Robert Barrow

His Presence Will Linger

2012-01-23T15:05:00.008-05:00

Echoes of Bill Cooper's fatal shootout with the cops apparently reverberated throughout Arizona earlier this month when one Drew Maras -- described as a UFO researcher -- was shot dead by a sheriff's deputy, but not before he allegedly killed another and may have murdered a New Hampshire couple in Arizona as well.

The 30-year-old had written a book entitled Open Your Eyes to 2012 and Beyond some time back, Frankly, I've never heard of Mr. Maras, but then I'm kinda on the sidelines anymore, and the "New Age" stuff never really appealed to me -- particularly the dross wielded by unstable people who seem, nonetheless, as normal as you and I. Whatever normal is. "The World Gone Crazy," as I recall, was a Glen Campbell song, never more appropriate than today (even as famed country singer Campbell has himself fallen prey to Alzheimer's).

William Cooper dead in a shootout. Drew Maras dead in a shootout. Paranormal writer D. Scott Rogo murdered. UFO researcher Morris K. Jessup dead years ago from suicide or murder or suicide or murder or. . .

I hate it when this kind of thing happens. People can point and say, see? I knew those UFO nuts were trouble, crazy, every one of 'em.

No wonder Washington congressional offices treat every letter and package received as if it contains mysterious white powder or something more immediate in the attention-getting department. Can you imagine the welcome afforded communication in any format from UFO "enthusiasts?"

Oh, oh, oh, Mr. Maras, if indeed you killed three people, the trouble didn't end with your homicides. Those of us who find it difficult even to get up the nerve to announce publicly that we gather UFO reports must now live like the undead in the shadow of your horrors. UFO skeptics will shake their heads with disapproval and debunkers will party on.

You, Mr. Maras, are dead, but definitely not gone. I curse your UFO research involvement, and extend my sympathies to the families you've destroyed.

AUTISM AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE? The greatest thing about being a non-professional is the freedom of not needing to lick the boots of higher-up authorities to justify my existence. Yes, I have a bachelor's degree, but I don't swing it around like Billy Jack with a bat. Who cares anyway? In fact, when asked where my degree is from, I tend to reply and then, gasping breathlessly, the inquirer's follow-up question is, "Oh my god, you attended Julliard?!" Heck no, I respond, I said I went to Julie-Odd, and that's a whole different place altogether! Yep.

However, I have, during my old USAF years, worked in hospitals, sometimes with profoundly retarded people -- and don't let 'em intimidate you, retarded is a perfectly good word and must remain in all dictionaries of the miserable future.

I mention this because it appears that the folks who look inside our heads for a living -- and for lucrative government research grants -- have apparently decided that diagnosing one in 100 children with autism might be a bit enthusiastic, and revisions will be made in the DSM (the numeric bible of health care) to reflect this. That is, standards for diagnosing autism will be tightened up and as a consequence those who no longer qualify as autistic will probably lose benefits and autism-specific care. Truth be told -- rather, suspected -- I believe that the professional autism peddlers dug a hole so deep that they don't know how to perform self-extrication, except by pulling up and out ever so gradually.

I do accept that autism exists, just as I accept that Down syndrome exists. These are serious medical matters and I applaud health care workers who deal with these diagnoses.

Nonetheless, a little teeny-tiny part of me always teeters on the sidelines and watches psychologists do their deeds. Sometimes I think there are so many psychology students that they must clamor for projects to keep their little minds busily engaged in finding things wrong or different about us so they can convert their brilliance into government grant money and the opportunity to create new numbers for the wretched, yet blessed, DSM. In the DSM, you see, every diagnosis you have is assigned a computerized number. Big government loves the DSM, insurance companies love the DSM, and attorneys love the DSM. The DSM numbers make us what we are, from head to toe, and diversity in diagnosing, despite what you've been told about the wonders of diversity, is a sin. If one lacks a DSM numbered diagnosis, by George, there's a medical professional out there to find one, and the individual will always learn that, in the health care system, one size fits all. Thanks to pharmaceutical companies, there's only so much individualizing, no time for that in today's world.

But. . .yes, autism, and there's that other little disturbing social aspect -- the "facilitators" who assist the autistic in typing out their wishes, desires and responses on keyboards. At first, years ago, facilitators were felt to be almost magical in their ability to draw thoughts out of those seemingly unable to communicate.

Yeah, but then dark clouds began to gather and some peculiar things started to be noted in courtrooms and other institutions. Questions were raised, legitimate questions, over whether the facilitators were, with genius, guiding autistic fingers to type out what the facilitators wanted them to type out. As things stand today, the facilitator's role in some circles is beginning to look like something out of Houdini's book of wonders, to say the least, may we suggest.

So DSM standards are being revised and maybe one out of every 100 kids is indeed not autistic. I predict that ratios and numerical figures will change drastically in the years ahead. They must. How can we have one out of 100 autistic, with exponential expectations that in years just around the turnpike there would be 10, then 25, then 85 out of 100? What society would survive? We suspect the numbers are fudged and the piles of government money tempting. No more.

If these were burn-you-at-the-stake times in human history, I am just about to be smokin' hot, because I'm going to say something so simple, yet so inflammatory, that I already feel like an ash. An ash, not an ass.

Remember high school? Remember elementary school? Remember people you encountered since the day you were born? In my day, there were people merely classified by their communities as one thing: Stupid. Born stupid, and stayed that way. It wasn't anything to be ashamed of, it just was. Stupid.

But, ah, we're in the age of enlightenment now, and everybody has some flaw that must be acknowledged, written up, diagnosed and treated or cured with The Drug Of The Day, with the help of The Gods Of Medical Professionalism. The fact that so many are bent toward psychology and need to get their hands out of their pockets To Help Every Human Or Lose Government Grants Trying is a great thing, isn't it?

They have medications for attention deficit disorder, don't they? You do have attention deficit disorder, don't you, little Justin? You're not just bored or overly creative, are you, little Tom ? They shoot horses, don't they? Come on, kids, it's so much easier just to take your medication and make your teachers' lives in the classroom less headache-prone. Drugs are good for you, just ask the drug dealer on the street or Big Pharma representatives.

Legitimate, serious, death-defying human illnesses and conditions proliferate out there, no doubt about it, and I'm not addressing those here, as I, nevertheless, slowly tighten the noose around my own politically incorrect neck.

Consider the era in which we live. In youth sports, every child often gets a team trophy, no matter their ranking. In fact, on many kids' teams there can be no losers, and sometimes not even winners. Yes, every child gets a trophy and they learn that nobody loses, and nobody wins. Diversity. Equalization. Lies, distortions and rumors have become truth, perhaps as
never before in this country.

But what about the kid who plays no sports? What of children or adults who possess no athletic ranking on some chart or in the trophy room, yet -- yet, they suffer from some condition, some malady, something different from healthier people? Not to despair, there is something they can get, something to verify their existence and status in society. It's called a medical diagnosis. Everybody get something, and currently one can proudly display a medical diagnosis as confidently as a trophy to tell the world, I'm somebody special, darn it, and I have my own DSM number to prove it.

That's why I gaze upon the 1-in-100 autism figure with some skepticism. The more, the better, as far as researchers are concerned. The more the merrier. Autism researchers, like their fellows of other health science disciplines, live and die based upon the acquisition of hefty grants, generally government grants. But, you ask, isn't the research peer-reviewed? Oh yes, it's all "peer-reviewed," usually by peers who themselves depend upon grants to conduct their own particular studies.

Peer-review can be a good thing. You know how your doctor has insisted that you drink a little red wine or grape juice daily or eat red grapes because a substance called Resveratrol is good for you? Hmm, according to news reports, seems that a new review of one researcher's data on that subject has discovered falsification of the findings. Seems that if the main thing red wine is gonna getcha is alcoholism, should you really embrace yet another apparently fallen medical miracle from people with fat money grants? Where was peer-review the first time around? I realize that so far there is only one "minor player" involved, but even one is one too many, and I don't care how vigorously the industry for Resveratrol is hollering at the moment. Now do I sound like such a monster, beating up on the alleged autistic who may be not autistic at all, but perhaps just slower in space and time traditionally, yet encouraged by their caretakers to meet the standards of autism? One jar of ointment and one fly is all it takes.

Remember the point I made at the start. The autism industry -- oops, pardon me -- the autism research people and the government are cutting back on the symptoms of the disorder and firming up the standards. I merely ask, if things weren't quite what the knowledgeables among us touted so loudly, then somewhere there's a very disturbing fly in the healing/curative ointment. May we expect more re-defining of autism and exclusions of more members of this very exclusive club? Anybody consider that too much TV performing babysitting duties for infants and young minds might figure into an early lack of personal communication and socialization? Would it not be best to make sure that funds directed toward autism research not be shuffled to people who are not autistic? Hmm.

Want to get finger-pointy? Think about all the poor nutrition and chemical substances unleashed in the environment over generations. Those factors are probably the chief culprits where genetic alterations are involved -- or it could just be that human DNA is in the process of getting old, cranky, unpredictable and doomed as timed extinction approaches.

I wonder if there's a DSM number for that?

Watering the Taliban

2012-01-17T14:28:00.003-05:00

My relationship with the documentation of UFO events ended a long time ago, and I've done my best to scan interesting documents still in my possession (so many other things went to now-defunct organizations), as you'll discover by reading from the very initiation of this blog in 2007. For the moment, there's nothing to add about UFOs, except I've always wondered what would happen if some official government agency admitted to visitations by something extraordinarily intelligent and beyond our understanding. No, I don't think widespread panic would ensue -- but I do expect that the primary "victims" of such revelations would be those of higher (highest) education, suddenly faced with the harsh realization that their efforts have been instantly eclipsed by the much higher knowledge, and consequently cherished professions and credentials are relegated to the evolutionary trash bin. Simply put, the garbage man would be far more valuable to society and content in his work than the theoretical physicist. In fact, theoretical physicists would probably clamor for garbage removal jobs just to survive. Whether they could properly pick up refuse remains to be seen, as they would doubtless spend hours in contemplation over the potential of garbage atoms or something.

So, on to other things today, such as. . .

An observation: Whenever I'm incredibly bored and tune in to watch the Golden Globes or Oscar presentations or some such televised glitter, I'm always dumbfounded at virtually no mention by celebrities of our military personnel serving around the world. I know this sounds trite, but are most Hollywood folk so self-centered or enamored with their own publicity that they can't simply say thanks to our brave young people? I don't know if it involves fear of irritating their peers ("You'll never work in this town again!") or if they just, strangely, hate all the enlisted opportunities America has bestowed upon them. I'm sure there are numerous celebrities who support military charities lavishly, but I just wonder about all the rest who, it would seem, don't care.

Thousands of young men, taken from their families forever, sacrificed their lives and dreams to protect and make it possible for the Hollywood bunch to express themselves safely whilst gaining extraordinary wealth and influence. I hope I'm just missing something here. I can't imagine that a community's politics would silence things that really deserve to be said and deny expressions of appreciation crying out to be stated by those wielding the enormous power of camera and microphone. I'm talking about producers and directors, too, not just the obvious actors. I don't know, maybe some just become too busy and cozy attending White House Halloween parties and dressing like fantasy characters and the like to be bothered.

Now, speaking of Hollywood. . .

In the motion picture, "Oklahoma Crude," there was a tense scene where the character portrayed by George C. Scott walks up to Jack Palance's evil character and, without saying a word, urinates on him. I don't remember the exact words that actor Scott mutters as he finishes, but it's something to the effect that businessmen do this to one another all the time.

I guess, in a way, four U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban in Afghanistan did nothing more than conduct and extend the business of war.

Frankly, considering what the Taliban have done to our young military people, I couldn't care less if those Marines were joined by all members of the Armed Services in this pissing contest. Urinating on deceased head and limb choppers who possess the morals of insects hardly seems worth a yawn. Besides, urine is generally a sterile fluid, perhaps suitable for cleansing radical Islamic souls before they meet up with obligatory afterlife virgins.

In this instance, official Washington can go to hell. Oh yeah, sure, Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta are shocked, the Marine higher-ups are outraged, and all the biggies want to tar and feather these boys. But, hey, YOU folks in D.C. are conducting a war, w-a-r, and war is never pretty. Maybe these Marines had a real anger problem with those particular Taliban members. Maybe they were tired of their friends getting blown up by IED devices and lost it, who knows? Maybe multiple deployments and inferior equipment set them on this course. Maybe they were tipped off that upon return to the U.S. they'll have no jobs, no money, few opportunities and damned little respect.

Official Washington, the urine belongs on you. I'm outraged when officials make examples of exhausted, abused military personnel, when they should make examples of themselves. Swine. Bastards. Just who exactly deserves criminal charges, punishment and prison time? Hmm? Who profits from our wars as young people are sent to do battle, yet burdened by so many political constraints and whims that their lives are put in jeopardy?

Taliban scum, born killers, their remains watered down, marinating in the hot sun like the predatory criminal weeds they were, nothing more or less.

Maybe these externally hydrated dead are the true "corpse men" referenced by President Obama?

I wonder if a few desks in Congress and White House offices would benefit from a little military urination deployment? Perhaps D.C. brains, safely secured in Pentagon offices, who plot and plan the lives and dangers for military members every day without ever having been in a combat situation themselves should come out of their crevices and support these men.

The video was "deplorable." Inconsistent with American values, says secretary H. Clinton. Wrong! I consistently value American military urine if it can serve a useful purpose on the battlefield. But then, I'm no secretary of state, required to gush over United Nations thugs and the Afghanistan criminal ruling class.

The mainstream media? Don't get me started. Why aren't they showing photos of maimed U.S. military bodies, instead of evoking tears and sympathy for dead killer-torturer roaches?

Republican phonies. Democrat phonies. Phony media. Same old excreted political hairballs, distinguishable only by varying close-ups on TV.

Want to create jobs in America? Let's have a crash program to build water, beer and bottling plants, and load up military transport planes with tons of beverages for our troops in the Middle East so they can pee on dead radicalized vermin 24/7.

The major chill wind that blows these days is the one whispering through the trees, suggesting that our current president will probably be re-elected this year. Okay, great, well, how about if every time he travels the globe and continues to apologize to some world leader for something he thinks the United States needs to be sorry for -- how about if each time he does that the military actively orders large numbers of American military personnel to bestow showers of gold on other dead enemies? Yes, every time. Gonna get pretty darned wet out there with all those apologies and submissive gestures to worldly thugs. Each time the Prez apologizes, we Americans get a urine bath anyway.

What a joke, holding service personnel responsible for the consequences of wars they didn't start. Beginning with Iraq maneuvers and continuing in Afghanistan today, thousands and thousands of U.S. military members have been killed and injured, and the concern that contact with depleted uranium may spiral into military illnesses so widespread that even the VA system will deny debilitating conditions and fatalities far surpasses this little incident.

We already have too many military people homeless or rotting in federal and state prisons, no thanks to a grateful nation infected with factions within who are no better than the enemy without.

The urination issue is "sensitive." What will the world think? Get over it. Much of the world already hates us or harbors intense jealousies toward our way of life. World War II, Korea and other good deeds have been forgotten, with history poised to be rewritten with lies and deletions.

And now we have Homeland Security monitoring journalists' Web sites and maybe even Little Nothing Bloggy People like me. Perfect. China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and the usual suspects prepare to destroy the U.S. someday, and my idiot offend-nobody government worries incessantly about public political perceptions and four Marines taking a leak on well-deserved targets.

The day I believe the current Administration truly honors and respects all branches of the military over concerns for anybody BUT the military will be a rare day indeed. Urination. Obama nation. Damnation. We are all effectively urine-drenched and politically soaked to the skin, but four weary Marines, experiencing a moment that perhaps only young warriors pushed beyond the limit can comprehend, had nothing to do with it.

Up There, Down There

2012-01-06T13:28:00.003-05:00

"Space. . .The final frontier."
-- Risky words introducing old Star Trek TV episodes

I guess the best part about the arrival of each new year is having a pulse. And forget all the romanticism about observing the first robins of spring, you're still better off just having a pulse. Can't write blogs without a pulse, either (and robins don't blog).

Okay, 2012. First of all, I've been thinking about Star Trek because science is discovering so much about the nature of matter and the possibility of other dimensions that I'm not even sure the word "space" has relevance anymore, and space is probably nobody's final exploratory destination. Captain Kirk's "out there" may be no more unreachable than "in here," except for the furniture and plumbing arrangements.

