A Skeptic at the UFO Congress 2015 - Part 1

Again this year, I am attending the largest UFO conference in the world, this year's International UFO Congress Conference and Film Festival near Phoenix, Arizona. Unlike previous years, I was not able to attend all five days. Also I'm not going to try to provide a summary of every talk (although I said that previously!).  But there is obviously a lot going on here - most of UFOlogy's "heavy hitters" are here.

Boyd Bushman is vindicated - Plastic Aliens are everywhere!

The first thing to catch my eye was the display here, and elsewhere, of what appears to be the same plastic aliens allegedly photographed by Boyd Bushman at Area 51. Some people wanted to see proof that such plastic aliens actually exist. Well, here it is. These cheerful fellows are 54" tall, are being sold by Zetan.net, and cost $488.00.

Program Thursday, February 19.

Thomas Reed

9AM. Substituting for Linda Zimmerman is Thomas Reed. The talk is on the Reed family UFO encounters and abductions, in various locations. He showed a long documentary video, mostly excerpts from cable TV shows, with hideously bad audio, and a loud hum.

His case was supposedly mentioned at the UN in 1992. The same day, he says his father was murdered.

He told of alien abductions and such,  involving his brother and son. There allegedly were radiation and magnetic effects. His long and boring account told what the aliens supposedly did, but probably didn't. He hinted about family disagreements over UFO claims. One questioner noted that his brother's account of their supposed UFO abduction is completely inconsistent with his. Thom explained how his brother is, of course, mistaken. But he confessed, "I didn't pass a polygraph test."

Abductionist Yvonne Smith once came out to his house to "regress" him about his UFO experiences. The resulting video looked much like a scene from The Exorcist, with Reed writhing, panting, and thrashing about on the couch.

Reed hired a lawyer to sue the government, or somebody, over what the saucers did to him. So far, no luck. He proudly announced that his UFO case has been accepted as the first true UFO case ever by some historical society somewhere. We are supposed to be impressed.

DERRELL SIMS - the Alien Hunter!

Sims had been laying somewhat low in UFOlogy but now is boldly moving into the territory until recently occupied by his former colleague, the late Dr. Roger Leir. Sims claims to have worked for the CIA, but he doesn't have any proof of that.

A red-light camera in Los Angeles recently captured the image of an alien in the back seat of a car, abducting the driver.

Derrell Sims

More bad alien photos, much like those of Jaime Maussan. Also of Bruises caused by alien hands on peoples bodies. When ufos in photos have blurry edges, it means they are in transit. Those with sharp edges are probes.

Implants galore. However doctors often steal the alien implants after surgery. IR, fluorescence, etc.

"M I B Sperm Detection" provides documentation of alien sexual assault. One woman was forced to copulate with a creature like a pig. One of his abductees assaulted hiscaptor with a sword. In the morning, he found a lump of alien DNA on the floor. Unfortunately, it was eaten by the dog, which died soon afterward.

Sims told scary, home-style stories. The alien agenda is always hostile.

Aliens sometimes masquerade as angels, but never vice-versa. Infact, aliens flee when angels appear, according to Sims.

Chris O'Brien

Continuing in the homespun vein, Chris O'Brien talked about cattle mutilations. He says he has investigated over 200 reported cases, of which about 40 are "high strange."

He traced the parallel histories of humans and cattle, suggesting that our lives and our fates are linked in some mysterious way - and perhaps our DNA as well. Then he went into a ramblinmg discussion of all manner of weird conspiracy claims, everything from "mystery helicopters" to just about every conspiracy you've ever heard of, and a few you haven't.

Charlie Foltz

Charlie Foltz talked about the famous Allagash Abductions of 1976, of which he was one of the "victims." Also participating via Skype was another of the Allagash "abductees," Jim Weiner. Foltz had the appearance and mannerisms of Jonathan Winters, although his stories were not so entertaining.

The incident occurs in the wilderness, preceded by a lot of climbing, a lot of camping, a lot of canoeing, etc. While they were in the wilderness, they saw a bright UFO, but did not remember any abduction. (Notice that this was before Budd Hopkins burst into the UFO abduction scene. Before that, you had to go out to some remote place for aliens to find you (B-B Hill, Travis Walton, Kentucky Abductions, etc.). After Hopkins' Missing Time, you didn't need to go anywhere. Aliens would come right into your bedroom and grab you.).

Not until years later, when the Alligash Trio were hypnotized by Dr. John Mack, did this UFO sighting become an abduction story.

Foltz finished up by trying to interest the audience in his nature paintings, and also in his services as a graphic designer.

Yvonne Smith

The afternoon ended with a panel featuring these four speakers, moderated by Yvonne Smith. The subject was Rare Cases of Mass Alien Abductions.  Smith talked about her own favorite such case, which allegedly occurred in 1994 at a UFO abduction conference she had organized at the Hotel Del Coronado, near San Diego. She teased the audience with the possibility that they might experience a mass alien abduction tonight as well.

Each of the four speakers then went on to talk about their favorite "mass abduction" case.

THE FILM FESTIVAL

Patient Seventeen

A film about the surgeries of the late Dr. roger Leir to remove alleged alien implants from peoples' bodies. Dr. Leir illustrates how to find alien implants, using a stud finder.

alien art for sale

From Mexico City on Cinco de Mayo - the Roswell Slides!

