UFO Researcher of the Year Displays some Careless Research

Grant Cameron is a well-known in the UFO community as a researcher who specializes in documentation, especially about supposed "Presidential UFOs." I earlier wrote about Cameron's speech to the 2013 International UFO Congress near Phoenix, Arizona:

Grant Cameron

He spoke on "Consciousness and UFOs." He explained that he is convinced that no real progress in knowledge about UFOs will be made until we successfully contact the beings involved, which he is sure is possible. He noted that one person claiming mental contact was the former Democratic Congressman, Dennis Kucinich, who not only had a sighting that lasted several hours [how can you watch something like that for hours without getting cameras, binoculars, the neighbors, the news crew, the police, etc?], but also said that he "felt a connection" with the UFO that he and the others sighted. "You have to make contact, you can't watch from a distance," says Cameron. He feels that the idea of UFO contact has been made disreputable because of certain people whose famous claims of contact are not credible. He showed photos of three persons he was implying to be phonies: Billy Meier, George Adamski, and Steven Greer. (No argument there!)

 On July 19, 2013, Cameron wrote in his Blog, "Is there a UFO Government Control Group? – New Information ." In it he said

John [Alexander] was a Colonel in the US Army, and had been interested in the UFO mystery since a young boy in 1947. He also had done work on “esoteric projects, specifically in the intelligence community with psychokinesis.”

Alexander wrote a book on his UFO investigations called “UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities.” In the book Alexander pointed out that although UFOs are real, they are of no interest to the American government, and therefore there is no cover-up of the facts by American officials.

Alexander is the author of  UFOs Myths Conspiracies and Realities (NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011). He is not a popular figure in UFOlogy today, even though he is a UFO proponent. As I wrote about Alexander's speech to the 2011 MUFON Symposium:

I'd say that the most interesting talk was the first one on Saturday afternoon, retired Army Colonel Dr. John Alexander. He is among the most skeptical of UFO believers, and because of this he excited (or more properly, inflamed) the audience more than anyone else. His heresy was not that there are not real ET UFOs, but merely that there is no government coverup, or secret UFO-related program. Alexander stated that "disclosure has already happened," pointing to a few mostly-ambiguous statements by world leaders (such as Jimmy Carter, or Prince Philip) that suggest a belief in UFOs. Alexander claims that the government already knows that UFOs are real and interplanetary, but they simply don't care. They have so many more pressing problems - the economy, wars and terrorism, health care, etc. - that they simply have no time or inclination to deal with UFOs.

Mostly, Alexander's talk was a recital of what he does not believe in: Alien Reproduction Vehicles, MJ-12 papers, antigravity drives, underground UFO bases, and (worst of all) no Grand Coverup, no 'secrecy police' (Men in Black). Even the Holy Roswell Crash was doubted. To those who claim to have been harassed or silenced because of UFO sightings, Alexander said, "come to me, I will protect you and defend your case." According to Alexander, "the UFO community" has become its own worst enemy, and it is necessary to make the study of UFOs intellectually respectable.

Paradoxically, while denying that the U.S. military is involved in any UFO coverups, Alexander is a strong proponent of the famous Rendlesham Forest alleged UFO landing, which took place in England in 1980 but involved U.S. Air Force personnel. The U.S. Air Force operated the base at Woodbridge, as part of the NATO defenses against possible Soviet agression. So apparently Alexander believes that the U.S. Air Force does not cover up domestic UFOs, but it does cover-up foreign ones. And he does not seem concerned that the principal witnesses have greatly "improved" their stories over the years.

John Alexander (left) chats with James McGaha at The Amazing Meeting 2012, South Point Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cameron Continues:

In a June 15, 2013 interview with radio show host Nancy Du Tetre Alexander, Alexander suddenly announced that the MJ-12 group had existed.[ii] This sudden disclosure was strange. That is because the MJ-12 controversy is central to the whole government cover-up theory believed by most in the UFO community. Yet Alexander did not talk about the MJ-12 idea in his book which had as its basic premise that there is no government control group dealing with the UFO mystery.

Cameron is quite wrong about this. Chapter 7 in Alexander's UFO book is titled "Majestic 12," and it is ten pages long (hard cover edition).  Obviously Cameron has not read the book. He continues:

This is the transcript of the interaction;

Alexander: I think that there actually was a group and they were created something known as COG – continuity of government – and it was to prevent nuclear decapitation of the United States. It was really super super sensitive.

Nancy Du Tetre: Well let me ask you this. Does MJ-12 as far as you know exist today?

Alexander: I don’t think so. I had someone whisper to me that it had existed. I didn’t think it had existed at all, but when I looked into it and asked if the names were correct, and they said yes and that should tell me what I need to know to figure it out. That’s how we came up with this particular occupation because most of them were into nuclear warfare. That was one common thread of all the people on the list, and much more so certainly than with UFOs.[iii]

Cameron's story was written up by paranormal reporter Jack Brewer on The Examiner, headling "Grant Cameron reports John Alexander confirmed MJ-12,"   and has now become a big news story in UFO circles.

Before going ballistic on this, Grant Cameron should have actually read the chapter on the alleged MJ-12 "documents" in John Alexander's book. Alexander examines the claims, and is generally skeptical of them. On p. 130, he suggests "COG - An Alternative Solution." He cites a 'confidential source' he trusts who tells him that "the topics the group was involved in studying had nothing to do with the Roswell crash in particular or UFOs in general." In other words, a group existed called "MJ-12," but it had nothing to do with UFOs. He speculates that it may have been involved with "continuity of government" following a nuclear war, but he doesn't know for sure. In his book Alexander does not claim that the names of the alleged MJ-12 were "correct," but he does say "Those named as the MJ-12 constituency dovetails appropriately with a body created that might advise a POTUS." Possibly what Alexander meant in the radio interview that the names were "correct" for a COG panel. He has not yet replied to several requests for clarification, including mine.

So, John Alexander was being interviewed on a radio show, and said almost exactly the same thing he had said in his book two years earlier. Grant Cameron seized upon Alexander's statement as a "sudden disclosure" and it became a big UFO news story.