UFOs. I remember sitting in that grassy field in April of 1964, accompanied by a trusty, yet necessarily large and clumsily-sized transistor radio (they weren't pocket-sized then, at least mine wasn't). To a teenager, transistor radios seemed nearly magical, allowing one the freedom of venturing far beyond the restraints of plug-in electricity when listening to a favorite station.

During that April afternoon, radio signals near and far crackled with news reports of the Socorro, New Mexico UFO, most stations dependent upon news wire services and long-distance phone calls for updates. Erupting media chaos over UFOs excited the public from coast to coast before spreading internationally -- even to countries where "saucers" were old and almost routine news.

Almost as many years have passed since Socorro as there are states in the USA, and still UFOs come and go. What do I know about the phenomenon's true identity? Nothing. What do I THINK I know? I think that for all the impressive UFO maneuvers, encounters and near-collisions with conventional aircraft in the skies, there's much more taking place on the ground, and it likely has disturbing and maybe pronounced effects upon human and animal activity for reasons mostly unknown. Nor is it new. We may hold magnifying glasses over ant colonies, but that doesn't make us the sole observers.

I've had the opportunity to hear significant portions of the Betty and Barney Hill hypnosis sessions, truly fascinating as an early multiple witness case, but it was the bizarre Hickson-Parker UFO encounter case from Pascagoula MS in the seventies that makes my hair stand on end -- and no less so when Navy men possibly witnessing a landing UFO at the same time in the same area came to public attention years later.

"Sleep paralysis" may explain some instances of UFO abductions that never happened, but when we're referencing multiple witnesses to an abduction event, the sleep paralysis nonsense embraced by well-credentialed folk who, nonetheless, can't see beyond their own noses goes nowhere. I swear, all too often I fear that either the experts or the "digital revolution" will kill us off quicker than a nuke, I'm just not sure which will finish us off first.

What shall we look forward to in 2012? In the U.S. the population will continue to dumb down, engrossed more in sporting events than in education or the political process, and as a result we'll continue to get exactly the kind of government we deserve, currently pointing us in dangerous directions. Moderately disturbing is a little -- isolated, ha ha -- instance where the EEOC wishes to classify one's lack of a high school education and diploma as a disability, thus forcing employers to hire the superbly unqualified or be sued out of existence. Of course, these little outrages tend to catch fire and become federal legislation before one can react, and if anything will help to encourage the ignorance, lack of common sense and plain stupidity on the part of a growing legion of American idiots, imbeciles and moronic children sired by even more moronic parentage, this is it.

Nor must we fail to give proper credit to religious "relief" agencies which flood this country with untalented and religiously radical detritus, almost acting in unison with the illegal immigration industry for the same result. Sanctuary cities? Please, hand out prison terms for mayors and other public officials who allow this travesty, even though sworn to serve under the Constitution. Word is that, in California alone last year, illegal aliens sent 15 billion dollars back to relatives in Mexico. One hospital in the state -- just one -- complains that illegal immigrants cost them 100 million dollars last year. Guess who pays the difference?

You are aware, aren't you, that pregnant women from China and other countries who can afford to do so fly here to deliver their babies and, with dual citizenship, those grown children can someday bring all their relatives over to the United States? There is a bill in Congress to stop this practice, but the current crop of do-nothings will probably ignore it and the consequences of doing nothing.

I'm not impressed by anybody currently in the running on the conservative ticket -- and though often libertarian in my thoughts, in no way could I imagine Ron Paul as president if he thinks Iran's leadership and other global crazies will play nice with us if we just go away. The world is a vicious place and we humans, whether it's the 80-year-old grandma baking a pie down the street or the eight-year-old playing soccer. . .well, I know what we are, and it's not a pretty sight.

President Obama. Yikes. Nice guy, I suppose, but. . .go, please, just go away after the elections, assuming that voters do more than merely vote for familiar incumbent names. I don't know what this man is about once the teleprompters are turned off, but the professorial/intellectual dream-speak drives me nuts. His desire to regulate everything is a horror story. We the people, our power as individuals is spirited away, little by little. Why did he not issue orders to blow up the drone in Iran? Unless its contents self-destructed in some way we know nothing about, NOT destroying it -- no matter the risk to people around it -- may have put millions more in jeopardy -- and if China, Russia or another of our "good friends" get their hands on it, I guess our wonderful globalization and international partnerships aren't working very well, are they? No, better that the President bail out GM so they can build electric cars whose best consumer feature is their ability to be recalled.

The President who assured us long ago that energy prices must rise substantially. It's working.

The First Lady who admitted pride in her country for the first time in her life only when her husband was elected.

A White House functioning like a king's court, bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing for the U.S.

Will the nightmare end on Election Day, or will another emerge to build upon the basics of alleged corruption, incompetence and arrogance?

You sure you want to continue petitioning the White House for UFO information? This White House? Spinning your wheels uselessly in the sands of time, folks.

There's already war in the streets and the cops are out-gunned, overworked, under-appreciated and stressed out. The war on drugs is a joke. A federal agent is dead because of the "Fast and Furious" ploy and somebody needs to take responsibility. The borders aren't protected sufficiently and now the military itself may be gutted to a degree beyond rational. These are dangerous times, administered by a gathering of pretentious fools in D.C.

So it's 2012. A great time to strengthen not only the First Amendment, but the Second as well.

I am nobody's freaking world diplomat.

Oh, a big 2012 congratulations to the Muslim Brotherhood and particularly Iranian crazies who now have the ability to enslave the entire Middle East with radical Islam. They couldn't have done it without the encouragement of President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Anderson Cooper and all the other political/media types who simply gushed over the emergence of some nebulous crap called the "Arab Spring." A third-grader could have predicted where all of this would go. The much worse is yet to come. Remember who cheered it on.

But look on the bright side, the Administration had its hooks and our money into that wonderful energy magnate corporation, Solyndra. . .which failed miserably and ate up tons of our money. So sorry 'bout that.

Meanwhile, the FCC chief wants cross-ownership of newspapers and TV to become easier so that, apparently, fewer companies can gobble up more media in order to restrict our desires to get all the news and all the views. This has been done before, and the implications are troubling.

Extremist Muslim terrorists are infiltrating our military, gang activity among enlisted personnel is said to be increasing, and if that isn't enough to worry about, "fake" parts from countries such as China are installed in our military equipment, endangering U.S. service personnel.

The global warming faction wants more support from President Obama and your bank accounts so they can pursue science's nonsensical evil research brother, and in the meantime climate will change as it has throughout the history of this planet, despite our activities.

For laughs, don't forget the 2011 revelations that "Sybil" and the multiple personality industry were discovered to involve lies and hoaxes. How many lives ruined? How many members of the professional psycho industry were enriched by treating wisps of nothing? I can hardly wait until sleep paralysis meets a similar fate among pro-fessionals who swear all UFO abductions can be explained away via half-awake minds, illusions and delusions under the bed sheets. Three important words to remember here: Multiple witness events.

Also in 2011, scientists reported that water seems far more abundant throughout the universe than once thought. Heck, I darned well promised the same thing in newspaper letters-to-the-editor decades ago when I said, look, if there's water here there's water there. I think I became convinced after watching all those westerns on TV where somebody always said, "Drink 'em up, boys," though at the time I didn't realize that water had nothing to do with it.

As we were saying, it's a new year. Lunatics everywhere will rejoice.

The Expert Agenda

2011-12-20T13:02:00.003-05:00

Growing up, I thought archaeology was just about the coolest science on earth. I remember reading a book about mummies and ancient Egypt, highly impressed at the way those science guys could dig up artifacts and conjure ancient times and ancient lives.

Only years later did I realize how archeologists often fought like cats and dogs to promote acceptance of their particular theories. Books fostered by the late William R. Corliss via his Sourcebook Project certainly left little doubt that one man's expert opinion is another man's nonsense, and before long one can't help but ask, does anybody know what they're talking about? When are scientific mysteries ignored? Embraced? Why? How? Is the hard, cold evidence always a factor, or enough to make a reasonable conclusion? What happens when science goes awry and nobody recognizes the dilemma?

Of course, such questions can easily be addressed to the UFO phenomenon and those who either investigate or deride it. My comedy analogy would involve a UFO "enthusiast" (love that word) claiming that a mere light observed in the sky by neighbors is an extraterrestrial spacecraft, while the amateur astronomer and debunker across the street impresses local TV cameras with instant denials based upon the examination of no evidence or witness interviews whatsoever. Looks like a pretty even match.

Anyway, while we wait for more members of the scientific community to take the UFO seriously, there's that troublesome climate change issue. A few days ago, a huge volume of e-mails again saw release by unknown hands, messages which apparently continue to indict scientists at their worst who have an agenda in presenting flawed -- very flawed -- data regarding global warming.

However, equally as intriguing are the views of Bill Gray, professor emeritus at Colorado State University. Professor Gray, long skeptical about the so-called consensus of international scientists terrifying us all about global warming, apparently emphasized his views in recent months as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society that the AMS has been hijacked for years by a small percentage of, um, true believers, and he is not happy about the science -- or, rather, lack of science -- involved. To those who say the global warming debate is over, Gray vehemently disagrees.

If I understand correctly, he categorically discerns that computer-generated global warming "facts" and predictions have proven essentially worthless after years of trying to fit square meteorological pegs into round agenda-ridden holes. The climate changes, yes -- but not in the ways upon which entire international multi-billion dollar cottage industries greatly depend.

Gray's particular concern and warning to his associates is that most AMS members, indeed, do NOT accept the global warming assertions tossed out by that small conglomerate of -- shall I use the word again? -- enthusiasts, and Gray urges his colleagues to understand there's a political agenda in force with the issue, and science fact has little or nothing to do with it.

Professor Gray's views are freely available on the Internet. It's always refreshing to find science personnel who break from the herd and go public, sometimes at risk to their own reputations. Never for a moment think all the bullies reside in high school hallways. Sometimes they're adults who become testy when a colleague disturbs their well-crafted agendas. Strange as it sounds, global warming skeptics and UFO research proponents aren't necessarily cut from different cloths.

NORTH KOREA'S RUTHLESS DICTATOR DROPS DEAD: Good for him, it's just too bad the cockroach didn't starve to death the way he's forced millions of his "subjects" to exit. Now, it's just a matter of time before we (again) offer the country food that should rightly go to people in our own nation who can't afford a proper diet, and it won't be long before we (again) offer the "new" regime millions or billions of dollars we don't have, or multi dollars-worth of things we badly need in the USA, and then the N. Korean communists will do what they always do -- lie and return to whatever atrocities they were juggling before the Grim Reaper stopped by to say hi, feeding and enriching only their military and high-ranking official thugs as the obedient masses die. And those "mournful" howls from the actors, oops, I mean the people! I thought I was listening to sounds from a werewolf movie.

THE ARAB SPRING was hailed by the Obama Admin as the greatest thing on the planet. Well, as we predicted when Egypt was in its initial uprising mode a few months ago, things weren't loking so great. No, I'm nobody's national president, but even I could see what was ahead. If you think the Muslim Brotherhood and all the nasties coming along hand in hand with it will be great for the Middle east, good luck. Muslim women will continue to be indistinguishable from farm animals and the worst aspects of Sharia Law will engulf the people like a straitjacket. As always. I think Israel has a pretty good idea of where things are headed.

THE SEASON OF Christmas and Hanukkah (or Chanukah or ?, depending upon the source one consults for proper spelling) is here, and I'll take this opportunity to wish those who embrace either faith pleasant days ahead as 2012 unfolds.. In the spirit of everybody's season, no matter your beliefs, please contribute generously to your local animal shelters. Of all the crazy stuff going on in the world, animals aren't to blame for ruinous decisions the rest of us make every day of the year.

Depending upon the weather in the Northeast, and my ever-changing desires to simply hibernate until spring, the blog will be getting a rest for a bit. However, many of the sources noted in the link list never sleep, so do stay in touch with them.

Yes, It's the Money

2011-12-14T17:23:00.003-05:00

This blog is not a sex abuse hotline, but my proximity to Central NY and Syracuse University thrusts the institution's nationally infamous headlines about fired basketball assistant coach Bernie Fine and his accusers in my face every day. And the story never ends, apparently.

As predicted here, national and local legislators are busily legislating "for the children" and the alleged child sexual abuse here has taken a back seat, and now the real issue has popped out of the slime -- money. Syracuse University and head coach Jim Boeheim are now in the cross hairs of a notorious attorney who probably would just be your typical ambulance chaser today if not for continuous publicity on national TV. I mean, why don't we just take this mess and air it on Judge Judy's TV show?

Coach Boeheim, when initially informed of allegations against assistant coach Fine, angrily snapped back in disbelief, accusing Boy Number One and Boy Number Two of lying and just out for financial gain.

It appears that he was at least half right, from what I glean from news reports. Maybe the sex abuse reports were true, or maybe not, but eventually it always happens -- folks start thinking and lawyers show up and before you know it, wham! A lawsuit emerges. Visions of dollar signs.

Strangely, as if forgotten during all of this, Syracuse University fired coach Fine before any evidence against him surfaced, so maybe Fine himself should sue S.U. So could his wife, one supposes, because her alleged sexual relationship with S.U. students and Boy Number One also hit the media minus solid evidence.

So Boys One and Two are suing because they feel their reputations were defamed due to Boeheim's comment. He has already apologized nationally, and several people in the law business seems to believe that winning this case will be very difficult for the boys-turned-men whose allegations of abuse go way back and are no longer covered under the statute of limitations in NY.

What will happen? An out-of-court settlement with the university and Boeheim will probably occur, and the public will know nothing of the monetary figures involved, and both the publicity-grabbing attorney and her clients will depart this situation far better off economically than they were at the start. The cure will be complete. Forget the tears and protests of being done wrong. It's the economy, stupid. It's the money, stupid.

Not that S.U. can't afford the price. Many universities are drunk with endowment monies kept aside for rainy days which never materialize (young people and students currently directing their efforts in mass protests on Wall Street might instead ask institutions of higher learning why their tuition rates continuously hit the roof, making education costs astronomical for murky reasons).

Questions: Yes, child sexual abuse is horrible, and it is not a new phenomenon, as some in the media would have us believe. But are there times when victims become even more victimized because we live in a society that craves victims for financial gain and notoriety? Are there instances when victims wouldn't even consider themselves victims if society didn't throw the victim card in their faces endlessly via TV and other media? When the victimized immerse the psychological pain that will haunt them "forever" into huge financial payoffs, doesn't that become something akin to being paid for sex after the fact?

Funny how money is always thrown out as the cure to end all cures. Funny how the hysterical child sex abuse witch hunt has reached maddening proportions as supposedly rational human beings have become pod people. The power. The money. The panic. The most pathetic human horror story I've seen played out in a long time.

My 2011 Christmas Thoughts

2011-12-09T15:29:00.003-05:00

No, I'm not poised to hose my readers down with "holiday" cheer and visions of happy times ahead, sprinkled with fairy dust. The thing is, Christmas is a great time to reflect upon all the **** perpetrated on us as we become more enslaved by and distanced from our government every day.

It would be redundant of me to spotlight corruption in Washington and an apparent majority in Congress (especially per a recent CBS-TV "Sixty Minutes" report) intent upon enriching themselves financially in "insider trading" ways that would put most common folk in prison.

Then we have the Obama Administration, promising to function with an openness rarely witnessed in Washington. Instead, we get secrecy, denials, possible cover-ups that may overshadow the Watergate conspiracy, and the American people are evidently looked upon as morons in need of looking after by government intellectuals whose experience includes nothing more dangerous or hands-on than ethereal concepts pumped into their heads during university classes taught by extreme leftists who don't give a damn about preserving the Constitution. Wow, listen to me. Am I nuts or what?

Sorry (not) to sound sooooooo typically (used to be) American, but my country is currently run by people who trouble me greatly. At first I thought it incompetence, but now I feel otherwise. There's something more. The clever actions of people behind the scenes who wish to change us inch by centimeter aren't so hidden anymore.

In its most simple form, it's a President who refers to military medics (such as myself, long ago) during a speech as "corpse men." Some Commander-in-Chief. In its (so far) most extreme form, it's the murky relationship between the Administration and gun-running in Mexico which resulted in at least one U. S. government agent and many other people losing their lives. Hmm. One wonders if there was a plan here ultimately intended to take away Americans' firearms.