So far I haven't said much in this Blog about the so-called "Roswell Slides." I did mention them in my posting this past November 23 titled American University Visits UFO Fantasyland. I quoted from a news story about that academic (believers-only) UFO panel on WTOP's website:

one of the speakers used the occasion to reveal evidence he called a "smoking gun."

"We have come into possession of a couple of Kodachrome color slides of an alien being lying in a glass case," author and researcher Thomas Carey told the near-capacity crowd in Abramson Recital Hall.

He's been researching the 1947 Roswell incident since 1991.

"What's interesting is, the film is dated 1947. We took it to the official historian of Kodak up in Rochester, New York, and he did his due diligence on it, and he said yes, this filmstrip, the slides are from 1947. It's 1947 stock. And from the emulsions on the image, it's not something that's been Photoshopped like today. It's original 1947 images, and it shows an alien who's been partially dissected lying in a case."

Carey says the being looked like what he thought an alien from the famous Roswell incident would look like.

"3 and a half to 4 feet tall, the head is almost insect-like. The head has been severed, and there's been a partial autopsy; the innards have been removed, and we believe the cadaver has been embalmed, at least at the time this picture was taken. The owners of the slide -- it's an amazing story. The woman was a high-powered Midland, Texas, lawyer with a pilot's license. We think she was involved in intelligence in World War II, and her husband was a field geologist for an oil company."

Carey says he plans to reveal the images early next year.

 Mexico City?

On February 1, Kevin Randle's Blog hosted a guest entry by Anthony Bragalia, who is researching the background of the "Roswell slides." Bragalia, arguing forcefully for the authenticity of the slides, announced that the "reveal" of the slides would take place in Mexico City on May 5. Why in the world would slides of partially-autopsied Roswell aliens be revealed in a program in Mexico City? Bragalia did not explain why. 

Dozens of comments quickly followed that piece, some of them asking why the "reveal" would take place in Mexico City, instead of in Roswell, or someplace in the U.S. Bragalia replied,

only the owner can answer that. I have indicated many times that we are only supporting his efforts in research and that any decisions about venue or manner of reveal is his alone. But why not? The official public announcement of the slides was made at American University in DC. Why not have the reveal of an item of global import be broadcast internationally and outside of the US? You are a Brit yourself, CDA yet you take extreme interest in Roswell. Don't be so US-centric.

Having taken a "Mexico UFO tour" back in 1996 (see chapter 21 of my book UFO Sightings), I was already quite familiar with the UFO and paranormal-related media empire of one Jaime Maussan, who has made himself quite wealthy by promoting highly-dubious claims about aliens and such in Mexico. He spent quite a bit of time with us, and showed us the inner workings of his dubious paranormal promotional enterprise. I posted the following comment:

Robert Sheaffer said...

Mexico City. Does this mean that Jamie Maussan will be involved? It's hard to imagine any UFO dog-and-pony show in Mexico City that doesn't involve him.

11:53 AM

In Mexico, Maussan is like Art Bell, George Noory, and Steven Greer, all rolled up into one. For quite a while, nobody answered that question. Then BINGO - the following Youtube announcement video was posted:

When Maussan's involvement was revealed, a collective groan was heard from just about everybody who knows anything about current UFOlogy. Anyone who has gone to a UFO conference anywhere in the last twenty years has likely heard a talk by Maussan, making wild claims and showing highly-dubious photos and videos. He is considered one of the least-credible UFO personalities active today. The page for ALCIONE (in Spanish) lists "more than 40 frauds" that Maussan has promoted. Tim Printy also has some interesting comments about Maussan.

 

An ad promoting Maussan's 2009 'alien revelation' show in Mexico City. "ET Contact" was "immanent" six years ago.

Why is Maussan involved in the matter of the "Roswell slides?" We don't yet know for sure, but presumably "the owner" sold the rights to the slides to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder was Maussan. It is also reported that a TV program about the slides is in production, but nobody in the know has publicly commented on this.

Under "Great Mysteries of the Third Millennium," Maussan presents a video of a horse flying across the sky.

In this video, Maussan is interviewing Adam Dew. From what he says, it appears that Dew is the person who obtained these "Roswell slides," and brought them forward. Thus it appears that Dew is claiming to be "the owner" of the slides. However, I asked Bragalia if Dew is the owner; he replied that Dew is not. (Perhaps that is true on a technicality - Dew may have sold the slides to Maussan?)

Here Maussan interviews Tom Carey about the "Roswell slides."

If you want to see lots of weird-looking creatures, go to Google Images and type in Jaime Maussan Aliens. Along those lines, here is a video of Maussan showing us aliens. Lots and lots of them. Don't worry if you can't understand the Spanish; he's just showing off his collection of photos and videos of aliens. And as of el prossimo Cinco de Mayo, Maussan will have two more photos of aliens to add to his already-impressive collection.

Did CIA U2 flights really cause 50% of UFO Sightings?

Once again, the claim has resurfaced that, during the 1950s and 60s, high-altitude CIA manned reconnaissance flights involving the U-2 and the later SR-71 were responsible for half of all UFO sightings. 

The CIA's Lockheed U-2 spy plane

This claim is now all over the internet, and treated in the usual uncritical manner.