Lee Speigel notes in the Huffington Post that "At the recent 22nd annual International UFO Congress in Arizona [2013], Cameron -- co-author of "UFOs, Area 51, and Government Informants" -- was honored with the researcher of the year award for his outstanding achievement in the field of UFO studies."

Given that Cameron was chosen "UFO Researcher of the Year," this tells us a great deal about "UFO Research!"

R.I.P., Marjorie Fish and her Star Map

Most followers of the UFO scene are familiar with the supposed 'alien star map' that Betty Hill drew after her alleged UFO abduction, and of Marjorie Fish's purported identification of (some of) the stars on the map as nearby solar-type stars. Stanton Friedman, the self-styled "Flying Saucer Physicst," has been promoting that map as a supposed 'proof' of extraterrestrial visitations for more than forty years.

The famous Fish Map

On July 7, 2013, UFO and star map researcher Steve Pearse sent an email to a number of UFO researchers, informing them that Marjorie Fish had died in a nursing home in Oak Harbor, Ohio almost three months earlier, on April 8. She was 80, and had reportedly been suffering from Azlheimer's disease. Apparently none of those receiving the email, including Kathleen Marden and Stanton Friedman, knew that Fish had died. A link was provided to a memorial page for Ms. Fish created by a local newspaper. The obituary contains this rather startling statement:

Marjorie Fish

As one of her hobbies, Marjorie made an investigation into the Betty Hill map by constructing a 3-D star map in the late 1960's using several databases. She found a pattern that matched Mrs. Hill's drawing well, which generated international interest. Later, after newer data was compiled, she determined that the binary stars within the pattern were too close together to support life; so as a true skeptic, she issued a statement that she now felt that the correlation was unlikely.

However, nobody seems to know anything about any such statement made by Marjorie Fish. Marden sent email to that same list, saying she knew nothing about any repudiation by Fish of her map, and doubted that Fish ever did so.
[A statement from Fish's niece casts doubt on Fish's supposed repudiation.]

Separately, Steve Pearse has written an open letter to MUFON, titled "Should Stanton Friedman Renounce Marjorie Fish?" In it he says:

In the December, 2012 issue of the MUFON Journal (No. 536) Stanton Friedman wrote a two page rebuttal article in his regular monthly column ‘Perceptions’ aimed primarily at his arch rival Robert Sheaffer, a well known UFO debunker... This wasn’t a draw, split decision, or a knockout by either one of them, but it is time to settle this issue once and for all.

He objects to my descriptions of how Betty and Barney shared their accounts before the hypnosis sessions with Dr. Simon, thereby compromising their independence. He also objects to me calling certain individuals "UFOlogists" when they were engineers and whatever. Well, what should we call people who spend a full twelve hours interviewing a supposed UFO witness - "UFO fanatics?"

However, Friedman must endure even worse from Pearse:

Robert Sheaffer is correct! .... When you remove the lines-it’s very obvious that there is no match. You have to ask the question: Why was this ignored?... I have to side with Robert Sheaffer on one major topic and that is the invalidation of Marjorie Fish’s controversial Zeta Reticuli Interpretation, it’s become even more controversial because Friedman is fully aware of the fact that the triangle in Fish’s star map doesn’t exist. Two of her stars are outside of the boundary of her working model that claimed that all the stars were with 55 light years of Sol/Earth looking in the direction of Zeta Reticuli. All that he’s willing to say is that there is better data now. 

Of course, Friedman, and MUFON, will ignore that letter. This will surely lead up to a fascinating exchange when I have a two-hour debate with Stanton Friedman on the Revolution Radio Network, currently scheduled for August 8 at 5PM Pacific Time (8PM Eastern Time). Then, Friedman will not be able to ignore the problems with his precious Fish Map.  I wonder how Friedman can possibly defend his continued promotion of the Fish Map, given that we now know how utterly implausible it is.

But wait, there's more: one reason that Pierce is so eager to discard the Fish map is that he thinks there is a better one! He has written a book titled Set Your Phaser to Stun, in which he describes another alleged indentification of Betty Hill's sketch. His email user name, HR3951 (an entry in the Yale Bright Star Catalog) gives us a clue. One of the giant globes representing the aliens' alleged home star is supposed to be HR3951 = 20 Leo Minoris = SAO  61808, a totally obscure star in an obscure constellation. At magnitude 5.4, it is barely visible to the naked eye under excellent dark sky conditions. (If there is any constellation more obscure than Reticulum, it is Leo Minor. Why can't the aliens choose more interesting places to come from? At least Billy Meier's aliens came from the Pleiades - that's a lot more interesting!)

I have not had time to study the details of the Hill-Wilson map. However, it is supposed to be an earth-based map, yet one of the giant globes is supposed to represent our Sun. How do you map the sun in a position among the stars if you are on earth?

In any case, the new map now takes its proud place as Star Map #6, the sixth proposed identification of what Betty Hill drew. (There may be others I'm not aware of.) The six are:

1. Betty Hill's Pegasus Map, in The Interrupted Journey
2. Fish Map
3. Atterberg Map (nearby stars, see my book UFO Sightings)
4. Koch-Kyborg Map (planets and asteroids)
5. Yari Danjo Map (nearby stars)
6. Hill-Wilson Star Map (stars seen from earth-based view).

Adding to the uncertainty over any star map are Betty Hill's own comments, in a letter to Marjorie Fish. Skeptical researcher Kitty Mervine has been studying Betty Hill's papers which are now housed in the Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham NH. In a letter dated only "October 12" (1969?), Betty Hill wrote

As for the 8 background stars - I really do not know if they exist and in that position, or if I added them to try to show that the other stars were seen on the sky map in the background. I know I added them to show that stars were in the background; however, as to their position on the original skymap, I am not sure.

So even Betty Hill herself was not so sure about the unconnected stars - one of which is sometimes claimed to represent a star that 'had not been discovered yet' at the time the map was made.  Kitty suggests, "We should be focused on Betty Hill's original drawing, not attempted matches.  If you are starting with bad information, you will never have a match." And if even Betty Hill says she was "not sure" about the stars she drew, I can't imagine why anyone else should be.

