which was actually a very brave thing to do, as travel to that area is quite dangerous. Some of the children got 'images' of man's destruction of the environment, saying this must end. Nickerson's talk was self-absorbed and introspective, and frankly boring. It took him 30 minutes to get to the UFO part of the story. I don't know why those children are telling that story, and I agree that episodes such as this ought to be studied by psychologists. Perhaps somebody hoaxed the children? However, there is ample historical precedent for episodes of what appear to be mass-delusion: Father Gill's 1959 UFO sighting, day-care molestation stories, and historical episodes of witchcraft mania.  In the final analysis there is no evidence that anything actually happened, just the stories told by the children.

Stan and Lisa Romanek

Stan and Lisa Romanek (substituting for Bruce Maccabee): Stan is the guy who became famous when he posted to YouTube a video of an alien peeping in his window. Soon others were posting alien Peeping Tom videos of their own, many of them better than Romanek's. He told about how he started to have sightings of UFOs a few years back, and soon they were following him around. Before long, big-headed aliens are playing peek-a-boo in the windows of his home. Then the ETs were replaced by as many as nine alien hybrid little girls, who intrude upon his telephone calls, and also play now-you-see-me-now-you-don't. One of them is Lisa's daughter from a previous UFO abduction. Stan gets a few not-quite-clear photos of strange-looking little girls, whose images probably have been Photoshopped to give them ET features.

Stan injured himself falling off a ladder, and was going to get corrective surgery. However, before the operation he was abducted by ETs, and his injury was miraculously healed, to the astonishment of his doctor. Before finishing his talk, he mentioned in passing that someone had anonymously mailed him actual photos of the true Roswell crash debris, and he flashed them tantalizingly on the screen. Stan Romanek is a one-man paranormal factory, and I suspect these wild claims will just keep piling up for many years.

Afterward while Romanek was at his table in the vendors' room (he and his wife now have three books of wild UFO claims), I introduced myself to him, and gave him my "Bad UFOs" card. I asked him why the aliens were following him around. We chatted very briefly when somebody (probably his wife) must have whispered, "don't talk to that guy." Suddenly it was, "I can't talk to you. You just bad-mouth people. Go away." I attempted to get a photo of him and his wife (others were doing so), but he turned his face away from me (how I regret not getting that image of Romanek avoiding the camera!). He said he'd have his lawyer sue me if I took a photo; I replied that was ridiculous, since he was a public figure in a public forum. So much for "UFO research!"

It's true: the Sun will be "aligned" with the Pleiades during the Annular Eclipse of May 20, 2012. So what?

Jaime Maussan, Imminent Contact. Mexico's main UFO man gave his usual wild and implausible talk. He showed a photo of what might be a baby alien, or else a baby Chupacabra. Fleets of UFOs, he said, were watching the recent Tsunami in Japan. The annular solar eclipse (when the moon passes directly across the sun, but appears too small to cover it completely, living a bright ring around the moon's rim) that will occur on May 20, 2012 (and is visible from the southwestern U.S.) will occur with the Sun aligned with the Pleiades. Actually, that part is true. The Sun "aligns" with the Pleiades (M45) every year around May 20. So what? "Alignments" mean nothing, astronomically speaking, but they can be very pretty.

Maussan showed the famous "spiral UFOs" that were failed Russian rocket launches. He insisted that he and his colleagues did a "complete investigation" of them, and found they were authentic. The Jerusalem UFO video(s) are also completely authentic. A new wrinkle at this conference: Maussan and a few other speakers talked about "mystery sounds," usually hums, being heard at various locations around the world. Sounding like a low, distant trumpet (like in the movie Red State), these have been said by some to be Gabriel's trumpet. Or else created by UFOs.

One vendor doing a great business was A&S, "Alien and Scalpel Research," promising "scientific analysis of alien implants and UFO crash debris." I do not know how much they are charging to "scan" a person for alien implants, but I heard complaints from those who signed up about the long wait. One woman described to me her experience with A&S: they took her into the little tent at right, and "scanned" her several times with different electronic instruments. They found three implants. They also told her that she was an alien hybrid, but also had 'angelic" DNA as well. I am truly amazed at what science can learn these days. I invited her to post her experience on this Blog.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 3

Written after the close of the Thursday sessions:

The Thursday sessions began with Peter Robbins, who was the personal assistant to the late Budd Hopkins, giving "A Personal Appreciation" of the late abductionist. He read from some of Hopkins' publications, and gave his own as well as others' recollections of Hopkins. He related the highly-dubious tale of how Linda Napolitano, Hopkins' favorite abductee, supposedly used a stun gun to escape a guard trying to keep people inside the WTC towers after the first plane hit, dashing out amid the broken glass. I didn't hear the whole talk, so I don't know if he mentioned the criticisms of Hopkins' methodology and integrity from his ex-wife Carol Rainey. I suspect not, and I suspect he also did not mention James Moseley's anecdote of how when he walked by Hopkins at a UFO conference, Budd gave him the finger. He did say that Hopkins "did not suffer fools gladly." The problem was, anyone who disagreed with Hopkins in any significant way was branded a 'fool.'