CIA admits: All those UFO sightings in 1950s? 'It was us'

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/12/30/cia-admits-all-those-ufo-sightings-in-150s-it-was-us/

CIA: All Those 1950s UFO Sightings? 'It Was Us'

http://www.newser.com/story/200614/cia-all-those-1950s-ufo-sightings-it-was-us.html

One thing this CIA UFO claim has accomplished: it has united UFO skeptics and proponents in proclaiming it untrue. We might agree on little else, except that this claim is nonsense.

The claim is contained in a report issued by the CIA, The CIA and the U2 Program, 1954-1974. The once-secret document was written back in 1998. In it (on PDF (not document) page 84-85), 

"High-altitude testing of the U2 soon led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects. In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and military aircraft like the B47s and B57s operated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports.”

Can that claim be substantiated? Nope.

 Not only did the airline pilots report their sightings to air-traffic controllers, but they and ground-based observers also wrote letters to the Air Force unit at Wright Air Development Command in Dayton charged with investigating such phenomena. This, in turn, led to the Air Force’s Operation BLUE BOOK. Based at Wright-Patterson, the operation collected all reports of UFO sightings. Air Force investigators then attempted to explain such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena. BLUE BOOK investigators regularly called on the Agency’s Project Staff in Washington to check reported UFO sightings against U-2 flight logs. This enabled the investigators to eliminate the majority of the UFO reports, although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings. U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the 1950s and 1960s.

Mark Rodeghier of CUFOS contacted Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Friend, who was the head of Blue Book from about 1958 to early 1963. If anyone should know about this, it is him. "Absolutely not true," he said.

Friend "found the whole idea laughable, and he knew Blue Book did not receive more reports from pilots and air traffic controllers after the U-2 began flying."

It may well be that a few UFO reports were caused by U-2 flights, but when Friend was asked by Rodeghier if he could recall even a single such case, he said, to his recollection, no. (Frankly, I can't think of one, either.)

"Once again, he chuckled about the idea of half of all UFO reports being caused by manned reconnaissance flights."

 UFO photo analyst Bruce Maccabee says simply that the "CIA's UFO Explanation Is Preposterous."

The U-2, with its 80 ft long by 6 ft wide (front to back) wingspan flew at 60-70,000 feet and at that altitude was essentially invisible during the day. It created no contrail because of the lack of moisture at that altitude. It was, after all, intended to be invisible! During the hour before sunrise and the hour following sunset it would be possible for an unpainted aircraft to reflect the sun enough to be visible, perhaps with a reddish glow resulting from the reddening of sunlight

Maccabee used the Richard Dolan press to issue a press release that was widely shared:

Maccabee is right about this. The Blue Book files are now public records, and anyone can verify when and where sightings were reported. The bottom line is: there is absolutely no correlation between the times and places of UFO reports, and U2 flights.

Back in August of 2013, Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds pointed out another problem in the CIA's claim about the U2 flights, which began in 1954:  It says witnesses began to write letters to the Air Force, and “This, in turn, led to the Air Force’s Operation Blue Book.”

While it is most certain U-2 flights did lead to an increase in UFO reports [I would not even grant that - RS], this did not lead to the creation of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. Project Blue Book was an official U.S. Air Force investigation of UFOs established in 1951, and was actually the third Air Force project to investigate UFO sightings. The first was Project Sign, set up in 1948, which then became Project Grudge in 1949, and finally Blue Book in 1951.

The CIA's claim that the U2 flights led to the creation of Project Blue Book is impossible, because Blue Book predates the U2 flights by several years. Other Air Force projects to investigate "flying saucer" sightings were created several years earlier still.

Why did the CIA make such an absurd claim? It's hard to say. Some see in this a sinister attempt at disinformation. I don't think that's the case, because if the CIA wanted to issue disinformation, it would have come up with a story that is not so transparently bogus as this. The footnote accompanying the "one-half" claim simply reads, "Information supplied by James Cunningham to [co-author] Donald E. Welzenbach." Who is James Cunningham? Under "Key Personnel" in Appendix B, we find:

James Cunningham, Jr. An ex-Marine Corps pilot, he became the administrative officer for the U-2 in April 1955. Cunningham handled the day-to-day management of the U-2 program and brought only the more complex problems to Richard Bissell's attention. Later he served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Special Activities and then Special Assistant to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology.

In other words, a bureaucrat in the U-2 program. What does he know about the history of UFO reports, and UFO investigations? Nothing, it would seem, except for what he has made up. The world of UFOlogy is filled with Boasters who exaggerate (if not fabricate) events to make themselves seem important. The authors of the CIA report seem to have immortalized a groundless boast by a program bureaucrat, and turned it into one of those "facts" that practically everyone has heard, and practically everyone believes, but has no foundation in truth.

France Joins the South American UFO Axis

Is there a "UFO Gap" between the U.S. and certain other countries? Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds magazine reports:

The Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France (3AF) has signed an agreement with Chile’s Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) to cooperate on the study of UFOs. 3AF posted an article on their website late last month explaining their newly founded relationship with CEFAA.

3AF is an important organization in France, and in Europe’s aeronautical industry in general. Similar to the United State’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics [AIAA], it is a society for those participating in, or interested in, the aerospace industry.

The great Meeting of the Minds about UFOs: 3AF and CEFAA.