British UFO Document Release is Really a Coverup, says UFO Abductee Nick Pope

UFO Abductee Nick Pope, formerly of the MoD UFO Desk

On June 20, 2013, news outlets reported that the British Ministry of Defense, which closed down its UFO Sightings desk in 2009, had just released the very last of its UFO files into the public domain.   You can read the files here. One would expect that the well-known UFO proponents, who have been yammering about "UFO disclosure" for years, would be delighted. If so, one would be wrong. Nick Pope is very upset, and so are many others.

Nick Pope is a major UFO celebrity, originally from the U.K. but now living in the U.S. He claims that he was skeptical of UFOs prior to his work at the MoD UFO desk (there never was such a thing as a "UFO Project"), but in fact Pope believes he was abducted by aliens during a trip to Florida in 1991, before he began working for the MoD. The Sunday Times of London reported on February 7, 1999 that

The Ministry of Defence official who once headed investigations into unidentified flying objects believes he was abducted by aliens. Nick Pope, who ran the ministry's top secret Airstaff Secretariat office during the early 1990s, believes that he, his girlfriend and their car were abducted from a deserted toll road in Florida. He has described how he was lifted aboard an alien spacecraft and then wandered around its corridors - without, however, meeting any aliens. 

Readers of this Blog will recall that I have written quite a bit about Pope before. In 2012 he was in many news stories for his warnings about a supposed "alien invasion" that could come at any time. Pope also warned of possible mass UFO appearances during the London Olympics. As I wrote about  Pope's speech at this year's International UFO Congress in Arizona:

 The next speaker was Nick Pope, who supposedly ran "the British Government's UFO Project," although in reality he didn't run anything, and worked part-time on the UFO Project from 1991 to 1994. He began his talk on the defensive, emphasizing that he did not actually predict an alien invasion, as many news stories and blogs reported last summer. I was, he said, merely promoting a space war type of video game, and reporters took my comments out of context. I wrote a Blog entry about this last August 22. Comments like, "The government must - and has planned - for the worst-case scenario: alien attack and alien invasion. Space shuttles, lasers and directed-energy weapons are all committed via the Alien Invasion War Plan to defence against any alien ships in orbit." Sorry Nick, that excuse doesn't work, as anyone can tell if they Google "Nick Pope Alien Invasion," which also brings up a story from October 12, 2012, "Britain has alien-war weapons, says former government adviser," and even "Aliens Could Attack at Any Time" from 2006. Stop trying to fool us, Nick, and admit you said these things.

One reason that UFOlogists are upset is that the newly-released UFO files contain nothing whatsoever of any real interest, and are in fact rather embarrassing to the pro-UFO side. As reported by the BBC,

Carl Mantell of the RAF's Air Command, suggested the MoD should try to significantly reduce the UFO work. He said it was "consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defence output". He told Mr Ainsworth that in more than 50 years, "no UFO sighting reported to [the MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK"... Among the 4,400 pages of documents released are:

•  A letter from a school child in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, to the MoD, dated January 2009, asking if aliens exist after she had seen some strange lights, and including a drawing of an alien in a UFO waving

• A report received via the UFO hotline by someone who had been "living with an alien" in Carlisle for some time

• A report from a man from Cardiff who claimed a UFO abducted his dog, and took his car and tent, while he was camping with friends in 2007

Above - one of the UFO documents recently released by the UK MoD. When my name was included on a list prepared by NASA of people who might have information on UFOs (since they did not), I used to receive dozens of letters like this from school children requesting information. I would usually reply with just a page or two of skeptical materials, but I suppose that was not what they wanted to receive.

"Useful idiot" Dr. David Clarke

Dr David Clarke, according to The Telegraph, "has been the National Archives 'UFO consultant' for five year project, during which it has made public more than 52,000 pages of official government files relating to mysterious sightings." Clarke is a former reporter and currently course leader and senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University teaching media law and investigation skills. His Ph.D is in Folklore from the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield.  Since 2008 he has been working with The National Archives (TNA) as their consultant for the ongoing release of the UFO files created by Britain's Ministry of Defence.

Clarke says that 

 from 2000 onwards my FOI campaign made me a thorn in the side of the MoD to the extent that after seven years of constant pressure they relented and decided to transfer all surviving UFO papers to The National Archives. But instead of hailing the disclosure as a breakthrough, conspiracy nuts have portrayed it as a cover-up because the documents do not provide any support for their beliefs.

Pope replied by saying that 

 A claim by the British Ministry of Defence that UFOs have no defense significance is "designed solely to keep Parliament, the media and the public off our backs," according to former MoD UFO Desk administrator Nick Pope....  Official MoD spokesmen and one self-styled UFO expert, David Clarke, claim that the MoD found no evidence of a UFO threat to the UK and, therefore, closed its UFO Desk....Regarding David Clarke, Pope says, "Some people would probably use the term 'useful idiot' to describe his parroting the MoD 'no defense significance' sound bite."  

Robert Hastings

Robert Hastings, famous for his "UFOs and Nukes" claims, jumped into the fray. Last August I wrote about Hastings' absurd charges about CSI(COP), such as the following:

Highly relevant to this discussion is my research into Sheaffer’s affiliation with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) which was previously named The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). As journalist Terry Hansen has argued in The Missing Times, the historical role of CSICOP (now CSI) strongly suggests it has been performing as an intelligence community “front organization”—pumping anti-UFO propaganda into the media without revealing its true source or motivation.

  Well-known “skeptic” Robert Sheaffer’s performance in Secret History of UFOs, the National Geographic network’s latest debunking-disguised-as-documentary, begs the question: At what point does the systematic presentation of half-truths and outright falsehoods about the UFO phenomenon cross the line from incompetent scholarship to intentional disinformation?

  As I noted in my last article, given the extremely biased and propagandistic treatment of the UFO subject one consistently finds on Nat Geo, it might reasonably be argued that the network has been working behind the scenes with the CIA to debunk the phenomenon. 

Now Hastings is claiming

it appears that what the MoD has been engaging in is the selective declassification of UFO-related files, whereby low-level, generally mundane documents are released with much media fanfare, while very sensitive files continue to be withheld from public view. The practice is commonly called “spin”. The purpose of this propaganda tactic is to alter the actual story of official interest in the UFO phenomenon, so that it appears as if there exists only minimal concern or none at all.