And it's the "Occupy Wall Street" people -- aside from the sincere -- who wish only to destroy the country. Their presence is obvious. The communists, the socialists, the Marxists. They display their signs along with everybody else. And yes, the union-financed groups -- bought and paid for, people never allowed a voice as to what political parties or individuals benefit from the lofty union dues extracted like clockwork from their paychecks. The OWS throngs, whatever the original intent, have become top-heavy with thugs, creeps, hygienic nightmares and even death. Hmm, the OWS people were heavily encouraged by Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden, Ms. Pelosi and the usual suspects, as I recall. Frankly, for me, the existence of the destructive element in OWS is not nearly as puzzling as wondering when hepatitis will show up big time. To you OWS people around the country who protest with love and respect for your country, good for you, but take a good look at the human detritus amongst you. Your message has been usurped, and the results ain't pretty.

My government horror story of the week: The Department of Defense designates the Fort Hood massacre as "workplace violence." In keeping with the pussy-footing Obama Admin's wish never to offend anything associated with Islam, this is what we and the victims' families get. Instead of clearly warning us that this was jihad activity, we get this. Such pronouncements should enrage everybody, particularly this week, as more information surfaces indicating that radical Islam continues to invade our homeland military and, indeed, that homegrown Muslim terrorists stalk returning military members, intent upon killing our service members right here in the USA. One need not be an enthusiastic flag-waver to burn with outrage about this. I hope the 76 virgins to which dead Islamic murderers are entitled in their afterlife are female porcupines. They obviously MUST be some kind of animal -- what virgins would tolerate such human filth? Yes, the world is full of good, law-abiding Muslim practitioners who just want to live in peace, but they are saddled with that other side, and we need make no apologies for calling that side out.

I've no idea who or what will comprise the next Administration in the U.S., but I have a feeling that those wielding new UFO petitions intended for the White House might wish to sit on them for now. The current vacation-lovin' tenants and their staff of superior intellectuals, despite all those fancy speeches and other teleprompter-enhanced shindigs, will provide nothing of substance or assistance, except out of sheer election-eve desperation. They're much too busy writing backdoor regulations to negatively influence the freedom in our lives and assure that the meaning of Christmas doesn't overshadow the religion of hate and every other damned cult that invaded the U.S. since its earliest days.

I'm alarmed by all the politically correct jerks inhabiting the country, and while I make no special efforts to celebrate Christmas, I wish you idiot atheists up in Wisconsin and under other nameless rocks would let those who wish to celebrate it do so. It isn't a holiday tree, it's not a winter school holiday break and the stores aren't having season's greetings sales. It's Christmas, which references Jesus, the Three Wise Men and Bethlehem.

Good grief, if I'm on a rant like this today, I can't wait for New Year's resolutions. Or would that be revolutions?

When a Light From the Skies Puts Things Bright in Your Eyes

2011-12-05T17:30:00.003-05:00

It happened previously, and it raises an eyebrow whenever I hear about these instances.

CBS Radio and other sources report that the new "Twilight" movie ("Breaking Dawn Part 1") has caused sporadic episodes of seizures in viewers watching a birthing scene as flashes of red, black and white fire off in rapid succession. Of course, as many of you may remember, the same thing occurred in the nineties as some children watching a TV show went into seizures. Supposedly, TV transmissions of the offending light pattern have been corrected to accommodate what seem to be genetically susceptible viewers. Photosensitive epilepsy is the medical term for this bizarre reaction to certain combinations of light flashes.

These weird little events always make me think about the power of light. Lasers are the best high-tech examples, I suppose, but how interesting it is that mere flashes of light can cause monumental reactions in the brain. Hypnosis obviously comes to mind, and for anybody familiar with alleged UFO abductions and some close encounters, extremely bright lights often seem to play a role. Time and again, abductees and witnesses describe whitish lights of blinding intensity, sometimes in patterns, sometimes in varying colors.

Assuming a high intelligence factor behind whatever force occurs with abductions, as reported in the literature, it's not unreasonable to assume that the influence of light on human brains via wildly unknown optical effects may be substantial, in ways we can only imagine. Under abduction circumstances, does light alter reality? Does it take away knowledge of "missing time?"

The phrase, like a deer in headlights, seems frighteningly appropriate in relation to UFO abduction reports. Time stands still in the light. Motor functions freeze in the light, if not sensorimotor functions. Light can take the pain away, and deprives one of conscious thought. The terror melts away into the light. Bright lights can place one's fate in the hands of another.

If you've ever visited an ophthalmologist to have photos taken of your eyes, you will have at least an uncomfortable hint of light's powers as floodlight-style brilliance converges upon the optic nerve. The light is strong enough to bring forth tears and pain at once. Even a routine eye exam involving the physician's light instruments can prove annoying.

The significance of bright lights in so many UFO sightings and during close encounters may involve much more than coincidence.

The Big Orange vs. The Big Taboo

2011-11-30T15:25:00.006-05:00

"Isn't life strange?
A turn of the page
can read like before.
Can we ask for more?"
-- The Moody Blues, "Isn't Life Strange?"

Oh, to be anyplace but New York right now. One would almost think the environs have been invaded by the ghosts of John Gacy, Jeff Dahmer and everybody's fave Texas sex fiend/torturer/murderer, the "candy man" himself, Dean Corll. I know I'm going to burn in hell for writing this, but the child sex abuse thing is kinda right in our faces at the moment (so to speak). Here we go again. Remember when this blog was just about UFOs?

So assistant Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine is in trouble big (joke making the rounds: "I don't know about Bernie Fine, but those boys must have been burnin' fine!") and a cottage industry of people tripping over themselves and others to gain the public eye seems relentless. I don't have any particular love for The Big Orange, though I guess it's my public duty to admit that, yes, during my not-nearly-so-exciting life I completed three courses of study there (all with the grade of "A," natch' -- would you expect less?).

The child sex allegations -- maybe not so much allegations, now that an old tape of Fine's wife speaking with Boy Number One seems to have surfaced on the national level -- have fostered in Syracuse a finger-pointing fest rarely witnessed in the area previously. The Syracuse Police Dept. refused to release old records of its previous negative investigation of Fine to the county district attorney, who responded angrily in front of TV cameras by accusing the police chief of gross incompetency, unwilling even to keep up with the science behind DNA research and other areas pertaining to criminal investigations. Amazingly, the DA also singled out the police division for having something to do with the vandalizing of a DA office associate's car. Not to be outdone, the police chief ordered that any and all pages of police records requested by the DA's office would now cost 50 cents a page.

Then the REALLY crazy stuff happened, as the U.S. Secret Service invaded Fine's home and carted away file cabinets and other Things Of Interest. Suddenly, all the locals cooperated and the police chief released the old investigative files. Now, not content to leave the situation as nuts as it has become, the absolutely worthless U.S. Dept. of Education has entered the fray, investigating Syracuse U's innards, perhaps to appear relevant as well as overblown. Frankly, I'm not sure the ancient Syracuse infrastructure will be able to hold the anticipated crush of out-of-town media, Ph.D.'s, pomposity and child experts. Despite what you've read in the travel literature, let me tell you this in the words of the young, who have deserted this place in droves: This town blows. Some folk are frantically attempting to make it blow less, and it may eventually, but in the meantime. . .

And, oh yes, there was a second supposed victim, and now a fourth, and in between was a third -- a third whose father paints his son as a total and unapologetic liar who never met Fine alone at any time. The son retaliates in the press with accusations of his own about troubled relations with his father.

Those of us who picked up a few bucks writing over the years often encountered subjects we didn't really wish to bother with, sometimes because we know others will handle them better. Or maybe we just don't have enough information. Right now, I'm dependent upon news media stories from such sources as the Syracuse Post-Standard and Central NY TV and radio stations, and as a lowly blogger I certainly can't keep up with developments as they continue to crash earthward. The newspaper has come under fire because it held on to Mrs. Fine's secretly recorded (by Boy Number One) phone conversation tape for years, and some think they should have been turned over to the authorities long ago. I disagree. When the press and the cops become too cozy with one another, that's when we learn to fear, rather than respect, each. I prefer not to live with such apprehension.

Nevertheless, we now learn, in addition to those currently popular phone conversation tapes, that Bernie Fine's wife also may have had a sexual relationship with Boy Number One a few years after his athletic duties as a 12-13 year old, when he reached 17-18 years. Shock, horror! "Mrs. Robinson" for the junior set. And she also apparently confesses to knowing about her husband's relations with the boy. New stories circulating claim that Fine's wife had sexual contact with several (numerous?) S.U. basketball team players as a "rite of passage" in years past. I believe these assertions have been denied by the Fine family. What's truth, what's not? Hey, don't ask me.

Okay, there's no question that child sexual abuse exists, and the results can be horrible for a lifetime, particularly for girls, but no less for boys.

But there's that other side, disturbing to some, to those who bother to open their eyes and see. The problem is that the media would rather focus upon the horrors than other aspects. For instance, what to say about a university athletics dept. "ball boy" who was treated to trips around the country with a top team, enjoying the benefits along the way? It's interesting that a significant number of sexual abuse cases surface only after the good times and money disappear.

And it's fascinating how the number of abuse incidents have skyrocketed since the cottage industry of abuse "professionals" has proliferated throughout society, waving a magic wand and proclaiming all instances of sexual encounters based upon age discrepancies as abuse. Poof! You're abused, now go sue for the big money. It's always about the money, as it may ultimately be for Syracuse University. Sometimes, the "abused" come forward for reasons other than to warn potential victims. It's the economy, stupid. It's the money, stupid.

We demand victims, however defined. And some of those boys, already street-smart for their age, can be smart in other ways, in ways one anticipates only from adults. With the routine availability of texting, sexting, tweeting, image sharing and all sorts of digital opportunities, anything goes now.

There's a time in every young person's life known as coming of age. Strangely, one's personal sex equipment functions very early on, and telling young people that it's because "God is just tempting you" sounds about as crazy as pedophile priests insisting God told 'em to do it. Sex is a weird beast, yet it's the reason we are all here. Sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes it hurts and sometimes it ends in the murder of passion or the passion of murder. Sometimes it's a woman and a boy (the movie, "Private Lessons" certainly exemplified a boy's fantasy) Sometimes it's a man and a boy. Sometimes a woman and man share in the bounty. Sometimes a boy from a broken home meets a man who gives him a good life and an education, and the boy becomes a doctor, lawyer or embraces other professions -- and few would ever know. But the professional sex abuse prevention brigade is out there, keeping us safe from ourselves and presumed devils. As did The Inquisition.

So, The Sexperts increasingly invade our lives, often with religious influence, to establish an agenda of morality via legislation.. One size fits all. And if it's not The Sexperts it's the experts attempting to tame us in other ways -- the global warming crew, for example, who once again were embarrassed a few days ago, when even more old e-mails extolling their lies were released publicly by some renegade force.

As world economies plummet, with more and more young people prostituting themselves on the streets, just what do the sex police intend to offer as an alternative? Hope and change?

Allow me to wrap up some basic observations from the non-hysterical realm, regarding young and older male sexual relationships, without the perfect storybook distortions of which "normal" dreams are made:

Like it or not, since ancient times men have had their boys, and this apparently inherent human activity probably continues today in numbers to astound -- leading the rational mind to ask why. Does anybody really think that ships' captains of days gone by kept cabin boys around simply to act as servants? Military leaders were notorious for their boy attendants. In areas of Melanesia, as we mentioned a few blog entries ago, it is acceptable and encouraged for men to raise boys from ages 7-13 apart from their families, and in doing so to perform invasive sex acts upon them in the belief that it will make the boys better men. There's no prison industry to send the men away for years, and no legal system insistent upon taking away homes and money to provide "cures" and payoffs for attorneys and rats inhabiting a legal system gone wild.

In contrast, our growing child protective industry staffed by "professionals" from various fields continues to make the issue either black or white, excluding historically and socially relevant variations, while at the same time politicians lower than weasels continue to take advantage of the "child abuse" issue to win re-election based upon serving up even more redundant child legislation in a law book jungle already filled with it.

It's not uncommon knowledge that many women are aware if their husbands or boyfriends have boys on the side, and they tolerate, if not embrace the fact, because knowing it's a male and not another woman at least gives them a glimmer of comfort about maintaining their sometimes shaky relationships.

It is pathetic that athletics and every word mouthed by coaching personnel have a strong grip on the daily life-and-death activities of communities -- and, by the way, where would college and professional athletics be without homosexuality at all levels and ages? Remember football star David Kopay? How about Olympics activities, when condoms are requested in quantity, especially among young gay men? Let's not be stupid about the way things have always been. Feel-good attempts to change the leopard's spots through extended bureaucracy, hearsay, public humiliation, arrests, incarceration and additional child legislation will just drive an already clueless, hyper-vigilant, anxiety-ridden society to wolf down even more antidepressant medications, as it begs for increased government surveillance and spending to save us from the inescapable. The things going on are not new, but panic has set in.

When is it child abuse and when is it not? To paraphrase sexual philosopher Bill Clinton, it depends upon the meaning of what is is.

Steve Jobs and the Others

2011-11-25T13:30:00.004-05:00

He ranks among the most ingenious inventors of the century, and nobody can disparage the contributions of Steve Jobs (and others of his discipline). Yes, think of what the personal computer has done for us.

Now, think of what the computer has done to us, for the future reeks of cyber-instability.

Governments can track our every move, and so perhaps can your employer. Computer portability deprives us of sleep and assures longer hours working away from the office. Power grids, nuclear power plants, public water authorities, the military and law enforcement personnel -- all apparently susceptible to computer hacking -- are as dependent upon the chip as a baby on the bottle. Does anybody doubt that malicious hackers will always be with us?

The computer is helping China and other nations achieve a dangerous level of power. The computer has assisted criminals in running the U.S. economy into near-bankruptcy at lightning speed.

Young schoolchildren and college students are ruled by the computer, enslaved by its charms, depriving them of socialization and sometimes any emotional contact with reality. Just look at the mental health statistics and medical professionals' need to drug suicidal computer users with medications which, strangely, further their risk of taking their own lives. I think Big Pharma loves computers. I think Big Anything embraces computers to use them against us in some way.

What to do when the sun finally emits that one gigantic burst of energy -- perhaps followed directly by another -- that heads toward Earth and destroys every satellite in orbit? What happens when a rogue country or power at last gets around to launching a few level E1 or roughly equivalent electromagnetic pulsation devices, deadly to every improperly shielded thing running on chips (instant trash beyond repair)?*** Imagine the panic engulfing young people who lack access to computer technology, unable to solve even simple problems as they lack even the basics of common sense and old-fashioned problem-solving methods. Public services may well be replaced by chaos. Predictions that successful deployment of EMP weapons could hurl modern societies back into the 18th century must not be taken lightly.

Perhaps a tiny preview of the future materialized last March, when an American military plane experienced a GPS-disabling electronic attack from North Korea during air warfare exercises.

Computer technology is not an episode of "Star Trek," where advanced gadgetry routinely saves the universe. All is not guaranteed to end well with reliance on computer technology. While we can thank Mr. Jobs for his brilliance and miss his presence, let's not be so sure that such profound technological and corporate acumen hasn't fundamentally, indeed ultimately weakened and doomed us amongst our own robust feelings of strength and accomplishment. Facebook, Zuckerberg, Google, Jobs, Gates and other corporations and names of worship descend upon us. I'm nobody's expert, but I'm wondering if we'll eventually find neither freedom nor salvation in the chip. And who knows, something better may come along to scrap and eclipse the entire computer industry one day, making it as irrelevant as 8-track tape cartridges (though my remaining token 8-track from Radio Shack still works, I confess). In the future, will honored giants of the computer industry be regarded as god-like wizards -- or as just some guys who invented something that was fun and helpful for a while, but didn't quite work out the way folks expected?