At this junction I should point out that back in the late 1960s and early 70s, here in the U.S. the AIAA had its own flirtation with UFO sightings, and held one major UFO Symposium. This involved J. Allen Hynek, and (added only at the last minute) Philip J. Klass. I have some of Klass' correspondence about this on my web page on Historical UFOlogy. Since then, the AIAA has been wise enough to avoid the subject of UFOs.

Nor are France and Chile the only countries to show a recent interest in UFOs. Antonio Huneeus, Rojas' colleague at Open Minds, wrote in 2011:

I outlined the history and background of CEFAA in the current issue of Open Minds magazine in the article “South American Governments Open New Official UFO Agencies,” which also covers the Uruguayan Air Force project CRIDOVNI and Peru’s OIFAA. A second part covering the recent launching of the Argentinean Air Force commission CEFAE and the official studies undertaken in Brazil and Ecuador will be published in the next issue of Open Minds. It looks like most of South America is currently taking a very proactive official and publicly open effort to tackle UFOs.

If you believe UFOs are real, then this alliance gives you something to worry about: If these third-rate military powers should succeed in unlocking the secrets of UFOs' anti-gravity and infinite energy systems, they will be able to take over the world!! Returning to Rojas' article,

Surprisingly, 3AF also has a strong interest in the investigation of UFOs. Although, it might not be too surprising to those who know that the French government is one of very few that have an official organization that investigates UFOs. It is called the Study and Information Group on Aerospace Unidentified Phenomena (GEIPAN), and is part of France’s National Center for Space Studies (CNES), their version of NASA...

In May, 2010, the 3AF/SIGMA commission released a progress report. In it, they agreed with the conclusions of the Committee for In-Depth Studies (COMETA) Report of 1999. COMETA was a group of high-ranking retired French military and intelligence officers who conducted an independent study determining that UFOs were real and possibly of extraterrestrial origins.

Leslie Kean in Chile

 

Author Leslie Kean went to Chile twice in 2012 to meet with Generals, Pilots and Government Officials to discuss the Fly UFO Video and other important UFO cases.

Before UFO proponents get too excited, let me remind them that Chile's CEFAA was the source of that embarrassing and ridiculous Fly UFO Video that Leslie Kean, author of the 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record -  promoted breathlessly in 2012 as possibly "the case UFO skeptics have been dreading."  See my review of her book, ‘Unexplained’ Cases—Only If You Ignore All Explanations.

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

Kean must surely know by now that the famous video from El Bosque shows just bugs. But she won't admit it, giving the excuse that it's a mystery too deep for science to solve.  UFO photo analyst Bruce Maccabee says it's just a bug, but Richard Haines of NARCAP says it's a real unidentified. Kean can't admit she was wrong, for it would be too embarrassing to admit that so many Generals and Pilots and Government Officials could be so stupid.

 

Pre-fly UFO photo released by Chilean CEFAA.

 

And the Fly UFO video is not the only highly dubious piece of "UFO evidence" promoted by the CEFAA. In 2011 blogger Kentaro Omori noted how a UFO photo released by Chile's CEFAA, called by some Chilean UFOlogists "the world’s best UFO photo, " looks amazingly like a reflection of a light in a car window. "As a cooperation between CEFAA and the American NARCAP, Dr. Richard Haines evaluated the series of images and issued a report, translated by CEFAA to Spanish, and also reproduced by Leslie Kean in English." Yep, they found it to be a real UFO.

What about that COMETA UFO report written by French aerospace researchers, and endorsed by 3AF? Kean says her initiation into the ranks of UFO proponents occurred in 1999 when she was given a copy of the French UFO report called COMETA, which is usually described as a report commissioned by defense officials, but was in fact written by a private group. Like Bentham upon reading Hume, the “scales fell from [her] eyes,” and she suddenly realized the reality of UFOs as unknown flying vehicles. 

I'm a skeptic so some people wouldn't trust what I have to say about the COMETA report. But John Alexander is surely no skeptic. He believes in that preposterous UFO incident that Jim Moseley always used to call "Rendle-SHAM," and he's also very big on the phony (and dangerous) Brazilian "faith healer" called John of God." But John Alexander described the COMETA report as “an embarrassment… unsubstantiated data from questionable sources” in his book UFOs Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities.

Col. John B. Alexander (U.S. Army, Retired)

Congratulations, 3AF! You have signed up in an alliance with some of the least-credible UFO buffs around. Once this hits the tabloids (and the UFO shows on cable TV channels), for decades people will think "UFOs" when they see "3AF."

A Walk on the Wild Side

Let's take a break from "serious UFOlogy" (like Boyd Bushman's plastic alien, or the Roswell Slides), and take a look at some of the more 'colorful' recent UFO and related claims that you might have missed.

Raised By Aliens

Simon Parkes

We haven't much lately from our friends at Exopolitics, but this one is a doozie. Exopolitician Alfred Lambremont Webre brings us this Important Disclosure Interview: UK Labour Councillor Simon Parkes On Being Brought Up By Aliens.

Now I've heard a lot about children supposedly being raised by wolves. It's a good story, but it's not really true. Wolves - canines - raising a human child? They'd eat it, not suckle it. According to legend, the city of Rome was supposedly founded by the half-divine twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she-wolf. Over the years, there have been many other similar claims. However, this is the first case I'm aware of where a human infant, just three months old, was allegedly suckled by extraterrestrials. 