Hastings' primary evidence seems to be tired old, long-refuted claims concerning the UK Rendlesham Forest 'UFO landing' in 1980.

Clarke wrote in 2010 that

Within the next 18 months the Ministry of Defence will complete their disclosure programme of UFO-related documents. But some UFOlogists continue to demand they “come clean on all levels”. They believe there are more secret documents being held back that contain evidence of alien visitations. I can reveal the only documents MoD intends to permanently conceal from the public concern their secret dealings not with aliens, but with a former member of their own staff – Nick Pope.

Clarke had made a Freedom of Information request of the MOD for “copies of MoD papers, records or other information relating to internal discussion, policy and/or briefings in response to public statements made to the media and via the release of Open Skies, Closed Minds by Nick Pope during the period 1995-96.” As Clarke explained to Pope at the time, "my request was specifically for “internal comment on your Press interviews in 1996 and MoD’s discussion of what line to take” and not for access to his private correspondence with his employers over the clearance of his manuscript (with one exception that concerns a specific letter which he had quoted from in the public domain)." Clarke's request was not granted, and it turns out that the reason was that Pope “has written to the MoD and asked for the information not to be released into the public domain.”

So much for "full disclosure!" Probably the reason that Pope opposes the release of such documents is that they undoubtedly would contain more comments like these:

  “…far from accurately representing the Department’s position [on UFOs], he [Nick Pope] has sought to embellish the truth at almost every turn.” (from a document prepared by one of Pope's line managers in 2000-2001, DEFE 24/2019, released into the National Archives in 2011).

"A great pity that a more permanent abduction by aliens cannot be arranged. I'm not surprised that they did not want to keep him." (one of Pope's managers scribbled this comment in a margin of one of the redacted documents released by the MoD and dated  10 October 1995)

End the UFO Coverup, Nick, and release the files!

There is a very interesting 2009 article in Tim Printy's Sun-Lite about Pope by someone calling himself "Col. Arnold Moulder" (but is probably Colonel Mustard, with the candlestick, in the library). It describes Pope's efforts to hide these documents, and gives numerous other examples of Pope playing fast and loose with facts.

UFO Hoaxes? There's an App for That!

Anyone who follows news stories about UFOs knows that there are a heck of a lot of them these days, and  that many if not most of them involve alleged photographs of UFOs.

Frank Warren of the UFO Chronicles has just written an eye-opening article, UFO Hoaxes with the Touch of a Finger. Warren is well-known as a UFO proponent, but he is no friend to hoaxers. I knew that it was possible to create all manner of digital UFOs in photographs. What I did not realize was how easy it has become.

Warren provides this screen clip: The fourth UFO down in the first column is my famous Cottage Cheese Container UFO

My Cottage Cheese Container UFO. J. Allen Hynek used to use this one in his lectures (with my permission)

Warren notes that there are many Iphone and/or Android apps for inserting UFOs into photos:

• UFO Camera gold
• UFO Photo Prank (also called UFO Revelator)
• UFO Camera
• UFO Photo Bomb
• Camera 360

He gives two examples of credulous UFO news stories that have been written about fakes made with Apps just like these.

Here is a UFO I added to a photo I took of a lake, created using UFO Revelator on my Android phone. Why it is out of focus, I don't know.

Here is another photo showing a UFO flying over my yard. It looks quite similar to the "drone UFO" photos that were all the rage a few years back.

These are not great-quality fakes. As Warren says, "For most seasoned Ufologists the hoaxed photos are blatantly obvious; unfortunately, that minority won’t stop the MSM [MainStream Media] from paying heed to the latest hokum produced." Unfortunately, he is quite correct: it seems that some of the most credulous people around are reporters, who are supposed to be skeptical by their profession. I suspect that the cynical pursuit of sensationalism and ratings is really what is behind that.

What all this means is that it is now trivially easy for just about anyone to produce a semi-convincing UFO photo hoax. And since "progress" in software is inevitable, we can expect to see better and better UFO hoax photos with each passing year. Which means: unless you can absolutely confirm a photo's origin, and confirm that it was not simply added using hoaxing software, you can't believe anything that you see in a supposed UFO photo any longer. 

While we're on the subject of UFO-related Apps, we need to mention UFO celebrity Steven Greer's  "ET Contact Tool" App, available on itunes. For just $7 (a real bargain since Greer's "ET Ambassador training" costs $2,500), this amazing software uses the magnetometer in your Iphone to detect the presence of ET craft. Its features include:

* Official training materials authored by Steven M. Greer, M.D.
* Well-organized instructional manual with over two hours of audio tutorials and guided meditations by Dr. Greer.
* Working scientific instruments including a magnetometer and compass for detecting anomalous activity.
* Includes Images, sounds, and written descriptions of prior contact events.
* Magnetometer and Compass require iPhone 3gs, iPhone 4 or iPad

Guerilla Skepticism - Now We Have Klass' Wikipedia Back

Susan Gerbic

Susan Gerbic is becoming well-known in the skeptical world as the inventor and leader of Guerilla Skepticism - a grass-roots project to help reach the public with the skeptic's message. Much of this effort involves creating Wikipedia pages for important skeptics who don't have one, and to update and correct those pages that already exist. After all, Susan reminds us that Wikipedia is "the fifth most popular Internet site in the world," so it's an extremely important source of information for large numbers of people. Far from the free-for-all image that some people may have, Wikipedia has now become a tightly-regulated and highly-reliable source of information on nearly any subject of inquiry. Citations are required, and the rights to images and such are scrupulously recorded. Controls are especially tight on Wikipedia articles that are deemed controversial.

Actually, I participated in a "Guerilla Encyclopedia Update"of my own, back in the late 1970s. The Doubleday Encyclopedia of UFOs (Garden City, NY, 1980) was edited by Ronald D. Story, assisted by the late J. Richard Greenwell. Story is a "skeptical believer" in UFOs, and Greenwell was well-known as a UFOlogist and cryptozoologist (who, as I note in Psychic Vibrations, joined a scientific expedition to the South Pacific to search for mermaids). Story had sent me a review copy - I don't recall if it was the complete volume, or just certain articles (probably the latter). I replied to him that, in many cases, he was telling only half the story, and that "the rest of the story" was needed to provide a balanced picture. I offered to provide some of this balance. To my surprise, he and his editors agreed. So for a number of major UFO cases in this Encyclopedia, including "Hill Abduction," "Delphos (Kansas) Landing," and a number of others, the main article is followed by a "Postscript," attributed to me.