 

The Matreyia's "Gathering Circle of Light."

David Sereda told us all about the "Breakthrough" in "Faster than Light Communication with ET." It's easy when you use the "hidden harmonic codes of the universe." The secret? It's all done with crystals. The Great Pyramids are also "crystal oscillators," since they're made of stone, and stone contains crystals. They were used to send faster-than-light messages to the stars in Orion's belt. Sereda has discovered more about electricity and magnetism just using magnets and a voltmeter than did Faraday and Maxwell combined. You can buy the CD of Sereda's Harmonic Contact with the Pleiades for just $25.

In the vendor's room I enjoyed hearing a bunch of double-talk about the Matreiya, the World Teacher, who is living in the world today, but who has a secret identity, like Batman. I was told that in recent years, the Matreiya had done numerous TV interviews, but without revealing who he is. So you might see some guy on TV talking about UFOs or whatever, without ever realizing that you are seeing the enlightened one.  British author Benjamin Creme, who plays a sort of John the Baptist heralding the new savior, says that a bright "star" that mysteriously appears and disappears all over the world heralds the Matreiya's "immanent public appearance." They have lots of implausible photos of "the star" (one is obviously the Norway spiral UFO, a failed Russian rocket launch). If you see a bright star that you can't identify - it's his!!

Roberto Pinotti runs Italy's equivalent to MUFON, CUN. He showed many photos of UFOs from Italy and nearby countries, many of them Golden Oldies in black-and-white, including flying cigars, and Mother Ships. He seems especially fond of USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects). It almost felt like I had fallen into a Time Warp and was listening to a talk by Major Keyhoe in the 1950s. This was a good talk for a nap.

Lynne D. Kitei, M.D., gave a very scatterbrained and rather emotional talk about the Phoenix Lights, which she seems to have adopted as her very own Cause Celebre. She told Indian legends about the area. She has seen the "orbs," or "lights," numerous times, as well as the famous mass sighting. What I never understood was why she keeps peddling the second sightings of the Phoenix lights, the Maryland Air National Guard flare drop, as if it were unexplained. It turns out that Bruce Maccabee found that the lights she had photographed were in a different position than others'. So while everyone else photographed flares, Lynn Kitei apparently photographed Real UFOs. Some of her orbs appear to be not airborne, but lights on the ground. When she is not photographing orbs, she is seeking Entanglement, atonement, AT ONE MENT, an UP, and a transformation. Can you say "New Age?"

Steve Pierce (left), Travis Walton, John Goulette

Travis Walton brought out, for the first time, two of the guys who were present when he was "abducted," Steve Pierce and John Goulette, although 25 minutes was squandered watching video clips from TV programs, and from the movie version of Travis' yarn Fire in the Sky, so they didn't have to exert themselves too hard. Travis said that it wasn't far to the 'abduction' site from the work site, as the movie makes it seem. When they saw the UFO it was less than 100 feet away. Steve described the sound it made: beep, beep, and said it lit up the sky. He said he didn't go out the next day with the police to look for Travis, he hid in his girlfriend's house. (The police, when told that Travis had 'disappeared' in the woods with a UFO, naturally assumed these guys had killed him and were making up a ridiculous alibi. Of course, Travis was hiding out someplace for five days, while his mother urged the police not to look for him.)

Travis made a big thing about the accusation that Philip J. Klass had offered Steve a bribe of $10,000 to say that the 'abduction' was a hoax, that I recently wrote about. That accusation originated with Travis' pal Mike Rogers back in 1978. When Klass read the book where that claim was made, he phoned Pierce, who told him that he thought the abduction was a hoax, but he could not prove it. Klass recorded this phone interview, as he did every significant interview, and later sent a copy to Karl Pflock upon request. Pflock quoted other comments made by Pierce suggesting a hoax. But that was not Steve's story today: absolutely yes, Klass tried to bribe me. He flew out to Texas to wine and dine me and try to persuade me. He kept following me, I had to move to like three different states, to get away from him. Of course, there is no proof that this 'new version' of Pierce's story is correct, no photos of Klass and Pierce together, no documents of any kind to back up this implausible tale.

Walton returned to the theme that Klass was a paid government disinformation agent (an idea the audience readily applauded and obviously believed). He read from the purported FBI files released about Klass, which I believe to be genuine (more on that in some later Blogging). The FBI considered prosecuting Klass on two occasions for unauthorized release of secret information. Klass was a longtime senior editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, and not for nothing was it knows as Aviation Leak. Walton told another implausible tale about a guy who contacted him claiming to have witnessed the UFO abduction from another ridge, but this guy turned out to be some sort of government agent in cahoots with Klass.

During the Q&A, my voice will be heard on the session recording, relating Pierce's earlier suspicions that the case is a hoax, and asking him why he changed his story. He claimed he didn't. Pierce explained that what happened was, he got into a feud with Mike Rogers, and so in anger he grumbled it about that the case was a hoax, but that was not true.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 2

(Another posting in near-real time from Fort Macdowell, Arizona.)