 

Romulus and Remus

 

Parkes relates what he says are memories of being cared for by a mantid (a praying mantis-like alien) when he was a baby of 3 months. He also has memories of the Garden of Eden, from a previous life, of course.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that Parkes is a big fan of David Icke. He says he agrees with about 95% of what Icke says, including the business about the "reptoids." In  fact, Parkes says that the Draconis reptoids are the ones that he has "a relationship" with.

Strolling on Mars

This is not the man who was seen strolling on Mars. But it is the Viking lander.

A woman identified only as "Jackie" claimed to have seen something remarkable while working for NASA:

‘Jackie’ called in to Coast to Coast AM in America this year, and asked the presenter to ‘solve a 27-year-old mystery for me.’

She claimed to have been working for NASA, handling downlink telemetry from the lander – the first vehicle to send back images of Mars’s surface – when she saw two people walking on the surface.

‘That old Viking rover was running around,’ she said, saying that she and six colleagues were watching on multiple screens. ‘Then I saw two men in space suits – not the bulky suits we normally used, but they looked protective. They came over the horizon walking to the Viking Explorer.’

If she had really worked for NASA, she would have known that there was no such thing as a "Viking rover." It was a Lander, not a Rover. It had no wheels, so it was quite incapable of "running around."

Dr. Steven Greer Takes Credit for the Phoenix Lights

Dr. Steven Greer (who apologized for getting the wrong year for the Phoenix Lights)

As noted by UFO researcher Curt Collins on the Facebook page UFO Updates, UFO SuperStar Dr. Steven Greer  took credit for causing the famous Phoenix Lights in one of his interminable "disclosure" talks, back in 2009. "No one knows about this, we have not talked about publicly much," he said, and went on to explain how he had telepathically summoned the aliens. He was flying into Phoenix that night, and his team had made contact with a "huge craft." He telepathically requested the aliens to come into the area, as he was making a video tape to present to the president and the Congress. "We had asked the ETs to cooperate with this effort, to brief Congress, this is what showed up that night." The Phoenix Lights consisted of two separate incidents, the first beginning around 8:00 PM and ending before 9:00, the second beginning after 10:00 PM. He showed images representing both the first and second incidents, conflating the two of them. Both incidents were the result of Air National Guard training flights and exercises from Operation Snowbird, operating out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.

New Classified Fake Footage of Phoenix Lights Released

"PHOENIX, AZ – Never-before-seen video of the Phoenix Lights was leaked online this week, by KWBV News journalist David Collins. The FLIR video depicts military craft on the night of the mass sighting over Phoenix in 1997."



Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds began an investigation:

A new video (seen above) has been posted by KWBV News 6 in Phoenix that alleges to be leaked classified footage of what looks like a dog fight between jets and UFOs. The video purports to be from the same day and in the same area as a famous mass UFO sighting in Phoenix in March of 1997. The problem is there is no KWBV News 6 in Phoenix.

Actually, the problems with the credibility of the video do not stop with the fake news channel. The video was posted on a YouTube channel using the name David Collins. The KWBV news website claims “David Collins is an investigative journalist, living in Phoenix, Arizona. David was embedded with coalition forces in the Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn, and has covered human interest stories since 1989.”

However, there doesn’t seem to really be a journalist named David Collins as described. Furthermore, although Collins appears to be the only journalist writing for KWBV, his stories are all about him and written in the third person.

Rojas found that the video appears to be intended as a viral marketing campaign for a forthcoming movie about the Phoenix Lights.

Was The Philae Comet Landing A Fake?

Now we learn that not only were the Apollo moon landings faked, but the recent comet landing was faked, too. Comets, says conspiracy theorist Crrow777 are not where we are told they are (?). "Comet" is derived from "coma," which means not only "hair," but also "sleep," indicating that you are being coma-tized by the misinformation. There is no video footage of the landing! Lots of "shenanigans" going on here, folks!

The shape of the comet Philae is the same as that of its island namesake - proof that the photo is fake!

Aliens wearing ‘human suits’ visited casinos in Las Vegas

The award for the cleverest absurdity surely goes to this one:

Charles Hall, a former US Air Force serviceman claims that the U.S. military have had contact with – and worked alongside – the Tall Whites since the Fifties.

In the Sixties, he claims that the ‘shocking’ aliens liked to unwind by donning disguises, including sunglasses, and hitting casinos such as the Stardust, surrounded by CIA handlers.

The Vietnam veteran first published his detailed accounts of his meetings with the Tall Whites as a series of four sci-fi novels, Millennial Hospitality – but then ‘revealed’ that they were true.

UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski notes that "Charles Hall's casino-hopping aliens were "verified" by none other than Canada's former Defence minister Paul Hellyer, currently the darling of the UFO lecture circuit. "

If there were an extraterrestrial in a Vegas casino, it would probably look like this.