Philip J. Klass, 1977. (photo by author)

Philip J. Klass (1919-2005) was the most influential and consequential UFO skeptic of all time. He battled the UFO believers in scientific organizations like the AAAS and AIAA who wanted to bring UFOs into the mainstream of science - and won. I won't bother listing his background, his credentials, his career and accomplishments - that's all now on Klass' Wikipedia page. It's quite long, and highly detailed, ably written and edited by Susan Gerbic and Shane Vaughn. Missing sources were filled in, unsubstantiated material was removed, and a great deal of new material was added. As someone who knew Klass quite well, I am impressed by its accuracy and completeness. I certainly learned things I didn't know about Klass. This is just one example of what a talented team can accomplish. Here is Susan's write-up of their accomplishments.

Susan and I will both be at TAM in Las Vegas,  The Amazing Meeting sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation, July 11-14. We will be presenting at one of the workshops, Preserving Skeptic History. I hope you can make it to TAM. It's going to be awesome.

Anyone who is interested in joining the Wikipedia project is encouraged to contact Susan for more information.

That "Citizens Hearing" on UFO Disclosure Got the Respect it Deserved - (Very Little)

Recently I wrote about the forthcoming "Citizens Hearing on UFO Disclosure" arranged by the Paradigm Research Group, headed up by Steven Bassett.

Parapolitical's image of Sen. Gravel

In past exercises in UFO "disclosures," the major media were surprisingly passive and uncritical, taking the "revelations" at face value. And some were still credulous this time and could see nothing amiss about these wild claims, for example the New York Times.

But not all of the media were quite so uncritical this time - some reporters actually did their jobs. Some noted the fees being paid to the ex-Congressmen, and the absence of any skeptical witnesses. A full week before the "hearings" began, on April 21, the website Parapolitical had a long and quite cheeky review of the forthcoming proceedings titled "UFO Carnival Returns to National Press Club ."   Among its observations were:

What is more significant than the topic of the event, however, is the fact that it marks a first-ever convening of the, hands-down, nuttiest U.S. congressmen who ever lived....Historic Meeting of Lunatics - The hearing panel will be headlined by former congressman Merrill Cook (R – Utah) who was once banned from his own party’s offices after a profanity-laced tirade and was famously plagued during his few years in Congress by reports of erratic behavior leveled by his own staff. “Merrill has taken up permanent residence in whacko land,” Cook’s chief of staff Janet Jenson wrote in an intra-office e-mail in 2000. ”If he asks you to fax his underwear to the speaker’s office, please just do it.”

 Joining Cook will be former congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R – Maryland). The 86 year-old raised eyebrows in 2004 when he attended a Unification Church event to receive the “Ambassador of Peace medal” from cult leader Sun Myung Moon who, afterwards, declared himself the Messiah and his wife the Assistant Messiah as Bartlett watched in delight...The crazy train doesn’t stop there. Also appearing is former congresswoman Cheeks Kilpatrick (D- Michigan) who embarrassingly failed to receive her own party’s re-nomination in 2010 owing, in part, to her connections with  her son, the disgraced former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (who is facing up to 30 years in prison after being convicted of 24 federal crimes involving stripper parties at the mayoral mansion, funneling city funds to his wife, tax evasion, mail fraud, assaulting police officers, and more).

Rounding out this happy band of lunatics is former senator Mike Gravel (D- Alaska). Since his most recent bankruptcy, Gravel has pathetically taken to making public appearances for anyone who will buy him lunch – his previous engagements have included a conference sponsored by the holocaust denial website Barnes Review. (UFO conspiracies aren’t Gravel’s only angle. He’s also been working the 9/11 Truth circuit and several truther websites have accused him of absconding with donor funds.)

Not surprisingly, perhaps, these probably cash-strapped has-beens are each getting $20,000 to perform at  the Paradigm Research “Citizen Hearing.” 

In fact, the cost of the entire circus has been pegged at $600,000. Who is paying for all this? There was a lot of uninformed speculation on the internet, but it looks like Parapolitical has nailed it down:

Following much speculation, Steve Bassett – the ringmaster of next week’s UFO carnival  – has identified his financial backer for the event as a man named “Tom Clearwater” who lives in Canada. Who is Tom Clearwater? A Twitter account belonging to a “Thomas Clearwater” of Vancouver is filled with tweets containing links to websites that claim a U.S. government laser beam destroyed the World Trade Center. So, yeah … maybe that guy.

The New York Daily News pulled no punches, and showed the "hearings" for what they really were: SPACE CADETS HIT D.C.: UFO buffs beam up to well-paid ex-pols. "Six former members of Congress, who were paid $20,000 each, heard testimony on the U.S. government trying to cover up contact made with extraterrestrial life."

Daily News photo: "Ret. USAF Col. Billie F. Woodard shows off his shirt and Lemurian Crystal headband during the hearing."

Lee Speigel, Weird News reporter for the Huffington Post, sat there at the National Press Club all week long to listen to this thing. He provided live updates during the week. He listened to all this so we don't have to! (Don't feel too sorry for him. He's a reporter, he got paid to do this.). If you want to read his full coverage, his five articles are here:

1. Citizen Hearing On Disclosure: UFO Believers To Testify At Congressional-Style Hearings

 2. Citizen Hearing On Disclosure Day 2: England Has Close Encounter, UFOs Tamper With Nuclear Sites

3. Citizen Hearing On Disclosure Day 3: Panel Takes On Animal Mutilations And Roswell Crash

4. Citizen Hearing On Disclosure Day 4: Global UFO Encounters Take The Stage 

5. Citizen Hearing On Disclosure: Pilots Testify To UFO Encounters

Lee Speigel (right) with Yours Truly at the 2011 MUFON Symposium

 Here are some highlights from Speigel's Live Updates:

"Linda Moulton Howe on reported UFO abductions and the possible manipulation of the human mind. She tells a story about a military person who told her he was on a team that, in 1978, was assigned to investigate a town that was allegedly flooded by extraterrestrials."