*** After I wrote this, the Fox-TV series, "Terra Nova" happened to feature a story depicting widespread computer chip destruction due to electromagnetic effects caused by a falling meteorite -- and all damages were repaired quickly, just in time for the end of the show. Unfortunately, real-life EM devastation would be far worse and not so easily overcome, depending upon the strength and altitude of the offending precipitant. Speaking of "Terra Nova," this series really needs something. I guess the actors are okay, but the storyline and weekly script-writing suffer tremendously. The Guesswhatkindasauruses and the Imgonnachewoffyourlegasauruses are realistic enough, but the "Sixers" add little but a diversion from things that we already badly require diversion from. Now, if the "Sixers" were something like the mutant psycho humans created secondary to a plague in the old movie, "The Omega Man," they might have something besides expensive weekly kiddie fluff and painfully contrived dialogue to show for their efforts. And how is it that the commander's son has managed to live five years outside the gates, hiding out on his own? Seems as though somewhere along the way he would have been eaten by a Gotchagonnadevouryourassasaurus. Calling Godzilla! Where's Godzilla when you need him? Or Billy Mumy? I'd even settle for the "Lost in Space" robot from the TV series over this mess. Or maybe they just need (sigh...) a vampire, like everybody else.

Be True to Your School

2011-11-20T13:40:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving week always brings Thanksgiving memories to some. I can't help much with that tradition, but in honor of all the weird stuff going on with Penn State, Syracuse and other universities, I thought a little sports story might be in order. Yeah, I hate what sports have become, but that's okay. Unfortunately, as many of you know, there have been some real tragedies on the playing -- mostly football -- field at high school and college levels, sometimes ending in death. Yes, occasionally athletes, sports "heroes," die doing what they love most, and society embraces them as the gods many believe them to be. But who cares about the intellectually gifted students? Kids, if you're exceptionally brainy, sports-teamless and feel as loved as a pile of dog poop in your school, this touching story is for you. . .and happy Thanksgiving to all. . .

Though only 16, Jasper's brilliance for science was recognized throughout the high school, but his fellow students looked upon him merely as a curiosity.

However, one day during a science lab session, Jasper discovered astonishing new methods to interpret the mysteries of both celestial mechanics and quantum physics. In fact, he may have stumbled upon the key to the UFO phenomenon's identity, leading his overjoyed science teacher to proclaim him a true intellectual "phenom" -- or at least a phenom problem solver.

Unfortunately, upon exiting the classroom Jasper slipped on a banana peel discarded by a football player and hit his head on the floor, dying instantly, even though the banana from whence it came had been grown organically. Yes, even green can kill. Along with Jasper's passing went his intricate mental scientific calculations, not yet entered into the computer, and now lost forever.

The student body, frankly, wasn't too distraught because nobody really hung out with Jasper, but they visited school "grief counselors" anyway, and the sessions did provide a way to cut classes. The grief counselors were looked upon as comparable to gods or psychic brain surgeons because their talents involved helping girls cry and psychologically draining boys of whatever testosterone society hasn't already confiscated. The grief counselors were obviously special, for they had grazed professionally among the folk who successfully embraced and fine-tuned the Sybil / multiple personality scam for decades and became fabulously wealthy by manipulating unaware patients into becoming even more screwed up than they were to begin with. Grief counselors were almost magical, for they could provide most of the counseling that now-useless parents used to be responsible for.

Peculiarly, local media, which characteristically reported about high school athlete deaths for weeks, seemingly endlessly, barely mentioned Jasper's demise. After all, he could offer the world only genius, and had played no sports.

When the day arrived for calling hours, school staff scraped together -- with tremendous effort -- a small gaggle of students to venture into the funeral home. The grief counselors had to tell them what to say to grieving family members because students were clueless when it came to using powers of speech, and parents who had long ago relegated the teaching of common sense to counselors weren't much help in that respect, either.. "Can't we just text his family?" texted one student to, and in the presence of, a grief counselor, without speaking a word.

Still, only eight classmates showed up for calling hours. Most spoke so softly or inarticulately that Jasper's parents could barely understand them. At the end of this very short receiving line stood two school jocks, the only members of the athletic section present, and as they approached Jasper's parents each struggled for the right words to say, even though grief counselors had written them down on shreds of computer paper. One jock pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it intently as he read the words to Jasper's parents. "I'm sorry," he said, repeating the note verbatim.

The other athlete, now standing alone as his friend made a hasty exit, unable to find his own grief counselor-inspired message among his pockets, yet confident of his feelings, went ad lib: "Um, yeah, I'm sorry your kid couldn't measure up to be part of our team."

With that, noting Jasper's parents had suddenly frozen where they stood, jock number two rushed for the exit, immensely proud of himself for surely expressing what the whole school must have thought about Jasper, the distant non-athlete whose superior intellect had been as welcome as leprosy. Popularity meant everything, and if Jasper couldn't understand the importance of fighting over the transportation of a ball from here to there on a school playing field, of what use was he?

The next day, things returned to normal at school as cheerleaders cheered hypnotically, colorfully-attired jocks thrilled bleachers replete with fans, and brainy, inquisitive kids who wanted only to learn in a classroom devoid of athletic arrogance and playing-field overkill sat at their desks in silence, feeling like freaks. They knew only too well that if any among them slipped on the next banana peel, organically grown or not, and died without wearing that special high school letter or number, they would never, ever be accepted into the afterlife and, worse, the media would ignore their intellectual legacy, and instead rush off to another high school or college locker room to honor the sweaty practitioners of overblown, ever-fading accomplishments.

On the bright side, however, the smart classroom students remembered reading in recent scientific literature that bananas -- hence banana peels -- may disappear from the face of the earth someday.

Clearly, all they had to do was wait for their moment of safe passage.

(The end, uh-huh)

Yes, We Have No Petitions

2011-11-16T12:40:00.002-05:00

I confess to having signed a reveal-the-truth-about-UFOs petition or two in recent years, but I'm not likely to do so again anytime soon. Not trying here to sound like a TV psychic, but I expected nothing less from The White House this month than for its public info handlers to go running, not to extensively documented sources indicating that somebody else from somewhere else seems to be flitting around and influencing us in some strange way, but to a preamble from the Condon report or to faded, dog-eared print-outs from Air Force "fact sheets" of the eighties. Wherever the Obama folk went for their dismissal, you can bet that they just wanted this bugaboo out of the way in order to concentrate on all the other things that won't get done right.

As they say on the streets, word to your mother: I know how this works. For decades I wrote presidents and members of Congress about the matter of UFOs. The official brush-off is so polished and so repetitive and so kindly put that inquiring minds, once dismissed with literate gibberish, may feel blessed just to have received a response. Yes, form letters can be hypnotic. Wow, lucky me, a letter addressed to me from higher up, and it says. . .oh. . .well, at least they answered. . .

While so many writers and researchers, including me, have been wrapped up in fits over Dr. Ed Condon's Colorado report on UFOs -- which obviously raised more questions than it answered -- my kick in the pants occurred years before its release. In 1964, the same year I joined the (gone) National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, NICAP released its exhaustively documented report, "The UFO Evidence," and a copy (free complete download available at nicap.org), as intended, was given to each and every member of Congress. Additionally, this was truly the year of the UFO, as reliable and dramatic UFO reports began showing up all over the world in a wave even before the report's release.

Encouraging responses from Congressional offices were polite, but nowhere near what NICAP's Donald Keyhoe, Richard Hall or other key participants envisioned. Supportive newspaper articles and media talk shows kept the subject in the limelight for a bit, but the glow of positive publicity dimmed quicker than a campfire doused by a summer thunderstorm. Instead, as time went by, negative Air Force statements gained some prominence, seemingly popping into view whenever UFO activity received public notice. An episode of ABC-TV's "Les Crane Show" (see my earlier series of blog entries re this program) became a UFO ridicule fest that fit right in with uninformed conjecture about the UFO phenomenon sweeping the nation, thanks in no small part to debunkers and the wide media reach of government denials.

So I ask -- if thick, extraordinarily documented reports about UFO activity given to every member of Congress were politely received and then tossed aside for the most part in 1964, just what did we anticipate from current petitions sent to The White House? What if the best we can ever expect in return is another Condon/Colorado style "study," next time worse than the last? You know, to get us off everybody's back, easily accomplished with another measly $300,000 of government funding -- just enough to make the shadows go away.

Me, I think the answer to taking action regarding the truth still lies in Congress, but I'll be darned if I know how to make people of generally conventional thinking delve into the seemingly unconventional, even when astounding evidence overtly (and apparently quite covertly) abounds. Unfortunately, the viability of most issues becomes dependent upon the enhancement of one's chances for re-election, and UFO evidence has never created the winning ticket.

Penn State, the State Pen and a Political Penchant

2011-11-14T17:33:00.004-05:00

If you thought the child sexual abuse allegations flowing out of Penn State were beyond comprehension, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The thing to keep in mind right up front is that 2012 is a major year for political elections.

Convincing government representatives to face the UFO issue head-on seems all but impossible, but you put an issue out there with the word child in it, and legislators at all levels of government become instant champions and prostitutes, writing and selling their new, individually-crafted child protection legislation, all prettied and perfumed up, in exchange for votes. Watch the news programs -- it's already happening at several levels. But it's not about the children, it's all about the money. When has it not been about the money? Money leads to power and power to money.

I'm willing to suggest, in a nation already rife with enough criminal law to deal with pedophiles a hundred times over, that most child protection laws were proposed and passed by whoring lawmakers who knew only too well that anytime you can couple even a hint of child welfare legislation with the if-we-can-save-just-one attitude, applause, kudos and votes, votes, votes and increased power over the people will magically appear. Trouble is, once we start piling similar laws upon more similar laws, the thumbscrews already applied to adults, children who will become adults one day and, indeed, all of society are turned even tighter. In the bigger picture, a plethora of legislation of any kind destroys society's fabric with resultant regimentation and fear.

I'm trying to keep a calm and rational mind here, but if you've read my previous stuff you know that doesn't always go so well for me.

So we already have child protective laws out there -- so many, in fact, that if you're an adult and don't fear the power of neighborhood youth and their litigious parents, you're not looking at the new world. And it doesn't matter whether you have your own family.

There are times I've thought of applying for substitute teacher positions at public schools, but then current observations creep in, casting that idea to the wind. How would it go in the classroom for me? Well, let's see. . .

What if I'm in a classroom and happen to say something "offensive," causing a student to go running home to tell an already hysterical parent about the episode? What happens if neurotic little Cathy or Caleb, already high on medications prescribed by the school psychiatrist, misinterprets a facial expression I toss their way? Or, arghhhhhhh! What if I accidentally brush by or touch a student in a crowded hallway and the child just happens to be cleverly psycho and all-knowing about causing tons of trouble for teachers he or she doesn't particularly like?

And here we go. . .based on merely the whisper of an accusation, The Authorities -- a growing and I believe quite comfy cottage industry of public-payroll child welfare agents, sex police, attorneys representing all sides, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and even the pharmaceutical representatives -- jump into a fetid mix they construct themselves, and before I know it I'll be poked and prodded and questioned and interrogated and damned-near water-boarded while investigators explore my trash, my files, my computer, creditors, bodily fluids, potential gallstones, kidney stones, dust bunnies under the bed and the interior of my vehicle. Then they interrogate my friends, family members (probably both living and dead -- they have their ways), current pets and the beasts in the field.

When all is said and done to death -- even though I'm innocent of all charges -- I'm marked, branded for all time somewhere in somebody's paperwork or computerized notations. Innocence doesn't matter -- the investigation matters. The tiniest appearance of impropriety matters. The money matters, the big money matters. Power over us matters.

When there is a sexual crime, obviously a horror story in itself, when does the investigative industry become as bad or worse than the action in question? I'm still trying to get my hands around Homeland Security going after international child pornography rings, when I reasonably expected the agency was formed to protect us from terrorists, and had plenty of work to do in that area.

Or, as Hitler's Gestapo was fond of telling people before searching homes against their will, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't object to our coming in and having a look." Aren't we already there? Guilty until proven innocent. Guilty after proven innocent. Remember the McMartin Preschool sex abuse furor a few years ago over, ultimately -- nothing? Lives ruined.

So the public agonizes over Penn State and The Very Idea of what transpires every day in the country, in the world, and even as I write this I can put my ear to the ground and hear the distant tapping of screenwriters creating scripts for the certain-to-be motion pictures and TV episodes. And legislators are busily tapping out new child laws. That's what they do. It's the money, stupid.

As usual, once the legal system dispenses with the actions of a Penn State coach, the cure will be money. Money for the victims, money for the lawyers, money for the psychiatric industry. Yes, money, the curative herb for all ills. "Damages," it's called. Funny how permanently damaged people can so often be fixed and healed with money.

One interesting aspect of the Penn State cacophony is the way so many other lives will be destroyed by the actions of one man, the perpetrator. Everybody's guilty. What now? See something, say something? Really? Or just shut up because the official investigative scalpel will destroy you, too? You can't win. It's a veritable domino effect.

During the years I served in Air Force hospitals, I cared for more children than I can remember, dependents of active duty personnel, and I prefer to think I did a lot of good things. In fact, over on my Air Force blog I posted a letter of gratitude our clinic received from a teenage girl. Those were less complicated times in the sixties and seventies. When I operated my own clinic for a time, I treated lots of women and children -- in various stages of undress -- at the end of a long hallway in rooms where I had no female chaperones. Nobody at all. Today? May as well play Russian roulette if somebody isn't witnessing your every move, for legal reasons.

But it's 2011. I feel uncomfortable even walking on the same side of the street as a child. I doubt that I would tie a kid's shoelace or even say hi. You can look into a parent's eyes and often see the apprehension, the suspicion of potential "danger stranger." So I stay uninvolved, I must. Can't put a band-aid on a cut. Can't give directions. Can't warn children of problems. No way can I teach other people's kids anything or try to impart common sense. Would I even call 9-1-1 in a child emergency, or just run home and cut up my shoes so even footprints can't be traced to me? Everybody is a suspect, all must be punished purely for being there, somewhere, anywhere.

Parents and society's professional manipulators blaze hysterical now, bonkers-grade adults at the ready to call authorities for any reason whatsoever at the drop of a hat. No longer is there an expectation that children, like adults, must share in that life thing called risk, and in the process the children become wussies and little more than electronic device-motivated zombies. Forget the sex part, there's worse going on out there. There's destruction of the top and the decay can't help but progress on down to the bottom.

But some wonder -- how is it that men experience sexual relations with children? Where does this come from?

Well, here's the pièce de résistance, though in no way am I writing this to condone what happened in the showers of Penn State: Years ago, when I wrote occasional articles and book reviews for a newspaper, I was assigned (and reviewed) a superb, highly-recommended book entitled, The Spirit and the Flesh, by Walter L. Williams (1986). Dealing primarily with Native American cultures which look upon gender and sex far differently than the rest of Western civilization -- for which they were often destroyed, usually by, um, good Christians -- Williams also explores other parts of the world which see things differently.

(Okay, readers, this is the WARNING! part where you stop reading, unless you can handle the truth. Can't pretty this part up very much, sorry.)

Specifically, Williams references parts of Melanesia, singling out portions of New Guinea and nearby islands, where it is believed that both human breast milk and semen are important for a boy's growth into manhood. I'll spare my readers the details, but as things generally go, the male child between ages seven and thirteen is raised by an older man, generally the wife's brother, who takes him for several months or several years. During this period, the boy is routinely administered semen through active oral and anal sex, or by a "rubdown" -- and this assures his growth into manhood. Period. There is apparently historical and, arguably, biological precedent for such behavior. Is this an innate practice among humans? Since we humans just love looking up our roots and ancient origins from which we developed, try those humble Melanesia beginnings on for size, where apparently the word predator didn't make it into their child-raising vocabulary.

The Penn State shower incidents, it seems, wouldn't cause a batted eyelash in some cultures -- places which nurtured and evolved long before we. Our justice system works well when it works, but it's about to go nuts now as potential legislative stars struggle to be reborn squeaky-clean and noticed across the land. This society simply wouldn't have it any other way, and its yearning minions will always have one hell of a good dysfunctional time trying to legislate morality. The money. The power. The university endowments. The money. The. . .children? What children? Anybody say something about children?

Andy Rooney's Joke and Arthur Godfrey's UFO

2011-11-08T17:43:00.003-05:00

When the late "Sixty Minutes" (CBS-TV) favorite Andy Rooney (1919-2011) retired a few weeks ago, and again following his death last week, abundant mention was made of his position as a writer on Arthur Godfrey's television show in the fifties. In fact, an archived film clip of Godfrey is shown where he dryly reads a joke Rooney wrote, the setup question being, what do people on other planets eat? Answer: Venus schnitzel. Hmm.