American University Visits UFO Fantasyland

On the evening of November 12, 2014, a three-hour mini UFO symposium was held at American University in Washington, DC, featuring some of today's best-known "serious" UFOlogists. Many UFO proponents had great hopes that this event might result in "a crack in the wall" (journalist and UFO blogger Billy Cox' term) of supposed UFO suppression, and open the floodgates to allow "scientific" UFO studies everywhere. Cox writes,

[American University] international relations professor Patrick Jackson, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at the School of International Service... has volunteered to sub for PBS science reporter Miles O’Brien (scheduling conflict) and moderate AU’s three-hour panel discussion “UFOs: Encounters by Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials.” This is a free public event extending from an honors colloquium taught by cinema professor John Weiskopf. The lineup includes USAF veteran Charles Halt (the Bentwaters incident), retired NASA scientist Richard Haines (National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena founder), Roswell investigator Thomas Carey, and New York Times bestselling author Leslie Kean... “How often does an honors class take a serious look at UFOs? John Weiskopf is to be commended for making this happen,” states Kean. “American University is breaking ground here which could help encourage other universities to do the same. Many people and departments at AU are rallying around this event and they all take the subject seriously. I hope this will pave the way for the academic community to become more objective and rational about this subject.”

I wasn't there and there's no video to watch, so I must rely on the accounts of others, especially a report by Michelle Basch on the website of WTOP, the all-news radio station in Washington, DC:  "UFO experts say 'we are not alone.'  To judge from this, it looks like the presenters forgot that part about appearing "scientific," and spun a lot of wild tales.

Best-known of the speakers was Leslie Kean, author of the 2010 book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. For those not familiar with the UFO literature, her book is superficially convincing, mainly because of what it ignores: all facts that go against her tidy little picture. To get an idea of what she left out, see my book review, "‘Unexplained’ Cases—Only If You Ignore All Explanations."

 Leslie Kean promoting the Costa Rica UFO photo of 1971 at AU. Credit: Michelle Basch, WTOP

In the photo above we see Kean presenting one of her "best" cases to the American University audience: the well-known Lago de Cote UFO photo from Costa Rica in 1971. Taken from a government mapping aircraft, the photo was analyzed by Dr. Richard Haines (who was on the panel) and Jacques Vallee, who wrote,

our analyses have suggested that an unidentified, opaque, aerial object was captured on film at a maximum distance of 10,000 feet. There are no visible means of lift or propulsion and no surface markings other than dark regions that appear to be nonrandom... There is no indication that the image is the product of a double exposure or a deliberate fabrication.

Costa Rica UFO, 1971

The problem with this UFO is that nobody saw it, it simply turned up on the film. The veteran UFOlogist and "psychic" Ray Stanford recently suggested that the object is a flashlight, and was "superimposed" on the film. He does not suggest how this was done, by whom, or why. Stanford has written and said a lot of weird things over the years, so until he provides a more convincing argument for this I'm not taking it too seriously. However, Bryan Bonner and Matt Baxter of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Society have analyzed the photo, noting that

While the report [of Haines and Vallee] did look into the possibility of some type of debris on the film or its film plane back-plate was discussed and disregarded, they never looked at the camera itself.

The camera system has a very unique optic system that looks very similar to the object in the photograph.

Because there were no eyewitness reports from the ground or the members of the mapping team there is not much of a chance of this being an object of approximately 683 feet in size or even something that was an actual object of any size flying in the air beneath the plane.

The problem that report had with the object not creating a shadow is easily explainable if the image was created by the optics of the camera and not a physical object below the plane.

The object in the image appears to have been created by reflections of ambient light inside the optics of the camera system caused by a unique combination of the type of camera system, angle of the plane to the light, position of the sun and possibly the angle of the light coming from the surface of the water located beneath the plane.

In other words, this "UFO" is a lens flare, which I think is exactly right.

The "classic" UFO photo from Petit-Rechain, Belgium, "authenticated" by Haines and others, and published by Kean - now a confessed hoax

Another "classic" UFO photo which is in Kean's book, and was likewise "authenticated" by Haines and others, but not presented at American University, is the famous UFO photo from Petit-Rechain, Belgium. The man who took this photo, now identified as Patrick Marechal, admitted in July, 2011 that it was a hoax. He said that he has “managed to fool the whole world with a silly model made of styrofoam."

Also not mentioned by Kean at AU was her humiliating high-profile promotion in 2012 of a  "UFO" in a video of an air show in Chile that is obviously just a fly, under the triumphal banner, "Is this the case that UFO skeptics have been dreading?" Immediately Kean began taking heat about this, much of it from UFO proponents, who were astonished to see how trustingly Kean accepted assurances from Chilean "government officials" (and probably even some "pilots" and "generals") that the Fly UFO video had been studied and authenticated by experts. She traveled down to Chile, twice, to meet with "government officials" and get UFO information from them.

It has occurred to me that by oversight I did not report Kean's final statement on the Fly UFO Video on this Blog; here it is. In her Huffington Post article, "Two New Reports on the Chilean "UFO" Videos Produce Conflicting Results," Kean notes that UFO researcher Bruce Maccabee studied the video and concluded that the "UFOs" were indeed bugs. However, Richard Haines (again) proclaimed the objects to be genuinely unidentified. In the end, she concluded that the Fly UFO video was "something that science cannot determine." Science enables us to land a spacecraft on a fast-moving comet millions of miles away, but its methods apparently cannot distinguish a video of an extraordinary flying object from that of a fly.

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

Michelle Basche writes, 

The most riveting presentation of the night came from retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Charles Halt, one of the witnesses of a famous series of UFO sightings in England in 1980 known as the Rendlesham Forest incident.

Halt says he went into the forest to check out a report that a UFO had landed there. He saw three indentations in the ground that were spaced evenly, and a Geiger counter showed abnormally high levels of radiation in the area.

During this investigation, Halt says, he and several other military members saw a flying, oval-shaped object that glowed bright orange and red, and seemed to be dripping like molten metal.