"Kilpatrick introduces Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. “I am honored today to take on this assignment, and to have one of the leaders here on this topic. I’m honored to introduce Minister Louis Farrakhan.” To which, stood up to mild applause. " [Farrakhan claims to be a UFO Contactee. She also introduced Dick Gregory.]

 "Sgt. James Penniston claims a Close Encounter With A UFO Taking Off" (Rendlesham Forest, U.K, 1980). Apparently nobody asked him about that 'binary message' that he supposedly received "telepathically" from the UFO, and wrote down - thirty years afterward.

"Cong. Roscoe Bartlett gets a little testy about the press coverage so far about this week's Citizen Hearing On Disclosure: "I've been looking at some of the press clippings from yesterday's session and the government has been quite successful in relegating this issue to the lunatic fringe." [Does this former Congressman think that the government controls stories in the press?] "I'm going to comment on only one article. [Not specified, but from the Atlantic Wire.] It says 'The mock Congress hearing on aliens is heavy on real-life Mulders and not Scullys.'" [But this is correct: the "hearings" consist entirely of True Believers, and no skeptics.] "The trouble with this week's alien panel (we're an alien panel now) at the National Press Club is that any of the participating members of Congress who might naturally be a Scully have been incentived to suspend their disbelief. Because the Citizen Hearing foundation is paying them $20,000 plus expenses to listen to the testimony.'" "That's just insulting, that we can be bought for $20,000." [What is the going price these days for a has-been former Congressman? Perhaps he feels insulted because he was bought too cheaply?]

Dr. Robert Wood, the principal promoter of recent MJ-12 documents (supposedly revealing a secret government UFO coverup group), said ""The identification of one aspect of a questioned document as being anomalous often results in a skeptic accepting none of the rest of the document, even though it might be filled with accurate information. It seems to be accepted in the intelligence community that faked documents usually -- if not often -- contain much valid information to help get it accepted as genuine throughout." [ In other words, the MJ-12 documents are Fake, but Accurate.]

Lt. Col Richard French (Ret) told the committee about an incident he witnessed in the late 1960s in Alamogordo, N.M.: "While there, I learned of an accident a few miles away in the direction of White Sands [missile range]. A short time later, I witnessed the takeoff of a prototype fighter aircraft that I neither recognized or knew what it was. The aircraft took off at a very high rate of speed and fired a rocket, five inches in diameter and about six feet long... Afterward [I was told] there was an unknown number of humanoids, either killed or injured. The parts of the casualties were taken to base operations at Holloman Air Force Base [in New Mexico]. The only parts of the craft that I was allowed to see had markings that appeared to be Arabic or some language I didn't understand."

 Speigel has a follow-up interview with French in which French describes seeing underwater UFOs while standing  with a crowd of people on a wharf in St. John's, Newfoundland, where Blue Book sent him. Two glowing underwater UFOs were apparently being repaired by two swimming ETs. (My understanding is that Project Blue Book did not send investigators to foreign countries to investigate UFOs reported there. )

French claims to have been an investigator and paid "debunker" for the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book. However, John Keel has this to say about French in The Mothman Prophecies:

“Did you ever hear of anyone—especially an air force officer—trying to drink Jell-O?” Mrs. Ralph Butler of Owatonna, Minnesota, asked. “Well, that’s what he did. He acted like he had never seen any before. He picked up the bowl and tried to drink it. I had to show him how to eat it with a spoon.“
Mrs. Butler was describing the man who had visited her in May 1967, following a flurry of UFO sightings in Owatonna. He said he was Major Richard French of the U.S. Air Force although he was dressed in civilian clothes and was driving a white Mustang. His neat gray suit and everything else he was wearing appeared to be brand-new.

Even the soles of his shoes were unscuffed, unwalked upon. He was about five feet nine inches tall, with an olive complexion and a pointed face. His hair was dark and very long—too long for an air force officer, Mrs. Butler thought. Unlike Jack Brown, Major French was a fluent conversationalist and seemed perfectly normal until he complained about his stomach bothering him. When Mrs. Butler offered him the Jell-O she suspected for the first time that something was out of kilter.
Richard French was an imposter. One of the many wandering around the United States in 1967. For years these characters had caused acute paranoia among the flying saucer enthusiasts, convincing them that the air force was investigating them, silencing witnesses and indulging in all kinds of unsavory activities—including murder. When I first began collecting such reports I was naturally suspicious of the people making such reports. It all seemed like a massive put-on. But gradually it became apparent that the same minute details were turning up in widely separated cases, and none of these details had been published anywhere ... not even in the little newsletters of the UFO cultists.
There was somebody out there, all right. A few, like Richard French, almost pulled off their capers without drawing attention to themselves. But in nearly every case there was always some small error, some slip of dress or behavior which the witnesses were usually willing to overlook but which stood out like signal flares to me.

They often arrived in old model cars which were as shiny and well kept as brand-new vehicles. Sometimes they slipped up in their dress, wearing clothes that were out of fashion or, even more perturbing, would not come into fashion until years later. Those who posed as military officers obviously had no knowledge of military procedure or basic military jargon. If they had occasion to pull out a wallet or notebook, it would be brand-new ...although most men carry beat-up old wallets and notebooks quickly gain a worn look. Finally, like the fairies of old, they often collected souvenirs from the witnesses ... delightedly walking away with an old magazine, pen, or other small expendable object.

Keel seems to be suggesting that French was an extraterrestrial! Or at least an MIB. While I find both suggestions extremely unlikely, the point being made is that French was an "impostor" and did not represent Project Blue Book, although he may have gone around pretending like he did. Is there any documentation to prove that French actually worked with Project Blue Book? A search for "French" in the Blue Book archive returns nothing except references to the country, or its language. By comparison, a search for "Quintanilla" returns 89 hits.