Godfrey was portrayed as a "nasty" man off camera and sans microphone. But to my parents and grandparents (and especially to one great-aunt) he was funny, personable -- and actually hosted one of the most popular daytime shows on TV. Well, until he got into a snit one day in 1953 and fired singer Julius LaRosa on-air for all to see. That's when Godfrey realized the women in his wide TV audience madly loved LaRosa, a TV tube heartthrob of the era, and thus began Godfrey's steady ratings decline until he all but disappeared from TV. Yep, a nasty man. Kinda cheapens an old 78 r.p.m. record by Godfrey we had around the house as I was growing up. One side was his narration with music of "What is a Girl?" and the opposite side, "What is a Boy?" Of course, those cutesy/syrupy songs were recorded long before everything depended upon what the meaning of is was.

Godfrey, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve who had piloted USAF, Navy and private planes extensively, later hosted a radio show, and one day during June of 1965 Godfrey amazed his listeners with an announcement that he had experienced a dramatic UFO encounter sometime in years past. Prior to this, he had told nobody.

The incident occurred during an evening flight from NY to Washington, D.C. and accompanying Godfrey was his co-pilot, Frank Munciello. Near Philadelphia a "brilliantly lighted object" suddenly appeared near the right wing, forcing Godfrey to quickly bank left in an evasive maneuver. The FAA tower in Philadelphia reported no air traffic nearby, but Godfrey responded, "Well, there's darned well something up here."

The object soon reversed course, circled hastily around the plane and appeared off the left wing. Godfrey made a sharp turn, but the UFO followed his desperate move, and it copied every succeeding maneuver in unison. "It stayed there on the left wing, no matter what I did," Godfrey stated, admitting that he and his co-pilot were frightened.

Finally, the object took off and disappeared into the night, no doubt leaving Godfrey and his co-pilot longing for a really, really funny Venus schnitzel joke.

Radio Killed the Radio Star/Blackouts/7 Billion Served

2011-11-02T19:08:00.006-04:00

RADIO KILLED THE RADIO STAR: A few years ago on this blog, in a two-parter, I wrote about Jim Reith, whom for years had his own show on WSYR Radio (Syracuse, NY), a member of the Clear Channel Communications network. I won't belabor the details, which you may look up on the search engine above, but based upon correspondence I sent him regarding UFO documentation, he took multiple opportunities during one three-hour afternoon program (also available widely via the Internet) to snipe at me by name. I was not present. Skepticism would have been fine, but he went one step further and kept referring to me using obvious derogatory terms depicting me as crazy or deluded. Remember, all of this was based only upon correspondence I sent to him, respectful and informative. He never apologized, because he wasn't sorry.

Even prior to that day, in my opinion, his was among the worst radio talks show ever in Central NY. Yes, he leaned heavily upon guests affiliated with local public service agencies, religious institutions and educational, political, public safety and business entities. But he also excluded and dismissed chances to interview guests "on the fringe," and in so doing deprived listeners of the opportunity to learn about things they might otherwise not know about. Reith is very religious, by his own admission, and it was apparent that he refused to explore subjects and guests that might conflict with some religious teachings (however, I chuckled when he recently played an artist's music on his show and the selection, to his surprise, had the "F" word in it which clearly made it out over the air because he didn't reach the "kill" button in time).

Despite Reith's dedicated community good-deed efforts, he also built and put the shingles on one of the most boring, lackluster radio programs I've ever heard. Others will obviously disagree. Yet, of course, it was his show, and he could feature whatever guests he wished, or not. More's the pity, for the WSYR broadcast pie sacrificed a lot of informative and entertaining slices, sometimes suggesting an obvious courtesy to the faithful (say what you want about "psychics," but that subject ultimately became taboo locally, even though listeners swarmed the telephone lines -- if WSYR was lacking for sponsors in any way, excluding hot fringe topics certainly wouldn't attract more advertisers).

As time went on, callers became the same old familiar voices -- his political friends, his golfing friends, this friend, that friend, etc. -- and when even a particular sponsor calls in frequently, enough to make listeners roll their eyes and think of the words, bought and paid for, well, what do you have? The show, long ago expanded to four hours, was important for dragging in listeners during "drive time" from work, and what typically could be one subject for the entire four hours would be explored over and over again until inflicting near-brain death upon listeners. If Reith, dependent upon news sources outside of Clear Channel for much of his subject matter, did not like opinions posted by others who didn't leave names with their comments, they were "anonymous Internet morons." There was little room for anybody but Jim Reith and his narrow scope -- and now, evidently, there's no room for Reith, either.

Nobody worthy should lose their job, but darned if the Clear Channel politburo didn't dispense with Reith and three other Syracuse employees (including Reith's former producer) a few days ago. There was apparently no warning -- the Reith show was gone by October 26, having been aired routinely the day before, and since then I have not heard one current on-air employee dare mention the mass-terminations. Clear Channel nationally, like many broadcast entities, has financial problems, and I'm sure every employee is in fear for his or her job, as layoffs and firings continue to occur across the nation.

Years ago, Clear Channel had purchased five or six Syracuse radio stations, and a TV station for a while after that, and CCC is known for buying up poorly performing or inexpensive broadcast property all over the country. Trouble is, the economy went south and all of that extravagant spending came home to roost. In the meantime, Clear Channel went for talk shows like ducks take to water, and on local levels nationally it appeared that everybody and his brother or sister associated with broadcasting thought they could host a show -- or at least station managers, program directors or advertising heads thought that would be the case. And it was, until now. And in both the good times and as the economy kept tanking, stations clung to the familiar and eschewed the uncertainty of true innovation -- pretty much reflecting the way Washington currently functions.

A major reason for the Reith show's very existence was obviously to praise and talk up Central New York on behalf of the business community, a blatant chamber of commerce of the airwaves, far more infomercial than talk show. Frankly, the program could have been so much more, but it wished to appeal to a certain local segment and that's exactly what WSYR got, leaving so many potential listeners who craved a real talk show out in the cold. This was the fatal flaw, and they can point to their declining ratings until the cash cows come home, but with the show gone the words, that-show-really-sucked should be engraved above the station's offices.

So the Reith show held on for some 11 years, odorless, yet stinking up the town via powerful radio signals, its content akin to old fish wrapped in unyielding commercial breaks, intended, near as I can figure, to keep listeners hooked more for the advertising than for the knowledge imparted. He had his fans and he had his detractors, plenty of both. If certain callers or e-mails cast doubt upon local plans for mega-developments, he blamed established residents for their lack of insight about the future. They were idiots. They were morons. In more recent times, he might instead use the term, "geniuses." Though he claimed he didn't hang up on callers, he surely tended to cut them off if they wished to argue a point much of the time. In fact, he once remarked that he did not intend to argue with callers, and on one occasion I heard him remind one and all as he experienced a snit that the program was called "The Jim Reith Show" and if he did not want to accept phone calls, that was his decision. So, the scenario would generally be a caller making a point, Reith thanking them, gently ending the call and then establishing his opinion as the last word. With the caller gone, what more could be said? Yet, the sponsors flowed in, supporting the show, probably not because of content, but because WSYR-AM provided awesome broadcast tower power, featuring the strongest and most easily accessed AM radio station in town. In fact, WSYR even went to the FM band simultaneously and listeners consequently received double the Reith show and several times the sound quality during Yankee games, when players on the field presumably could spit out their chewing tobacco in living stereo if offered microphone coverage. I continue to contend that WSYR Radio could simply play the sounds of dog farts all day long and ratings would soar because the station signal is strong and easy to tune in -- and sponsors would support the effort tremendously because of the widespread airplay reach available.

Yet -- the Reith show has disappeared, and one might only conclude that the advertising revenue and/or significant audience had absconded, no longer able to act as a crutch to prop up a pathetic program which would have been canceled years ago if not for the fact that WSYR wielded the most powerful and far-reaching transmitter in town -- and obviously Reith had his connections as a local news reporter, whatever or whomever they were, to give him a several-hour format in the first place. Maybe it just seemed a good idea at the time. One can grow a "Chia Pet" anywhere.

I once wrote in this blog that I hoped one day to see the Reith show disappear, replaced perhaps by the sound of frogs croaking or chirping. Unfortunately, frog time was instantly usurped by more national radio talk. In the meantime, Those Layoffs or Firings Or Whatever They Were are not mentioned, not a word, by on-air personnel, as if they never happened -- as if neither Reith nor his show ever existed. The Clear Channel Communications central politburo and its useful local reps in upper management have seemingly erased his name from existence. Too bad, since Reith accumulated almost 30 respectable years in local broadcasting, much of it as a newscaster, winning an award or two. But life goes on and a pungent scent of fear must permeate over the Syracuse Clear Channel Communications staff, as well it should. In Russia, don't they use polonium to obliterate memory lane?

Shed no tears for Reith, he'll do just fine. Over the years he obviously established numerous contacts and probably had job offers before or soon after the door slammed. In this area, I wouldn't be surprised to see his show return to WSYR if the winds of change alter direction, as local broadcast management continues to perform the same actions over and over. Still, it is tragic that CCC rids itself of long-time employees barely without warning -- maybe Clear Channel's highest echelon frets over the potential sound of frogs croaking near every transmitter in the country.

The best role CCC could assume is to help its national audience and Congress understand that FCC powers should be curbed dramatically so we can send these word/morals police back to their original intended job -- to regulate airwave assignments. Maybe then radio can blossom into an entity that need not fear "naughty" words and pictures, thus leaving the audience to make a personal decision to stay tuned or not. "Politically correct" has turned us timid, voiceless and fearful of new thoughts.

I hope Central NY radio develops other local talk shows, with the right hosts. But the way this town works, a town whose broadcast community is like family, to the exclusion of innovation, as aging broadcast industry members hang on almost until becoming petrified or mummy-like and dripping dust, Reith may just pop up hosting something else, and whatever local broadcast mummified entity introduces him will tell listeners how great it will be to have this "new" show in town. And no, UFOs and Fortean subjects will not be welcome for sober discussion.

My advice, wherever you reside in the country, whatever radio station you access:: Tune in -- and tune out if necessary. If (when) the Internet kills off radio, that will only happen because the lords of radio allowed and blindly encouraged the action.

AND SPEAKING OF CONTROLLING THE AIRWAVES . . . We are told that at 2:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 9th, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Communications Commission intend to conduct for the first time ever a national test of the Emergency Alert System, and all radio and televised broadcasts across the USA will be disrupted for about 3 1/2 minutes. While all manner of commentary can be whipped up about this maneuver, I only wish to thank FEMA and the FCC for scheduling this event on November 9, to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the great Northeastern U.S. power blackout. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't intentional -- but it sure is funny that a broadcast blackout would be arranged on the same day of the year as a major power blackout in which UFOs were observed by many witnesses of credible caliber -- a situation so mysterious that even the late Dr. James McDonald testified before Congress about the widespread power failure's UFO aspect.

SEVEN BILLION SERVED. . .Estimates of world human population reaching seven billion this week are not comforting, particularly when another billion will appear in just another 10-13 years. National news sources seem to enjoy pointing out that all of those people would easily fit inside Texas -- ignoring that each person will require considerable acreage just to sustain them during their lifetime. Once the government, religious, technological, medical and pharmaceutical establishments figure out how to encourage even more human birth, save every hapless womb occupant and force adults to live to 125, even as nature's resources dwindle and become fouled by all the extra consumers, and even as we systematically destroy a wealth of other species on a planet supposedly shared roughly in some balance, life will really be great, huh? I know what we are, and maybe you know what we are. Be very, very frightened of the future, or laugh if it up if it will make you feel better. I just love the smell of alleged paranoia in the morning. Et vous?

The End of Halloween 2011

2011-10-28T15:56:00.002-04:00

With these photos, we'll call an end to Halloween movie photo month, such as it turned out. Three from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) may be familiar to many of you. Unfortunately, the remake with Keanu Reeves was not impressive, and the digitalized Gort (the robot) looked like a fugitive from a cartoon junkyard. The fourth pic is allegedly from "Battle in Outer Space," a movie probably as bad as the photo indicates. I KNOW I've seen this film, probably on some commercial TV station which obtained it almost free of charge, but I can't really remember the details. Nor do I wish to. Likely something out of Japan way back, and if so I can only add, thank heavens for Godzilla, tested and true.

More Pics for Halloween 2011

2011-10-28T15:51:00.002-04:00

"The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958) was shot in color and enjoyed the stop-action animation expertise of Ray Harryhausen, as he brought its menacing creatures (such as the Cyclops) to life. "Konga" (1961) starred the recently deceased character actor Michael Gough, whose ability to project reserved creepiness -- even as the perfect gentleman -- in many a horror and suspense movie kept him in demand. No matter his other accomplishments, I expect most will remember him for his "Batman" motion picture affiliation as Alfred the butler.

Additional Halloween Photos, 2011

2011-10-28T15:45:00.002-04:00

King Kong. The original from 1933 -- remember, in 1933 the stop-action maneuvers performed would make this almost equivalent to a manned flight to the moon among the thrilled theater audience, which had never seen anything quite like this before.

Thank You Robbie Graham & Silver Screen Saucers

2011-10-26T17:30:00.005-04:00

I wish to thank Robbie Graham, host of the excellent Web site, Silver Screen Saucers, for inviting me to write an article for him based upon some memories special to me regarding UFOs, science fiction movies and other things that influenced my interest in real UFO reports. Please click on the Silver Screen Saucers links below, and in the future consult the link list on the right -- and please do stay in touch with his site because he's always far ahead on upcoming movies about "saucers," extraterrestrials and the like.

Here's the intro:

http://silverscreensaucers.blogspot.com/2011/10/guest-blogger-exclusive-9.html

And here's my article:

http://silverscreensaucers.blogspot.com/2011/10/guest-blogger-robert-barrow.html

Halloween 2011 Continued

2011-10-25T11:35:00.002-04:00

I don't "do" ghosts on this blog, but digging up movie spirits of an era gone by works for Halloween month. Today:

An obvious pose from the original "Invaders From Mars" (1953) makes the aliens look like pajama-clad lifeguards. From the 1950s TV series "Superman," George Reeves is either fighting or dancing with a gorilla-like creature.

"This Island Earth" (1955) was "2 1/2 years in the making," according to its famous publicity campaign. Shown are Faith Domergue, Rex Reason and Jeff Morrow with a "mutant" worker. It took me years to realize that Rex and Rhodes Reason (brothers) were two different people, as they seem so much alike. Jeff Morrow was a great actor and came to my little town one day to perform in a play about Abraham Lincoln.

1940 brought us the film, "Dr. Cyclops" starring Albert Dekker. Dekker gained even more fame in later years when he was discovered dead, hanging from a shower curtain and clad in women's undergarments. The circumstances were said to be mysterious. Hmm. Some of you will probably ask me, and I don't know, if young actor Thomas Dekker (of TV's "The Secret Circle" and "Terminator") is related to Albert. But I'll say this much -- if I were Thomas Dekker's agent, I'd invent a family relationship as soon as possible. You can't buy publicity like this for a career enhancement! It never hurts to have a "funny uncle" in the family tree, and since Thomas Dekker has already written, directed and starred in a movie entitled "Whore" and played Lance Loud in a production about the famous Loud family, whose lives were tracked and filmed for 1970s TV, he could only benefit from such additional publicity. Now I ask you, how would you know these things if I didn't use Halloween month to impart important thoughts of this nature?

Octoberween 2011

2011-10-19T14:23:00.005-04:00

I continue to have upload problems, which means I can offer a few photos, but am unable to transfer text. This will be corrected, and indeed some of you should be darned glad I can't be wordy. I hoped to fill the month with old Halloween-appropriate photos, but at this rate I may lapse into November. Anyway, in the meantime here are a few more pics: Two are from the original "War of the Worlds" movie (dates are readily found as you place your cursor over each photo, or if you click on each). "Tobor the Great" (that's robot spelled backwards for those who can't stand the suspense of knowing why and what) makes like a can-opener when encountering an automobile occupied, we assume, by the enemy. A studio pose for "The Fly" is probably actually from "Return of the Fly," but I'm not sure, thanks to poor labels on my old photos. Finally, that's Faith Domergue (you may remember her from "This Island Earth") in "Cult of the Cobra." Isn't it great to know that most of you are likely too young to remember any of these? Well, that's our Halloween culture class for today. Don't forget the latest UFO news via the link list.