"We're standing there in awe. I said, 'There's got to be an explanation. Ball lightning, or who knows what.' It starts to move. It moves towards us. It comes into the forest. It's moving through the trees horizontally, bobbing up and down as necessary to miss the trees. I'm thinking, ‘Oh boy. I wish I hadn't come out here. This is really getting beyond me.'"

He says they watched it for a few minutes, until something happened.

"Suddenly and silently, it explodes into five white objects like fireworks, and it's gone."

Again, this sounds impressive, until you compare what Halt is claiming now with what he initially said immediately following the incident, as the British skeptic Ian Ridpath has done. For example,

one of the starlike objects supposedly moved overhead and sent down a laser-like beam to their feet. Halt has told this astounding tale in many interviews, but this astonishing occurrence is missing from the [original] memo and tape. Instead, the memo and tape simply refer to the objects as being about 10 degrees off the horizon, nowhere near overhead.

In other words, Halt keeps making up stuff to make the story more exciting. Also, Ridpath shows that the "radioactivity" did not measure above the normal background levels, a fact that Col. Halt surely must know by now, but keeps telling as part of his story, anyway.

Which brings us to, The Roswell Slides!

I have not mentioned anything yet on this Blog concerning the controversy that began over a year ago concerning two supposedly newly-discovered slides from about 1947, allegedly showing Roswell aliens that were dissected or something. That's because few have even heard about these alleged Roswell Slides, and nobody has yet seen them, outside of a small circle calling itself the "Roswell Dream Team" (which some suggest is turning into a nightmare). How can you discuss or evaluate something you're not allowed to see? And if you suspect that the "Dream Team" is holding out on the slides for some big bucks media contract, well, then you must have a suspicious nature. And you'd be correct.

AU UFO panel member Tom Carey

Be that as it may, the longtime Roswell investigator and author Tom Carey was on the American University UFO Panel, and the cat is now definitely out of the bag. Michelle Basche wrote,

one of the speakers used the occasion to reveal evidence he called a "smoking gun."

"We have come into possession of a couple of Kodachrome color slides of an alien being lying in a glass case," author and researcher Thomas Carey told the near-capacity crowd in Abramson Recital Hall.

He's been researching the 1947 Roswell incident since 1991.

"What's interesting is, the film is dated 1947. We took it to the official historian of Kodak up in Rochester, New York, and he did his due diligence on it, and he said yes, this filmstrip, the slides are from 1947. It's 1947 stock. And from the emulsions on the image, it's not something that's been Photoshopped like today. It's original 1947 images, and it shows an alien who's been partially dissected lying in a case."

Carey says the being looked like what he thought an alien from the famous Roswell incident would look like.

"3 and a half to 4 feet tall, the head is almost insect-like. The head has been severed, and there's been a partial autopsy; the innards have been removed, and we believe the cadaver has been embalmed, at least at the time this picture was taken. The owners of the slide -- it's an amazing story. The woman was a high-powered Midland, Texas, lawyer with a pilot's license. We think she was involved in intelligence in World War II, and her husband was a field geologist for an oil company."

Carey says he plans to reveal the images early next year.

Obviously the Roswell Slides is rapidly turning into one of those periodic mega-controversies that tears UFOlogy asunder. Already, an obviously-agitated Billy Cox, replying to Carey, is demanding "now let's see them pix!", and he compares the matter to the now-infamous alien autopsy hoax of 1995.

The famous Alien Autopsy hoax.

Now the Roswell Slides are being reported in the tabloid Daily Mail in the UK, and from here it's off to the races. Unsourced but obviously based on the WTOP report, The Mail quotes Carey's sensational "smoking gun" claims made to the American University audience.

Gratuitous alien image accompanying the Daily Mail story on the Roswell Slides (from YouTube video "Grey Alien - Teil 2von2", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zQ3Okm9ipY).

So, did the UFO seminar at American University succeed in creating a "crack in the wall" to allow 'UFO truths' to trickle out? The conference organizers had full control over the viewpoints presented - nobody was invited who might dissent from Leslie Kean's Party Line. After ten days, the result was exactly one (uncritical) news media report on the panel, and a few obscure Blog postings. Had there been anyone on the panel who might have presented a dissenting view, such as you find here, the panel's facade of  'objective scientific UFO research' could not have been maintained. And since it has now been widely noted that one of the panelists, Tom Carey, went full Monty into "smoking gun" UFO fantasyland, it's a safe bet that the people at American University will soon wish that they had never opened this Pandora's Box.

FBI Releases its Files on Dr. James E. McDonald

Dr. James E. McDonald (1920-1971) was a noted atmospheric scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, but today is best known for his tireless advocacy of UFOs. More controversial than most UFO advocates, McDonald's methods were confrontational, and he did not get along well even with many who shared his beliefs about UFOs, like J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee. McDonald came under intense scrutiny and criticism from arch UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass, who not only criticized inconsistencies in McDonald's statements, but accused him of mis-using funds from his government contracts to conduct his UFO research (which criticism turned out to be substantially correct). This has led to irresponsible suggestions that Klass virtually 'hounded' McDonald to his tragic suicide. As we will see below, McDonald's suicide didn't have anything to do with Klass, or UFOs.