Continuing with Speigel's updates:

"Possibly the most intriguing testimony offered today so far came from a former 25-year Peruvian air force fighter pilot. Col. Oscar Santa-Maria (pictured below). In 1980, he was ordered to takeoff and shoot down a sphere-shaped UFO that was in restricted airspace near an air base. The encounter lasted more than 20 minutes. "These were 22 minutes where we went up and down, it went around, and it was trying to avoid me while I was pursuing it and I was trying to fire." [A pilot having a 'dogfight' with a supposed UFO has happened before. In 1948, Air National Guard pilot George F. Gorman spent twenty minutes in a "dogfight" with what he described as a "ball of light." The Air Force says he became disoriented while chasing a lighted weather balloon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorman_dogfight ]

"Final Day Of Citizen UFO Hearing Takes Off With Pilot Testimony... Cong. Kilpatrick appeared very moved by the testimony of the private, commercial and military pilots as well as previous panel witnesses during the week... "I was convinced before this morning's panel that there probably is something out there, and I'm willing to work the rest of my life to see that, if it is, how we can enhance the universe to see that we all have a better quality of life." "[ Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the late USAF Project Blue Book consultant and perhaps the best-known and most-respected of UFO proponents, came to exactly the opposite conclusion. On page 271 of his 1977 book The Hynek UFO Report, Hynek wrote, "Surprisingly, commercial and military pilots appear to make relatively poor witnesses."]

"a 15-minute video was a 15-minute video was about to be shown of a 77-year-old man man, in very bad health, who wanted to take the opportunity to reveal a story of what happened to him while he worked for the CIA under Pres. Dwight Eisenhower in 1958.shown of a 77-year-old man man, in very bad health, who wanted to take the opportunity to reveal a story of what happened to him while he worked for the CIA under Pres. Dwight Eisenhower in 1958. This gentleman has received numerous threats from his government not to talk... X goes on to talk about how Eisenhower was upset when he learned that there was activity going on at a base in Nevada (that would later be renamed as Area 51) that the government allegedly had no jurisdiction over. Eisenhower sent X and his boss to the base to find out what was going on there.

Photo of "Mr. X" as shown at the "hearings"

X: "There were different garage door openings and inside they had different saucer crafts. The first one was the Roswell craft -- it was kind of crashed up, but apparently every alien had died except for a couple. Later on we viewed the autopsy film and then the colonel said, 'What we've got in here is we're interviewing a grey alien.'"... X and his superior went back to Washington to meet with Eisenhower and Nixon again.

Is this "Mr X" being interviewed at the International UFO Congress, 2013? (photo by author)

"Leir, a podiatrist, described the numerous surgeries he's performed with a medical team in which they removed unusual small objects from people who claimed to have experienced alien abduction.... by use of a radio wave frequency detector, we were able to detect that certain radio frequencies in the FM band, were being emitted from the object.

Former Canada Minister Of National Defense "Paul Hellyer is widely known and credited for his work to unify the Canadian Armed Forces. In 2005, he made headlines by announcing that "UFOs are as real as the airplanes flying overhead." ...Among the things Hellyer says he has learned and believes is a particular document that concluded at least four species had been visiting Earth for thousands of years"

After the UFO carnival had ended, Parapolitical pronounced its post-mortem:

Results Are In – UFO Carnival a Failure. How bad was it? Google Trends actually recorded a decrease in online interest in the term “UFO” during the carnival. To say this week’s UFO carnival – billed as a “mock congressional hearing” – at the National Press Club was a failure would be an understatement... There are roughly 2,200 television stations in the U.S. Three covered the event. Radio coverage was similarly sparse...A search, by parapolitical, of closed captioning records of U.S. television stations found that only four stories had been filed on the UFO circus – half of them by KLAS-TV (Las Vegas). DC’s WTGG-TV gave five minutes to the subject on their morning news. They then did a segment on acrobatic cats...Bassett managed to secure the singularly nuttiest group of former congressmen to have ever walked the planet, a fact lost on no one except, apparently, the UFO believers. He also failed to organize a costume-check at the front door of the hearing (the New York Daily News photographed ufologists wearing tin foil hats). Self-described “investigative reporter” Linda Moulton Howe even wore a costume to “testify” (it appears she was dressed as a Reptilian-Grey hybrid).

Now Paradigm Research wants to take its show to the U.N.:

Citizen Hearing on Disclosure Committee Seeks UN World Conference on Possible Extraterrestrial Presence
Washington, DC – On May 3, 2013 members of the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure Committee and Hearing witnesses representing ten UN member nations met at the National Press Club to draft a statement seeking United Nations review of evidence of a possible extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. 

Presumably they will need a U.N. member nation to sponsor the motion, and the United States shows absolutely no interest in doing so. There was a previous proposal for the U.N. to study UFOs in 1977-78, sponsored by the tiny Carribean nation of Grenada (whose Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy, was a UFO buff), and organized by non other than Lee Speigel. As I wrote in my Psychic Vibrations column (in The Skeptical Inquirer) for Spring/Summer, 1978 (page 5 in the paperback book),

This past fall, Gairy braved the hazards of a trip through the Bermuda Triangle to travel to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, proposing that the UN set up a special agency to study UFO sightings. The New York Times reported that as Gairy spoke to the half-empty assembly hall, “the atmosphere was one of somnolence”; more diplomats appeared to be greeting friends or preparing dispatches than listening with rapt attention as the way was prepared for the great quantum leap in science. To build enthusiasm among the delegates, Gairy invited them to a showing of the much-hyped film, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Eagerly awaiting the all-important vote, the tabloid National Enquirer reported that “initial reaction seemed favorable at UN headquarters.” But when Grenada’s proposed UFO agency came to a vote, out of the other 148 member nations of the UN, only one voted with Grenada - Idi Amin’s Uganda. 

That time, the proposal to set up a U.N. agency to study UFOs at least was able to present the testimony of seemingly-credible persons like Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, and Gordon Cooper. The U.N. still ignored it. This time, they would hear from the likes of Steven Greer, Linda Moulton Howe, and Richard French. Does anyone think this U.N. proposal has even a snowflake's chance in hell of getting anywhere?