Photo Room Only

2011-10-12T14:16:00.004-04:00

I continue to have uploading issues to be corrected as soon as a technical person addresses them. In the meantime, since I'm unable to communicate effectively here, I'll just add a couple of photos from -- I don't know -- maybe an old, old "Superman" movie or serialized program? These certainly aren't Dorothy and the Tin Man! The "great" thing about my old photos is that so many of them are labeled incorrectly -- so enjoy the Halloween season and embrace mystery scenes of the past!

Photos to Suit the Month

2011-10-05T13:11:00.002-04:00

Some uploading problems are keeping me away from the blog at this time, but I did want to take the opportunity during this Halloween month to post old monster movie and actor photographs from my teenage-years collection (Why not? The world isn't exactly experiencing UFO fever right now. What can I say?). When technology decides to cooperate with me, soon I hope, I'll be back with you. You may recall that last year I spotlighted "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" and its sequels in photos. Here's one I left out -- obviously a studio promotion photo which looks suspiciously like a man in a rubber monster suit. (Oh, wait, it WAS a man in a rubber monster suit. . .Ricou Browning as I recall). I added a little color tinting for, um, dramatic effect.

The Score: Military Out, UFOs Still In

2011-09-23T14:35:00.002-04:00

UFOs? Yep, but not until the end. . .

Jake sat on the porch next to Uncle Bubba and Aunt Florence, each sipping a mint julep on this hot August night in the early seventies. Bubba still wore the hood from his Klan outfit, too tired and far too proud to remove it after a particularly grueling rally in the woods. He only lifted it far enough to drink. "Don't that jes' beat all?" Bubba asked the stars above. "The govamint don't let us go after the coloreds no more, can't even mess with the Jews! But I'll tell ya one thing I know for sure," continued Bubba, now looking Jake straight in the eye. "We still got to deal with the ho-mo-sexurals! The govamint ain't never, never gonna care about them abomina-shuns! I'm tellin' ya true, if the day ever comes when they lets fags and queers serve in the Army or Navy, hell, that'll be the day the govamint finally fesses up with the truth about flying saucers! Ain't gonna happen!" Jake finished his drink, shook his head and excused himself because he was leaving the small town and heading for Atlanta, where the variety of bars and recreational establishments he preferred to the local redneck hangouts would horrify Uncle Bubba. Jake wanted one more wild weekend in the city, his secret safe from all but his distant contacts, before his pending military enlistment based on a lie. . .

As even Uncle Bubba would know by now, the times they have a-changed, and what should have never been an issue in the U.S. military has been settled at last. A young person wishing to serve his or her country with the necessary talents can now sign up without that timeworn interrogation regarding the position of one's sexual orientation on life's precarious compass. Unfortunately, the government hasn't much to say about that OTHER truth.

It's times like this when I miss the heck out of the late Arizona Senator (and USAF general) Barry Goldwater. Not only did he speak out openly about the government hiding UFO information -- he also chided officials for condoning a ridiculous ban on gays in the Armed Forces.

Time Magazine. . .September 8, 1975. . .the cover that shocked America (pictured). Air Force Technical Sgt. Leonard Matlovich dared to confess The Big Forbidden, in uniform yet, at his own peril, as he fought officials in 1975 for the right to serve. Matlovich, a 12-year Air Force veteran awarded both the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for combat heroics involving three tours of duty in Vietnam, couldn't perform the desperate heroics needed to save his own career bacon once the military found out he was gay. There were lawsuits as Matlovich and the government fought one other, and in the end the airman, discharged against his will, won $160,000 from the feds in exchange for promising not to attempt readmission into the USAF.

The seventies even brought the country a TV movie about Matlovich's struggles, and after he died in the summer of 1988 from AIDS he was buried with full honors at Congressional Cemetery in Washington. Upon Matlovich's tombstone are two pink triangles, memorializing symbols the Nazis used during World War II to designate homosexuals (and since adopted by gay rights advocates). Underneath is the inscription Matlovich wrote himself for inclusion on the stone after his death:

A Gay Vietnam Veteran:
When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men
and a discharge for loving one.

To those who remember the Matlovich controversy, his self-epitaph might seem the end of the story, but for me the more interesting part is his burial site, located not 20 yards away from the final resting place of both former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his long-time associate Clyde Tolson -- alleged and assumed now to be part and parcel of the most famous closeted gay relationship ever known between two men in the upper echelons of U.S. government.

(For readers uninspired by today's subject matter, we note that Hoover also apparently maintained quite an interest in "flying saucer" reports known to the FBI. You may already have seen the trailer for a motion picture about Hoover's life starring Leonardo DeCaprio, directed by Clint Eastwood, set for release in November, and it will almost certainly deal with Hoover's sexual side, but not his UFO curiosity, automatically destined to merit zero attention. When it comes to "dramatic license" influencing caricature-like Hollywood motion picture "bio-pics," any emphasis upon a prominent person's UFO interest is truly equivalent to the proverbial fart in a crowded room. To put it delicately.)

Charles Hickson (1931-2011)

2011-09-19T13:36:00.003-04:00

Charlie Hickson has died, and Pascagoula will likely never again receive the sort of fame infused by his story. His was the account to make us say, hmm, maybe Charles Fort was right -- maybe we are "property."

The evening -- that unique evening -- was growing later and darker on that strange night in October of 1973. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, having been brought to the sheriff's office, began telling their bizarre story of alien abduction, an encounter that transformed their hopes for a few tranquil hours of fishing on the banks of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi to clock-stopping moments of horror. Hickson did his best to remain rational as he recounted, frankly, details of an unbelievable incident. Parker, however, was simply hysterical, apparently affected emotionally by something terrifying, a seemingly illogical confrontation with some nameless fear.

Nor did a tape recording (the audio, several minutes in length, may still be available on the Internet at no charge) made in secret after the sheriff left the two alone for a few minutes help to dispel their incredible account, for their apprehension and confusion remained alarmingly intact, with no vocal evidence of a hoax. Ultimately, even Dr. J. Allen Hynek would be impressed with the fishermen's harrowing story.

Another 28 years would go by before journalist Natalie Chambers wrote an astonishing update, distributed via the Associated Press, on October 21, 2001. It seems that Hickson and Parker had witnesses that night so long ago -- a car full of Navy servicemen who may have seen a peculiar airliner-size craft glide and descend into the fishing area.

Chambers' article should have shocked the world out of its negative complacency toward the UFO abduction issue -- and maybe it would have, had the country and the world not been consumed with other terrors, those of a very human nature, just weeks before.

During the years following the Pascagoula incident, Charlie Hickson never tired of relating the pair's story, and even made a few bucks speaking and writing about it. Calvin Parker, on the other hand, reportedly remained devastated, wanted nothing to do with publicity and left the area, taking unfathomable memories of the abduction incident with him. These are the kind of people to whom one wishes to express profound sympathy -- but then we pause, oblivious to knowing what to say, or what to do. We cannot relate. Relate to what?

Several articles relevant to the Pascagoula incident are posted at nicap.org (use their on-site search engine) and my December 1, 2008 blog entry about the incident -- an important entry for me -- is entitled, "The Extraordinary Witness" and may be accessed on this blog at: http://robert-barrow.blogspot.com/2008/12/extraordinary-witness.html

(Pictured: Charles Hickson and an artist's conception of one of the creatures encountered by the men.)

Other People's Brains

2011-09-13T10:52:00.002-04:00

Thought for the day: A news story from Reuters (London, September 4) appears to hanker for a UFOlogical mini-observation.

Seems that "Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses,
with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each
year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia,
according to a large new study.

"With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed,
mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden -- measured in the
hundreds of billions of euros -- as sufferers become too unwell to work and
personal relationships break down."

Further, the study warns that mental disorders are Europe's biggest health challenge of the century.

Think of all the occasions, current and past, where witnesses to UFO incidents and alleged abduction phenomena are confirmed to be mentally intact and, indeed, of the solid citizen variety with stable lives.

As depression and other mental problems increase globally for any variety of reasons, one might ask whether eventually the only emotionally fit people remaining on the planet will be those who encountered UFOs during their lifetime. Imagine -- those whom the debunkers and skeptics called crazy for decades might turn out to be the only sane population left.

Good thing, too, because somebody has to stick around to turn the lights out one day.

About Those Who Compose the Write Stuff with the Right Stuff

2011-09-06T13:38:00.004-04:00

Occasionally it happens. Editors and journalists actually join hands and tell their reading, viewing or listening audience the truth: That their UFO reporting, frankly, sucks in 3-D.

Yes, fortunately we have credible UFO news gatherers and commentators such as Billy Cox, George Knapp, Leslie Kean and, yep, even the folk affiliated with "Coast-to-Coast AM" (when the latter isn't gushing forth all too often with pure and utter time-filling nonsense -- and, speaking of, have we mentioned former "Coast" staple Sean David Morton lately? Surely, he's missed. Well, you get the point. . .). Still, decades after UFO sightings became common fodder in the news reporting industry, UFO stories are generally given a bent of outright ridicule or implied tongue-in-cheek.

Where I live, I've encountered a few reporters from both print and electronic media whom, over the years, treated UFO witnesses and reports fairly. One -- one -- newspaper editor particularly recognized the newsworthiness of UFO incidents and printed articles regularly. Unfortunately, I've also dealt with the other kind. More recently, a TV news reporter who offered one -- just one -- well-received brief UFO feature was nonetheless instructed via the channels of upper management that UFO reports would be no more. Why? Beats the heck out of me. I've always found it peculiar that the UFO subject, unlike other topics, which generally creates an instant "draw" for any audience is, nevertheless, often condemned and prohibited by the communication powers that be. I know there are historical precursors for this, but still. . .

This attitude, thankfully, was summed up On August 16 by Bill Wickersham, writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, when he warned:

"For the past 60-plus years, the mainstream media have either ignored or ridiculed what might be the biggest story of human history. During this period, every top-level news organization in the United States has been approached countless times by citizens and researchers with events, information and evidence relating to the UFO phenomenon. With few exceptions, the major news organizations have defaulted on this issue, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN news television. On many occasions, UFO events have been reported by local media and then transmitted to narrow-minded national editors who have failed to do follow-up stories."

In my declining years (okay, just humor me, I PREFER to call them my declining years, okay?) it tickles me to the bottom of my left foot when journalists actually defy the mainstream noose, make that news, industry to tell one of those apparently forbidden, yet ultimate truths, so hats off to Mr. Wickersham and the rare who dare.

In the meantime, I'm kinda shaking my head over that boxed quote above from the late NBC-TV news anchor Chet Huntley. I ponder Mr. Huntley's potential horror in learning that his unthinkable already manifests itself in our society of "hope and change" and to the never-more- enthusiastic marriage of journalism to agenda-ridden/agenda-hidden public relations maneuvers.

"It Defied All the Laws of Aerodynamics"

2011-08-29T12:56:00.005-04:00

Before veteran UFO researcher and author Wendy Connors retired from her work, she searched out and accumulated a wealth of UFO-related audio recordings for her "Faded Discs" project. This enormous, time-consuming task involved listening to hundreds of hours of audio from old TV and radio programs, UFO witness interviews, military accounts and the like, and she carefully converted each reel-to-reel tape, audiocassette, record album, transcription disc, wire recording and whatever other format came her way to digital format, thus preserving deteriorating recorded history for posterity. Sometimes, she literally had to wash the dirt off old recorded media using a special cleaning solution, patience and tender loving care in order to restore clarity.

It was truly my pleasure a few years ago to review some of her copyrighted digital conquests for Errol Bruce-Knapp's informative "UFO Updates" section of the Virtually Strange Network (see link and check out the "UFO Updates" section daily, where current contributor messages update continuously under the "100 latest messages" category in the Archive area), and despite auditioning hours and hours of incredible historical UFO audio for those reviews, I was impressed particularly by one gem, an interview conducted with a man claiming to be a Navy pilot who flew missions for the CIA in the 1970s. Tucked inconspicuously among a host of no less important audio entries, this is pure, apparently authenticated, UFO history gold.

What really strikes one about this particular interview is that the witness had provided personal information to establish his sincerity. Major identifying info was removed, for obvious reasons, long before I was given the opportunity to hear the recording, but based upon other factors its veracity appeared plausible. Having been in the military, I'm more than a little familiar with the term, "military bearing," and the voice on the recording reflected this. Also, for well over a year in the early seventies I operated my own hospital clinic at an Air Force pilot training base and spoke with pilots every day -- remarkable people conditioned to remain calm, cool and rational through almost any threatening situation. The recorded voice I heard remained very much in this vein, though, understandably, immensely curious about the UFO experience.

I'm going to share a transcript of the incident with you today. I've gone on to edit out some conversation having no bearing on the incident itself, but the major portions are here. I did have difficulty hearing some words because tape, even when digitalized, can have limitations due to its age (and my age!), and there remained some minor electrical "hum" caused by original recording equipment and old telephone lines -- so I've indicated spots where words were unclear to me. My transcript is mostly word-by-word accurate, but in some instances I had to choose the best guess (again, little to deter meaning here). If any words appear to contradict others, that's probably due to my inability to get a clear reading of the sound. I'm only human (or reasonably so!).

Of considerable interest -- the pilot's mention of a "sponge rubber" appearance to the object's surface may seem unusual, but the thing is that there were similar descriptions offered by other UFO witnesses -- not many at first, but they were out there. In fact, also from 1977, Wendy's collection included a report where the pilot and co-pilot of a Lear 35 jet encountered a huge object that followed their aircraft for 10 to 15 minutes, and the object's surface looked like "porous foam rubber."

This astounding account would be a nail-biter if featured in a movie script, and just when you might say to yourself, well, it might have involved a secret military device, the pilot's description of radar confirmation will blow rational thought right out of your head. This is creepy, fascinating stuff.

And so follows the incredible account offered by a man introducing himself as a Navy pilot, talented and trusted enough to conduct CIA missions, who literally claims to have just returned from an extraordinary UFO encounter. If he is who he purports to be, and if he is still with us, we might say thank you, Sir, both for your service and for your report, memorialized for the archives instead of disappearing into the dust of time, thanks to the concern and skill of Wendy Connors.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(The conversation is between the pilot and Robert Gribble, who operated the original National UFO Reporting Center out of Seattle, and occurs in 1977.)

I fly for the CIA. I'm a reconnaissance pilot.and I just came from Tokyo. I just landed about ten minutes ago. At a level 5-1-0 and at about halfway in a straight line between Tokyo and Hawaii, I was about halfway, I'm not sure. I was out of radar contact, just on my own, alone there, but I still had radio contact. I don't know if there was a full moon or not, but it was very bright out there on the ocean, and this thing came up to me. No wings, about double the length of my airplane -- I was flying a Phantom F-411 -- but double the length, which would be about 45 feet, round-shaped, not circular, more triangular, but no bottom and no top. All equidistant sides of a triangle. They weren't sharp, they were sort of rounded-off edges, and the ends of it were flat and no noise, no wings, no thrust, no windows, no, you know, nothing which would give it a reason to fly.

NO APPENDAGES OF ANY KIND?

No, none. On the sides of the Phantom, I don't know if you're familiar with (THE BASE?)) but we do have very high-intensity spotlights which (ARE BUILT INTO?) the fuselage (UNCLEAR) side of an aircraft that are used to, when you are unloading bombs at night at the runway you turn them on so the guys can see (UNCLEAR) with the bombs underneath them. And so I turned on the lights on the sides (AND HAD A VERY CLEAR PICTURE OF IT?)). . .and it was there, it wasn't my imagination.

DID THE LIGHT ACTUALLY REFLECT OFF THIS THING OR ILLUMINATE IT?

It didn't reflect, it was a porous material, probably. It looked like sponge rubber, that's what it looked like. But it was not metallic. It (UNCLEAR), it couldn't be porous. It looked like maybe asphalt would look from a distance, something like that.

I MEAN, WAS THAT LIGHT ACTUALLY ILLUMINATED?

No, It just sort of went ahead and hit it. (UNCLEAR)

HOW CLOSE DID THIS THING GET?

The closest it got was about 70 feet from the wing. Now, I have radar, and it was on radar and the image wasn't like that close, but it got up to about 50 feet from the left wing and then as far as about 200 feet and stayed there for about a half an hour. This was at Mach 2.2, roughly, you know, 1900 miles an hour.

DID YOU SEE THIS AS IT WAS COMING IN TOWARDS YOU?