The sessions began Wednesday morning with Chuck Zukowski talking about the joy of slicing up dead cattle that the aliens have already sliced and diced - that way, he can study their handiwork. He showed some gruesome photos, adding that he always brings his three kids when he investigates a mutilation, so that they can help out. He claims to sometimes detect substantial EMF fields emanating from mutilated cows, and speculates that it is a residual field from some alien device. I am wondering why the field does not dissipate away at the speed of light.

Zukowski explained that his website is www.ufonut.com, because this is what people call him. He said that mutilations seem to follow the cattle of certain ranchers, even if the rancher moves. I would think that what follows a rancher is the propensity to attribute slightly unusual predation patterns to extraterrestrials. He has discovered that mutilations and paranormal events are most common at 37 degrees north latitude, creating a belt of weird stuff running clear across the country. In the Q&A session, the question came up as to whether the aliens might be abducting cattle to create a race of "hybrid fetuses." Chuck thought that might be true. Can this be the explanation for the aliens' bizarre obsession with the nether parts of cattle - the creation of an alien/cattle hybrid? Now that truly bends the mind! If there are any cartoonists reading this, feel free to submit your conception of what a Bovine-Reticulan would look like, so it can be published. And somebody please suggest one reason why the aliens are so keen on breeding with cattle!

Two nice young ladies selling alien art. "Anubis" (right) is 14 years old, and draws the beings she says she sees.

Clifford Clift recently retired, or else was booted, as International Director of MUFON. Because I heard much grumbling about him at last year's MUFON Symposium, I suspect the latter. I saw him in a restaurant last night, and introduced myself. He seemed quite jovial, and frankly relieved to not have to worry about running MUFON any longer.

He began his talk by reviewing some MUFON statistics. About four entity sightings are being reported each month. Diving deeply into MUFON's treasure trove of Golden Oldies, he regaled us with another account of the famous Captain Mantell tragedy of 1948, one from a prison guard who saw a 450-foot wide craft hover right over the prison, and a UFO landing in a Kuwaiti oil field in 1976. Nullius in Verba, Clifford. "Take no one's word for it." That's what separates the science from the pseudo.

Yvonne Smith does hypnotherapy of people who think they have been "abducted" by a UFO. Old-style "abductology" as in Hopkins/Jacobs/Mack isn't completely dead - there is still Yvonne Smith, and Barbara Lamb (who is here, but won't be speaking). Smith showed us lots of drawings made by children of "monsters" and such that come into their bedrooms. Of course, we're sophisticated: we know they're really not "monsters," they're extraterrestrials. At least the 'alien hybrid race' Smith talked about doesn't involve cows.

We learned that the alien implant supposedly removed from one Ron Noel by podiatrist Roger Leir is made up of the 'hardest material ever seen.' If that is true, and can be confirmed (which I doubt), they might just have something. (Note to self: check whether it's legal in California for a podiatrist to do surgery on a person's arm.)

Smith gave tantalizing hints about a supposed 'mass UFO abduction' in 1994 at the posh Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, while the people were attending a UFO conference she organized. I got the feeling she's going to be promoting that as a major UFO case, and I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more about it.

Are these Alien Video Cameras?  No, wait - cameras that took videos of aliens!

Antonio Huneeus spoke on the "Best UFO Cases: from Ancient time to 2012," which covers a whole lot of ground, so I guess it's no surprise that he ran way over time. I felt like I was listening to Erich von Daniken, or maybe even Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. This talk frankly bored me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to nap. In the past Huneeus has written some very sensible and balanced articles, but there was no hint of that circumspection today.

The last speaker of Wednesday, and in my view the most interesting of the day, was UFO journalist Lee Speigel, now with Huffington Post/ AOL News. Speigel cautioned the audience not to "believe everything they read, or see, or hear, about UFOs," and gave several examples showing exactly that. He recounted his own 1973 sighting of a UFO during a flap in North Carolina that he went to investigate for CUFOS and J. Allen Hynek. That's what set him strongly on the UFO path. Concerning the famous 1978 UN UFO kerfluffle involving Sir Eric Gairy, prime minister of Grenada, J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, and astronaut Gordon Cooper, Speigel explained how he organized it! I knew he was involved (he is in some of the photos), but didn't realize his critical role. He also provided laughs about how, when he did a regular UFO program for NBC radio in New York City, he was forced to go around the city as "the alien," looking vaguely like Marvin the Martian as he trundled across New York City to promote the show.

It was announced that Bruce Maccabee will not be able to speak as scheduled on Friday, owing to illness. So he will be replaced by Stan Romanek, who became famous when he posted on YouTube a video of an alien peeking in his window. The result of that was, of course, that several other people posted even better videos of aliens peeping into their windows. Stan and his wife Lisa will be talking about their new book. Maybe they can even help you take a video of an alien peeping in your window?