Greer's "Sirius" Documentary - no "Bombshell," just Nonstop UFO Claims

I had previously written about the forthcoming 'blockbuster' UFO documentary movie Sirius, produced by CSETI's Dr. Steven Greer,  which promised Free Energy, and a Dead Alien. OK, so I wasted $10 to watch Greer's UFO documentary film Sirius on-line on the night of its Word Premiere in Hollywood. I watched it so you won't have to. First there was the "Red Carpet Coverage" of the Premiere in real-time before the movie, which apparently is no longer available. It was mostly hoopla, with a strong anti-capitalist tone. The first ten minutes or so of the movie were included.

As the film opens, we see Greer going into a college auditorium in Santa Monica, the audience being checked with metal detectors for weapons. "Most people don't know what a Dead Man Trigger is." Very few people need one. But Greer has one - if the Conspiracy rubs him out, lots of sensitive documents get sent out to influential people. Excuse me while I barf - If Greer actually had any documents as hot as all that, he would have given them to the press long ago.

Greer's Dead Alien

Most of what we see after that comes in no particular order. We are given UFO cases and UFO witnesses in a popcorn sort of manner, no sooner does one bounce up than it falls back and another takes its place. There is no time (or need) for exposition, or analysis. Every case, and every claim, is apparently completely solid and needs no further explanation or proof. The "organization" of the film was such that one could have taken almost any segment of it, and switched it with any other, and the change would scarcely be noticed. Some things that we are shown, for the most part quite briefly, include, in no particular order:

• President Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex
• Dr. Oppenheimer saying, "we have done this (nukes) before."
• ancient aliens
• Federal reserve conspiracies
• Oil company conspiracies
• Laurance Rockefeller saying 'disclosure' will change everything
• MJ-12 Government UFO coverup conspiracy
• STS-48 UFO video
• Dr. Lynne Kitei and the Phoenix Lights, which were not military flares
• "free energy" claimants, including T. Townsend Brown, Tom Valone, Tom Bearden, Stanley Meyer, John Searl, Eugene Mallove, John Havrilla. Anti-gravity and electro-gravitics claims are made.
• automobiles that can run on water
• Conspiracies involving the Masons, and the Bohemian Grove 

These supposed "inventors," plus the ET technology, offers us unlimited Free Energy, but a conspiracy by those Greer calls the "Petro-fascists" keeps us using coal, oil, and nuclear power. Part of  the Conspiracy is to keep us distracted by other things. Even Honey Boo-Boo is depicted as part of the Conspiracy to keep us distracted from ET truths.

The film mentions Greer's May, 2001 Disclosure Project press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Despite its supposedly impressive list of yarn-spinners (many of whom are returning for the forthcoming Citizens Hearing on UFO Disclosure next week), after a few titilating news stories it mostly fell flat with the news media. But an excuse for this was given: just four months later, the attacks of September 11 resulted in wall-to-wall news coverage, leaving reporters with a mere four months to investigate Greer's ET bombshells.

The film does give us some valuable insight into Greer's personality. He mentions having a Near Death experience during an illness when he was seventeen, and describes how he felt a "oneness" not only with the earth, but with the entire universe. Later in the film he said that it is the memory of that NDE that keeps him moving forward in his investigations. I had previously been wondering if Greer is sincere in what he says, or just a huckster who has found a way to make a lot of money off UFO believers. After seeing Sirius I would say that Greer is quite sincere in what he says, and the money aspects comes from effectively taking leadership of an existing group of people who largely think as he does.

I found interesting the part about CSETI's CE5 training session, "human-initiated contact," which involves, among other things, meditation and remote viewing. They go into the desert or some other remote place, and shine a flashlight or laser at any light they see in the sky. If it appears to flicker back, that counts as an instance of interstellar communication. Many of the ET craft are "trans-dimensional," and thus are not visible to the human eye. However, they can be seen using night-vision equipment, which apparently has the capability to make trans-dimensional things visible. I once spoke with a fellow at a UFO meeting who had been through Greer's "training," and he was very impressed by it. He explained that, at first, he could not see any of the ET craft that Greer was talking about. But as the training progressed, he learned how to perceive them.

Stud muffin Dr. Steven Greer at one of his CSETI UFO watches. Definitely the Alpha Male of the group.

One of the longest expositions of a UFO claim is that of the Big Sur missile-zapping UFO in 1964, as told by Bob Jacobs. This case has been totally picked apart by Kingston George in the Skeptical Inquirer. 

"We have acquired an EBE!", boasts one of Greer's CSETI colleagues, and the analysis of this little guy - just six inches long - is the principal "news hook" for the film. We are told that this little body was dug up in the Atacamba Desert in Chile, and ended up in Barcelona, Spain. 3D scans reveal its internal organs, apparently very human-like. Now here is the biggest "bombshell" that the film has: DNA from this creature has been analyzed by Dr. Garry P. Nolan of the Stanford University Medical School. You can read his conclusions here:

Morphologic features include that the specimen has only 10 ribs, mild mid face hypoplasia, and shows abnormalities of the skull.  The observed abnormalities do not  fall into any standard or rare classification of known human pediatric disorders. As represented by a specialist in pediatric human bone and growth disorders (see attached report), the 6 inch specimen is a human that was likely 6-8 years of age at the time of  death (age based on epiphyseal plate X-Ray density standards).  X-Ray imaging and CT scan results confirmed the specimen is biological and is not a non-human primate. The specimen was concluded by the medical specialist to be a human child with an apparently severe form of dwarfism and other anomalies... Reconstruction of the mitochondrial DNA sequence and analysis shows an allele frequency consistent with a B2 haplotype group found on the west coast of South America, supporting the claimed origination of the specimen from the Atacama Desert region of Chile.  Sequence analysis definitively rules out the specimen as an example of  a New World primate.

 So, supposedly the little critter is a human child, at least 6 years old, and only six inches long. This sounds almost as implausible as an ET. I am wondering what precautions have been taken against deliberate DNA contamination? In the case of the Metepec, Mexico humanoid that was promoted by Jaime Maussan, the hoaxer Urso Moreno Ruiz confessed, "It’s just the corpse of a skinned squirrel-monkey. I took its ears out and involved it with all the hair and fluids of all animals I could find, then I dried it. All samples they take of it will come out as being of different animals." Is is possible that something similar has happened with the Atacama humanoid?


In the end, no halfway intelligent person will be swayed by this film. The only people who will be impressed will be those who breathlessly await each new episode of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.