I didn't see him come up on me, no, I just sort of looked over and it was there, and then I just looked and looked and looked and thought it was a shadow or something, so then I turned on all the lights and then I saw it. It was definitely there. I could see the dimensions, I could see the top and the bottom and the ends of it. The dimensions of the height, I would say, were, oh, I would say about 10 feet -- 10 feet by 10 feet.

WAS THIS THING LAYING FLAT OR WITH THE APEX UP?

It always had the apex up, but it would slowly rotate on the apex and in all the time it was there it started from the apex being up, to the apex completely rotating around and took about 15 minutes to do it. It would move a little bit and stop, move a little bit and stop and move a little bit and stop. It didn't look like that was necessary for flight. I think it was just turning for -- I don't know why but it wasn't necessary for flight, you could tell that.

AND DID IT MAINTAIN THE SAME POSITION IN RELATION TO YOU WHILE IT WAS DOING THIS?

More or less, I would say. But it didn't stay close for very long, it only stayed at 50 feet for about a couple of minutes, and it stayed just out of real good sight most of the time. It sounds like I'm crazy, but they seemed to know what was good sight and what wasn't for me. I have perfect vision, 20/20 and I'm a captain in Naval intelligence by the way, and I've been with the CIA for about two years.

OKAY. DID YOU GET ANY BUFFETING OFF OF THIS?

No, none. No buffeting, no turbulence, nothing.

HOW ABOUT INSTRUMENT INTERFERENCE?

No, perfect.

WERE YOU IN CONTACT WITH ANY GROUND STATIONS FOR A RADAR CHECK?

There is no radar in that area. I tried three times to see if I was in communication with somebody and ask if there was aircraft in my area that was, you know, maybe a little off course and they said no, the closest aircraft was (HE SAYS EITHER 40 OR 400) miles away, they said, and I said are you positive and they said yeah, and there was two radar ships, they were both out of range, and oddly enough, he disappeared right after this guy said I would be in range in about three minutes and about a minute after that this guy pulled away.

DID YOU GET THE IMPRESSION YOU WERE BEING OBSERVED?

I think they were more interested in the airplane than they were in me, but I did have that impression, yeah. I also had the impression that they knew what was going on. I know it sounds a little nutty, but no one else seems to care about it. I've been flying all my life and I know what an airplane is and what it isn't. There's not too many airplanes that can go as fast as that at that altitude, first of all, and 2.2 is pretty fast.

DID YOU HAVE ANY UNUSUAL PHYSICAL OR MENTAL SENSATIONS WHILE ALL OF THIS WAS GOING ON?

No. The only thing that sort of bothered me was that I haven't slept for about 30 hours, but that's not any big deal for me, I've done it a lot before. I was just coming from two other missions and I just hadn't had a chance to sleep and just wanted to get home, so -- I've been flying a long time but I can say I've done that a lot so it was nothing and I've been able to do that before, so. . .

OKAY. AND YOU DEFINITELY SAY THAT THE TEXTURE OF THE SURFACE WAS PITTED?

Yeah, not big holes, but it was rough. It wasn't metallic.

WHAT WAS YOUR ALTITUDE?

Flight level was 5-1-0. I did climb a little bit to see what sort of, I was curious, I climbed to 60,000 feet and almost instantly(UNCLEAR). . .are you a pilot?

NO SIR.

Well, that plane can climb very fast, one of the best planes we have. The actual (UNCLEAR) is classified, but anyway I gave it full power and put the nose up (AT ??? FEET?), and there's only maybe eight or ten other aircraft in the whole world that can keep up with that -- and this thing kept up with no strain at all. It made no effort at all to get right next to me. He started to move almost instantly when I did (AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT?)) allowed him to do that.

IT MOVED RIGHT ALONG WITH YOU?

Yeah, no problem at all. When he left me, I (UNCLEAR) stayed there for a little while and put into a dive to see if I could outrun him, and from 50,000 feet to about 49 I kept up to about three point something Mach, which is really moving and he stayed right up with me with no problem at all. And then the guy said, well, you'll be within radar range within about three or four minutes -- and about a minute after that he pulled away from me, going forward at at least triple the speed with no effort at all, I mean with no acceleration. He was just there and then he was a speck and then he was gone at the same altitude.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE TIME ON THAT?

Well, this was about, I'd say, 12 hours ago, no, about ten hours ago.

HOW LONG DID THAT WHOLE EVENT TAKE PLACE?

I'd say all together about a half an hour -- 20 minutes or a half an hour. I did get the time but the time was Korean time. I can't remember whether I . . .it would be an hour off if I gave you that time. It was just, I can't remember if it was four a.m. or four p.m., it was one or the other in Korean time. I can't remember if I reset the clock or not after I left Korea.

OKAY.

But the main thing I want to tell you is that this thing had no. . .you know, I can sort of tell if an aircraft is really working to keep up with you speed-wise and it sort of has characteristics. But this had no effort at all keeping up with me. There was no lag. They could accelerate easily as fast as they want to, go up and down as fast as they want to. It defied all the laws of aerodynamics. There was no reason for it to fly.

OKAY. WHEN THIS THING PULLED AWAY FROM YOU WAS IT AT HIGH SPEED?

Yeah, it was next to me and within 10 seconds it was a speck on the radar. The radar screen I have has about a 150 mile range. I could (UNCLEAR) it exactly. It took it less than 10 seconds to get out of radar range, less than 10 seconds to go 150 miles. I saw it going across the radar range. On the radar there is three modes. There is 150 miles, there is 250 miles and 500 miles. So to see it on the 500 mile range I upped the range from 150 to 500, and in the time it took me to flip the switch was another three seconds, and he had already gone past the 500 mile range. It wasn't on the radar anymore, which means it had already gone through that other range. You can imagine a circle, a 500 mile circle around you, that's what it's like. We have intelligence radar which is the best you can get. You can pick up a skydiver (SAID EITHER 40 OR 400) miles away, a free-falling skydiver will pick up on radar.

DID THIS THING LEAVE ANY TRAIL ONCE IT TOOK OFF?

No. We have a (HAWKEYE?) heat-sensing missile and the heat sensing missile has a computer which can track the exhaust of a jet. The exhaust of a jet stays in the sky the same way the wake from the water stays in the water, and you can track it the same way. Well, that computer was on, too, and there was no thrust, no heat, no energy coming from it. This thing will sense heat up to 20 miles away at altitude and there was no heat coming out of it, and that's very sensitive also. You can start up a gasoline engine in a car 20 miles away from this thing and turn on the missile, and it will find the heat and then blow it up. That's how accurate it is.

DID YOU GET A GOOD, SOLID RETURN ON YOUR RADAR?

Perfect, yeah. I don't know if it will help any to tell you this, but the people at Approach Control in the Navy, they didn't seem to care. I wanted to speed up and get around him, too, to see what the other side of this thing looked like, but I could not outrun him, he could slow down and speed up as fast as I could. A Phantom can go from 2.2 Mach to 50 miles an hour in about 10 seconds, that's how fast and you couldn't slow down if you wanted to, and I tried that and he was still just as fast. There are very few airplanes that can keep up with a Phantom. There's no Russian airplane that can. So either it's one of ours or it's someone else and, like I said, there's no reason for it to fly and had no energy coming out of it, no heat, no power source, nothing.

********** END OF RELEVANT INTERVIEW PORTION **********

Room for One More UFO?

2011-08-23T12:59:00.003-04:00

(As I prepare to post this, I must note the passing of the great Budd Hopkins, UFO abduction investigator of exception. I don't believe I was ever in contact with him, but certainly knew him from his books and articles. Yes, there was controversy surrounding him, but what hands-on person who dares to present established society with things its members may not wish to know hasn't been confronted with controversy? Leslie Kean wrote a brief but appropriate tribute to Budd, and this may be read by clicking on the link to Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation in the margin.)

As many of you know, I write a separate blog (see link in the margin) concerned specifically with the 1956 United Artists documentary motion picture, "U.F.O."

In 1970, Great Britain began producing a science fiction TV series, also entitled "UFO." In fact, in 1973, by then familiar with the series, as it was running on American television stations, I wrote a letter to TV Guide, published, in which I excoriated the series. Imagine my amazement 29 years later when intrepid Canadian journalist Mark Phillips tracked me down like hunters' prey to inquire about my opinion, which had mellowed somewhat over the years. His excellent article reminiscing about the TV series appeared in issue No. 154 of England's TV Zone magazine, and he included a few paragraphs regarding my now-vs.-then views on the series. Must be true, we can run but we can't hide, particularly when members of the press come calling.

However. . .

Next year, another aliens-among-us science fiction story entitled "UFO" hits the big screen. Yes, my eyes are already rolling around in my head as I contemplate the e-mails I'll receive from careless observers poised to believe my movie tribute site relates somehow to the anticipated 2012 release. After all, my film address is ufothemovie.blogspot.com.

I've already contemplated, for those among the confused who write and ask simply if the movie "UFO" is a true story, that perhaps I should merely respond, "yes" in all cases. That should send a few of them, unaware that I'm referencing only the 1956 documentary, running in terror for the hills.

(Robbie Graham of Silver Screen Saucers -- see link -- will undoubtedly offer further information on the upcoming motion picture as it becomes available.)

WE'LL FREE YA WITH SHARIA: When my President is happy, I guess I'm happy, too. Mr. Obama seems thrilled about the "Arab spring" unveiled every time a Middle Eastern country dominated by obvious thugs falls. I do find it a bid odd, however, that the "rebels" who facilitate the action (with our help, either overtly or covertly in many cases, I'm sure) jump right in there with a "new" constitution without fail. For Libya, it's apparently Sharia Law, and for Egypt and other states Sharia seems the choice of biological throwbacks intent upon maintaining brutal order, depriving women of education whilst keeping them covered and treated like farm animals, and all the other goodies that come with this extremist view of Islam. Where is the National Organization of Women on this issue? Where are the major news entities? Repeatedly, we're told what a great thing the "Arab spring" is, and every time the spring is sprung we witness more threats against the very existence of Israel. What happened to diplomacy? Diplomacy doesn't work very well with "new states" of cutthroat thugs who teach their young men to become more of the same.

As I write this, a news story reports that the United Nations is upset that the U.S. doesn't do more to prevent domestic violence against women. What are we supposed to do when a woman or man chooses a partner unwisely? The consequences are my fault? And how dare the United Nations blame this country when they don't give a rat's about violence against women in the Middle East? If one wishes to find a gaggle of thugs anywhere on this planet, one needn't look any further than a preponderance of vermin populating the United Nations any day of the week.

In the meantime, the President and Congress vacation as the world nukes itself and our country's drought of water, common sense and brains continues.

Surfing on Driftwood in a Molten Lava Sea

2011-08-16T17:19:00.004-04:00

Yeah, maybe I was naive, thinking the world would self-correct while I left the blog for a few days (though I did check in to say a few words about the death of the remarkable William R. Corliss -- see previous blog).

Another significant death, for me, occurred a few days ago. Dan and I had served together in a Texas Air Force hospital over 40 years ago and, as usually occurs after the brevity of military relationships, we moved on and lost contact with one another. To my surprise, however, Dan found my blogs three years ago and we began e-mailing and having occasional phone conversations, he having remarried, living way out West. Unfortunately, all was not well, as he was about to embark upon a cascade of surgical interventions because of multiple brain tumors and lung cancer. He stayed tough, overcoming numerous surgical challenges, but eventually a fatal malignancy claimed his life.

Strange how long-forgotten memories resurface when somebody from our past meets their demise. Early one evening after USAF hospital duty hours in 1969 he took me to a Texas dirt-bike range, where my hands-on experience reminded me that you don't have to be a kid to appreciate the wonders of dust and mud. And there was that pleasant weekend with Dan and his (first) wife at his in-laws' beautiful lake house in Possum Kingdom (you may have heard about Possum Kingdom, which was all but destroyed by this spring's raging firestorms), particularly memorable for a little incident where my eyeglasses fell off while I was swimming (yep, dove underwater and miraculously found 'em within minutes). Who is foolish enough to wear unsecured eyeglasses while swimming?

Meanwhile, the world burns on. Change you can believe in. Al Gore recently made a speech riddled with obscenities and frustration -- evident in his presentation, perhaps, because the truth is that there is no "consensus" among a majority of world scientists that climate change is primarily man-made. In fact, some scientists in the know blame current heat wave and drought conditions in the U.S. and elsewhere on reactivation of intense solar activity. Yes, our old nemesis, the sun. Love it or hate it, it isn't going away anytime soon. The International Business Times, quoting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, outlined potential chaos bluntly last week:

"The NOAA predicted four “extreme” solar emissions which could threaten the
planet this decade. Similarly, NASA warned that a peak in the sun's magnetic
energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could enable
extremely high radiation levels.

"This is a special problem in the United States and especially a severe threat in
the eastern United States as Federal Government studies revealed that this
extreme solar activity and emissions may result in complete blackouts for years
in several areas of the nation. Moreover, there may also be disruption of power
supply for years, or even decades, as geomagnetic currents attracted by the
storm could debilitate the transformers."

Not to mention possible satellite disruptions and lasting damage with obviously frightening military implications. Digital denizens of the world, unable to function without a cache of electronic gadgets substituted for book knowledge and common sense, may well collapse under an avalanche of daily living's undecipherable necessities. Geek extinction, accomplished in total silence, with no fossilized evidence of human computer enthusiasts left for alien explorers of the far future. (You geeks do realize, don't you, that one of the dictionary definitions of "geek" is a carnival performer who does what are said to be "disgusting" acts?)

Then this from the Los Angeles Times of August 6: That the U.S. government -- the spooky D.A.R.P.A. specifically -- plans to award up to $500,000 to a research team best able to develop solid, shovel-ready methods to initiate interstellar space flight 100 years from now. Essentially, a new physics or way of organizing a journey to another star system is called for, not necessarily a physical vehicle. Something like mixing the ingredients for cookies without actually having the ability to bake them, near as I can figure.

On top of this comes word that actress Jodie Foster and other concerned members of the citizenry have successfully donated big dollars to keep S.E.T.I. running. Well, at least somebody can depend on keeping their jobs, as they search for evidence of alien intelligence, probably in all the wrong places (they mighta' tried earth-based UFO incidents first).

I hope the government/D.A.R.P.A. project takes into consideration UFO propulsion theories proposed or embraced by former NASA scientific and engineering associates such as Alan Holt and the late Paul R. Hill, both of whom wrote books espousing their ideas (Hill, in his book, Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis, rightfully corrected one of my basic assumptions regarding a conductive medium in my 1971 A.P.R.O. Bulletin article which asked, could UFOs employ ultrasound technology?). Even the borderline has two sides.

Regarding the subject of UFOs, incidentally, if you've tired of all the nonsense and have an acquired taste for documentation -- and have a little reading time on your hands -- don't fail to check out researcher Thomas Tulien's massively detailed and illustrated Web site regarding the Minot Air Force Base UFO Case of October 24, 1968. Representing the Sign Oral History Project, Tulien's in-depth detective work and (his specialty) interviews with key participants will keep your head spinning for hours. Go to: http://www.minotb52ufo.com to examine some outstanding work.

But yes, the world burns. I think back upon President Ronald Reagan's statements (and actually those of some UFO researchers of note) expressing that the planet's peoples would unite if faced with an attack from extraterrestrials. Ha! Frankly, the world's political leaders and the United Nations' abundance of thugs would go right on squabbling over other matters. Didn't anybody learn anything from the Nazis as they waltzed into country after country?

Which, by the way, seems to be happening all over again in the Middle East, as Israel is increasingly threatened from all sides, helped along by the profound influence of Iran's crazies. Neither the Palestinians, Russia, China nor a box-load of other nations are our friends, and since our only true ally in the Middle East is Israel, we must choose sides and Israel absolutely deserves U.S. support as things become uglier every week.

The U.S. just gave 100 million dollars to Africa to help combat famine. That's nice -- but where did the money come from? Did we print more cash out of thin air or did we put it on our eternal hellfire tab with the Chinese? How about 25 million of it dedicated to intensive birth control, family planning education and a good old-fashioned butt-kicking to all the young men who think it's just fantastic to make starving babies by the score as they beat their women into submission (whilst all the time, of course, international religious "relief" organizations fly in like vultures to dissuade anything even resembling birth control). Lucky if even a small portion of the food gets beyond radical Muslims, who feed themselves to fight and kill us another day. Kindly we Americans are, but we're sometimes a bunch of damned fools.