Dr. James E. McDonald

Now, thanks to researcher John Greenwald, Jr., the FBI's files on McDonald released to Greenwald are now available on Greenwald's on-line repository of declassified government documents, The Black Vault.

Interestingly, we see the FBI expressing little interest, and no concern over McDonald's involvement with UFO claims. Remember, these FBI papers were secret at the time they were written, and nobody expected them to someday be released. If a government UFO coverup existed, we'd expect to find statements like "He's getting too close to learning our secrets, we must stop him."

However, we see that the FBI was concerned over McDonald's minimal contact with someone (whose name is redacted) known to have involvement with Soviet intelligence (see pages 6-9). They apparently concluded that it did not mean much, but were interested to check up, anyway. During the cold war, it was not at all unusual for Soviet "diplomats" or scientists in the U.S. to make contact with leading American scientists and engineers, to potentially learn as much as they can about the latest developments in U.S. science and technology. Philip J. Klass told me of being approached I believe twice by such individuals, and this is reflected in Klass' own FBI files.

In fact, it appears that McDonald's minimal contact with Soviet interests involved UFO research, via the UN! As we read on p. 26,

[redacted; obviously an FBI source at the U of A] said that he has no doubt whatsoever of the subject's loyalty to this country. He said he feels certain the subject's contact with the Soviet representative at the UN Secretariat in mid-1968 in connection with the subject's "UFO studies" was completely innocuous... At this point it does not appear that an interview of Professor MCDONALD would be productive and could possibly result in embarrassment to the Bureau.

In all likelihood, McDonald was simply asking the Soviets for any UFO information they might have, a perfectly innocent and reasonable query. The FBI seemed inclined to drop the matter, except for one concern. As we read on p. 10:

It appears that Professor MC DONALD's letter to [redacted1: probably the Soviet representative at the UN] (contents of which are not known) might have been in itself an innocuous, sincere contact on the part of Professor MC DONALD; however, in view of his background and [redacted2] long time leadership in "New Left" activities in the Tucson area, it is quite probable that Professor MC DONALD would be highly susceptible to an approach made by a Soviet intelligence, particularly concerning a research done in his field, of atmospheric physics.

I am just about certain that [redacted2] originally read "his wife's". About six months after McDonald's suicide, UFO author and researcher Jacques Vallee wrote in his diary, now published as Forbidden Science (Vol II, pp. 110-111):

Mike Jaffe reached Betsy McDonald in Tucson; they had coffee together and compared their life stories. The truth is that it wasn't because of his eyes that Jim McDonald had been put in the hospital. His first suicide attempt had left him blind, and there was nothing the doctors could do about it. Instead he was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, to try and prevent a new phase of depression...

The note he left for Betsy said he was sorry he hadn't found her at home when he came to pick up the money. He left instructions to gather the rest of the cash and dispose of the gun. Jim killed himself out of frustration and love. His wife had gone headlong into politics. She belonged to a radical leftist group, not unlike the Venceremos at Stanford. They gave out weapons to Black revolutionaries. [emphasis added]

This was the height of the Vietnam War, and while most anti-war protests were peaceful and perfectly legal, at least some groups were bent on fomenting violence and revolution. And these groups were being watched very closely by the FBI.

Another obvious reference to Betsy McDonald is on p.31 of the FBI file:

In October 1968, [redacted: obviously Betsy McDonald] reportedly attended the SDS National Convention in Boulder, Colorado, and was overheard telling a group in Tucson upon her return that she favored violence, if necessary, to achieve the goals of the SDS.

Quoting a redacted source from the U of A, an FBI paper from May 26, 1969 states (p. 11):

he recently received information that Professor JAMES E. MC DONALD is "disenchanted" with [redacted1, probably "his wife's"] constant "New Left" activities and they plan to separate. He further said he has heard that [redacted2] This information has not been confirmed through other sources,

In all likelihood, "redacted2" refers to what I heard from J. Allen Hynek soon after McDonald's suicide - that McDonald's wife had been having an affair - and he took it extremely hard. This is more than two years before McDonald's suicide. Obviously, his marital difficulties had been brewing for some time.

On p. 23, the redactor slipped a bit, and left "Subject's wife" in the text:

Applicant-type investigation of subject in 1962, favorable re loyalty, character, and reputation. Subject's wife is active in Students for a Democratic Society and peace movement. Subject is disenchanted with [redacted: probably "his wife's"] "New Left" activities and separation planned.

Vallee's diary entry (referenced above) concluded:

Jim plunged into his research: UFOs, effects of supersonic transports on the atmosphere, the possible destruction of the ozone layer... He did it out of despair, with no humor, no ability to distance himself from what he was studying. Jim had even researched his own case very scientifically, as he did everything: He had gathered detailed statistics about suicide. 

Other papers hint at other problems the FBI had with McDonald (p. 44-63). Apparently he had signed a petition in 1961 of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (soon to be made notorious by one of its zealots, Lee Harvey Oswald),  protesting the U.S. "hostility" to Cuba, and calling for an end to the trade embargo (p. 67). McDonald was also involved with the ACLU, which the FBI apparently considered a subversive organization. Worse yet, he had been a public critic of the Air Force as far back as 1959, concerning its placement of ICBM sites near Tucson. He claimed this placed civilian populations in unnecessary danger in the event of war. 

 

 

One thing that was not found in the McDonald FBI files: any reference whatsoever to Philip J. Klass.