Oh -- can't forget the Tea Party. . .as an Independent voter, I've no love affair with Republicans or Democrats, though I am quite liberal on several issues and conservative on others. Yet, I've grown to admire from afar the Tea Party simply because the major, grotesquely corpulent and entrenched political parties h-a-t-e them so much, and their members often do make sense (their views are distorted by the press, no surprise there). The major clunker for me is the re-emergence of the Religious Right, and harkening back to previous elections I recall warnings to Republicans by their own party members not to let these folks dominate the issues. But they're back in force and that's a worry for me.

If anybody thinks all of this will ultimately lead to UFO "disclosure," forget that dream.

And now a word about our current leadership. As I've stated previously, I once wrote Mr. Obama and encouraged him to run for president because I liked his speech before the Democratic National Convention a few years back. However, once he actively began campaigning and I listened more closely to his ideas, I felt like slapping myself silly. Yes, yes, I looked forward to having the first black U.S. president -- the first, not the worst! I wish we could convince Florida Congressman Allen West to make a run for the White House: He seems a no-nonsense gentleman with leadership and military experience, hardly the sort to be running all over the world, apologizing for our country or community-organizing its Constitution to please nations which will always despise our government, no matter what.

The current White House occupants' method-acting seems best suited for the issuance of royal decree via Executive Order and for the influence of pipsqueaks in the background, turning out regulation after regulation. "Obama-care" ranks high amongst the absurdities, when common sense tells us it would have been far cheaper for businesses and individuals simply --yes, simply -- to allow the thousands of insurance companies in this country to compete for customers across state lines. Health insurance costs would be forced into significant decline and federal government intervention would be unnecessary.

And (my message to members of the Right who hug giant industry too closely) I get really rattled when conglomerates are allowed to market hybrid seeds to the exclusion of the original natural ones, with legal consequences for farmers who prefer to do things their own way, but find their crops contaminated with the patented variety churned out by corporate monsters.

Not to leave Congress out of this mess. Too many vampires and mummies in both the House and Senate who made a career out of staying put for years, progressively relating less and less to their constituents. Oh, term limits for all -- if only. . .

Pakistan? Afghanistan? Iraq? Intelligence analysts seem to agree that China, Russia, North Korea and numerous rogue states conspire to continue nickel-and-diming the U.S. military to drain its resources.. Either get our military people out of this mess or bomb both the daylights and night lights out of every area that even looks suspicious -- and then hope we have leaders with the courage to dispatch enough personnel to keep our own borders protected and not poised to blame border patrol agents for doing their job.

I'm telling ya, old Robert's getting pretty tired of university intellectuals who have little in common with the common man or woman, running our lives to the max with their nutty self-serving theories, regulations and favors based upon financial political contributions. Godzilla himself couldn't do a better job of screwing up this country over what we currently suffer through.

Worst of all, as we've said before, your babies aren't cute anymore.

William R. Corliss (1926-2011)

2011-07-25T18:30:00.003-04:00

Primarily known for his Sourcebook Project since the early 1970s, and author of numerous science-based books and publications long before that, physicist William R. Corliss confronted the scientific community simply by throwing peer-documented ticking anomalies back in its face, accompanied by his own sensible commentary. With depth, detail and patience, Corliss' Sourcebook Project churned out book after book, each crammed with newly formatted reprints from, generally, older scientific journals. While Charles Fort was usually considered a journalist commenting upon strange and bizarre accounts often found in newspapers of his era -- topics which might force little more than a chuckle out of stuffy scientists intent upon dismissing things outside of their realm -- Corliss' approach involved digging up respectable literature regarding subjects that science can't exclude or run away from, such as human and animal enigmas, antiquities which (logically?) shouldn't be, planetary and celestial oddities and a wealth of other sticky brain-teasers and conundrums. His own philosophy was eloquently summed up via a quote from William James (see image) which appeared at the front of many of his books. The Australian human head illustration and caption shown appears in the volume whose cover appears here.

Sitting in the lobby of a federal government institution back in the eighties, I was thumbing through a stack of magazines when I noticed an old government-issued booklet about nuclear energy authored by Corliss in (I think) the fifties, but wasn't too surprised because I had already been purchasing and reading his Sourcebook Project volumes since the seventies. In fact, during the latter seventies and then the eighties, Bill Corliss kindly began sending along copies of his new releases which I frequently had the honor of reviewing for Pursuit, journal of the now long-departed Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained. During my years reviewing books, I wrote about Corliss' volumes more than any other author's works, and every one was a winner. Turning the tables a bit, Corliss eventually used a quote or two from my reviews in brochures advertising his new releases, and I felt humbled by his reference. Whenever he felt it necessary to send a brief note about something, usually written informally on a mere scrap of paper, each note was always signed simply "Bill," lacking any hint of self-importance or the arrogance that one might occasionally or even routinely expect from people of his scientific and editorial stature. For me, the charm of his commitment and honest nature merely reinforced the importance of his project.

Those aware of Corliss' immense contributions and reminders about what science was intended to be will miss his labors, and we hope family members or others with similar dedication will carry on the Sourcebook Project's ideals with pride.

Absence Makes the Fond Grow Harder

2011-07-07T18:46:00.002-04:00

Readers, I'm taking a little time off this summer. I could say I'm doing so because I've nothing to say right now -- which is true -- but instead I'll lie and claim dire responsibilities or a sudden need to eat grass or something. Actually (love that word, it's almost as annoying now as "you know. . ."), there IS one thing that could return me to the blog in a hurry, and I fear it's a real possibility: That ABC-TV's lame summer series, "Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief" might not resist tackling the UFO subject. Then, OF COURSE, I would be forced to write something horrible about it because, characteristically, commercial television's UFO "documentaries" suck. We all know the formula by now. They start out by mystifying us with interesting sightings, then lapse into Debunker Land so that everything we find enigmatic about UFOs is suddenly and conveniently explained away by dubious experts touting unlikely theories via the unscientific method. So PLEEZZZZZZE, ABC, concentrate on hyena ghosts or the face of Jesus appearing on sticks of chewing gum, but leave UFOs alone. No more UFO docu-moronics until you clean up your act.

Have a nice summer and be sure to come back, because I have so many exciting things to show you (okay, that's not. . .actually. . .true, but you never know. . .you know).

(Model in Photo: Not me, thank God)

So Aliens Could Look Like Movie Stars?

2011-07-01T13:46:00.005-04:00

I was more amused than bemused by an article in The Guardian (UK) of June 27, quoting a "top" Russian astronomer who claims alien civilizations will be discovered within 20 years. These scientific predictions always hold about as much substance for me as visions announced by street-side psychics and, besides, it kinda seems like intelligent somethings from somewhere else are already here, and both intellectually and scientifically they appear to place our best modern science in the realm of insect obedience school.

Nevertheless, the biggest eye-opener in the Guardian article was astronomer Andrei Finkelstein's insistence that "aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head." Yikes! After decades watching members of various scientific communities who assure us that no creature encountered in outer space could ever possibly look anything like us, that's quite the denouement for me. I mean, there's no way that premise would have worked in the original movie, "Alien," if, instead of a hideous creature biting and clawing its way out of somebody's chest cavity, it was just a human-looking fetus popping out and dropping onto the floor with a splat. In space, no one can hear you scream. Or laugh.

But, sounding rather like a S.E.T.I. fan, Finkelstein is convinced that his version of an alien hello-there moment is but a few years away because the "genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms." Will his aliens look like celebrities, perhaps resembling Brad Pitt, Roseanne Barr, James Earl Jones or Peter Facinelli?

Do we really need scientific consultation to believe we aren't alone in the universe? Good grief, if it's not the scientific community telling us what we already know through common sense, it's The Church putting in its own two cents Just In Case. Just. . .in. . .case.

Several years ago, I wrote letters to the editors of some newspapers, sometimes printed, informing them of my opinion that water exists on the moon, Mars and throughout the cosmos. My opinion cost the government nothing, NASA didn't pay me a cent and at no time did I attend a huffy international conference of bearded male or female scientists to set forth an elaborate theory. Shockingly, nor did I possess an advanced degree in celestial mechanics, unhelpfully saddled as I was with only a bachelor's degree in the non-sciences. Heck, no. I simply figured, well, water here, then water there. What's the mystery? If water exists here, it came from somewhere, some process. And I realized, too, that the stuff must be everywhere. How was I certain? I theorized that when my dog drinks water and then urinates, water still shows up in addition to urea and other substances of excretion. Obviously, you can't get rid of the stuff. Hey, superbly educated folks in our society make tons of money for far less basic reasoning, you know. And dogs are always willing to make themselves available to demonstrate C.E.S. (canine excretory science).

So water seems ubiquitous, and aliens with heads, arms and legs equal in number to ours are Out There, waiting to make contact. Ironic, wouldn't it be, if the first thing Finkelstein's version of aliens do after stopping by the moon to snack on a little Helium 3 is to land here and ask for a drink of water?

Urgent! Warren AFB Personnel Latest to Go Insane!

2011-06-24T11:17:00.002-04:00

Decades ago, when I was stationed at Sheppard AFB in Texas, a local radio station reported early one morning that on the previous evening law enforcement officials had phoned the base to inquire about multiple UFO reports called in by area residents. A base spokesman, according to the news reporter, tersely dismissed law enforcement inquiries: "Your job is to catch criminals," advised the gruff USAF representative, "ours is to watch the skies."

Indeed.

A few months ago, I parroted the claims of major news reports that on October 23, 2010 F. E. Warren AFB in Wyoming experienced a temporary ability to manage its nuclear missiles due to either a power failure or computer glitch.

According to UFO/nukes researcher Robert Hastings, however, UFO activity, as has seemingly been the case in so many other nuclear missile base instances, may have been involved. Over at Frank Warren's THE UFO CHRONICLES (see link), and at Hastings' Web site, the evidence is presented at length, and I urge readers to attend these Internet locations regularly.

Creeping into these latest accounts of UFOs possibly affecting nuclear missile sites is something even more disturbing: Reportedly, there remains a concerted Air Force/military/government effort to further crack down on military personnel and contractors who blab to either the press or to public agencies and individuals regarding UFO incidents they know about personally or through hearsay. Of course, we wish names were publicly available regarding the currently alleged UFO activity, but The U.S. Dept. of Threats and Warnings has always been rather successful at accomplishing its work, so no surprises crop up there.

But -- such a puzzlement. We all know UFOs represent no threat to national security. We know this because the national security folks have assured us of this Law of Nature's firm properties since at least the 1950s. Oh, and also remember that UFOs don't exist, they're just misrepresentations of natural objects.

So, obviously, those people at Warren AFB, Malmstrom AFB and the others must be seeing and experiencing visions of their own imaginations and interpretations. In fact, their observations and manifestations, as reported by Hastings and Robert Salas and others -- if we subscribe to the experts' Law of Nature regarding UFOs -- qualify them as seriously mentally ill, and since many of these observers have their hands firmly upon nuclear weaponry, they qualify as DANGEROUSLY deluded.

Which is it? Are these people crazy and under orders to suppress their experiences because they're seeing nothing, or have they observed things so incredible and beyond our intellectual grasp that the truth must be silenced and withheld from a press and public somehow undeserving to know the salient details?

Members of Congress, no matter their party affiliation, should be all over this outrage with the urgency of a potential nuclear incident. The implications hover far above merely troubling.

The U.S. government must either bring in a brigade of psychologists to bring these folks with their hands on our nukes back to reality, OR -- here's a novel thought -- tell us the truth.

Put on a Happy Face

2011-06-13T14:50:00.004-04:00

So I'm just sitting here, tapping my fingers on the desk, with little to suggest for the ol' blog today. Now that we know Roswell was actually invaded by earth-manufactured craft manned by deformed children dispatched from a foreign country, there's little to write. And then we've got Spielberg and Hollywood launching a bunch of UFO/alien-related TV shows and movies, once again proving that people crave UFO fiction far more than UFO documentation. But the week's news wasn't a total loss -- nicap.org has re-released its monumental 1964 report to Congress, "The UFO Evidence," in .pdf format, and it's still free and now portable enough to send along in e-mails to everybody in the world. Getting sleepy. . .no, have to stay awake. . .surely, there's something to write about. . .zzzzzz. . .wake up!. . .last time I fell asleep at the computer I. . . dreamt that the. . . "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" people. . . tore my house down and gave me a fruitcake. . .drat!. . .I'm drifting off. . .can't stop it. . .if only. . .if only I. . .zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. . .

Gladys and Penelope had been friends and neighbors for years, and now, in their seventies, they sat comfortably in Penelope's living room, sipping organic herbal oxycodone tea on this pleasant summer morning. "What have you been up to?" asked Gladys of her long-time friend.

"Well, " Penelope began, obviously proud of her accomplishment, "this morning I was sex-ting Congressman Weiner again -- but he's a busy man, so I'm not expecting another photo until he catches up."

"And I heard his wife's pregnant, you know," replied Gladys, suddenly casting an uneasy glance toward the cage in the corner, a small, yet roomy structure inhabited by Penelope's animal companion of many years, a large chimpanzee named Crazy Ga-Ga. Crazy was staring at Gladys, making weird, low-pitched growling sounds. Penelope instantly sensed Gladys' concern.

"Oh Gladys, are you fretting over Crazy Ga-Ga again?"

Diverting her worried gaze to Penelope, Gladys warned, "Penelope, you've been a good friend, but I swear, someday that monkey's going to cause a lot of trouble for you!"

"Oh, nonsense. And don't call him a monkey. You'll hurt his feelings. He's a chimpanzee, he helps around the house and. . ." Penelope's eyes quickly glanced away from Gladys, expressively harboring an overwhelming aura of guilt, or at least a sense of some nameless guilty pleasure.

"Oh my God!" shrieked Gladys. "You've been sleeping with it! Haven't you!? Penelope! Don't deny it! "

"Well," Penelope responded with just a touch of embarrassment, "Crazy Ga-Ga does satisfy some of my personal needs."

"I knew it! All these years, I just knew it!" shouted Gladys, standing as she prepared to leave. "I should have known something was going on when your husband mysteriously disappeared the very week you brought this creature into the house!"

"Crazy Ga-Ga and I developed a very close relationship, that's all there was to it!" Penelope insisted, also on her feet now, retrieving empty cups and saucers and heading for the kitchen in something of a huff..

Alone in the room with the chimp, Gladys shook her fist at the caged beast. "You monster!" she screamed, "what horrors, what terrible things have you brought into this house?!" She approached the cage with confidence and rage, yelling threats and expletives with every angry step -- failing to realize the cage wasn't locked on this sunny morning, when Crazy Ga-Ga had the run of the house, at his discretion. "I don't care anymore! I'm calling the police! And animal control! And a veterinarian who'll give you the needle. For all I care, they can make a rug out of you, and furthermore. . ."

All of this excitement and screaming took its toll on Crazy Ga-Ga, who had never experienced such treatment since the night Penelope's husband inexplicably disappeared, um, with his help, and he felt something inside, in his heart, pushing his animal instincts to do what they must.

". . .and forget a lucky rabbit's foot! When I finish with you, I'll wear one of your feet on a key ring! You hideous creature, I'll see to it that. . ."

Gladys continued her rant, oblivious to the cage door swinging slowly, ever so slowly, open. ". . .and I'll make sure this house never reeks with your filthy body odor again, you. . .you. . .?"

Suddenly, Crazy Ga-Ga and Gladys stood eye-to-eye, no longer separated by the safety of metal bars. Effortlessly, Crazy Ga-Ga grabbed Gladys by the neck and shook her like a rag doll. "Arghhhh! Let go! Help! Penelope! Help!" the overpowered woman screamed. But Crazy Ga-Ga had the upper hand and chomped down on her neck until blood spurts replaced words. Then he turned his frenzied attention to her face, which he began biting, ripping off chunks of flesh and muscle like a giant termite on speed.

"Crazy Ga-Ga!" shouted Penelope, horrified at the sight before her as she came running from the kitchen. "Stop! Baby -- stop! Where are your manners?! Stop biting right this instant or I'll take away your bathroom privileges!"

But the frantic woman's pleas were of no use, as Crazy Ga-Ga really got into his work.

Reluctantly, Penelope threw open the living room door and ran into the streets. "Help! Police! Help! I have a. . .a situation! Domestic abuse! Call the police!"

Within minutes, a swat team arrived, its members rushing into the troubled house. And within seconds, the entire team came running back out, chased by a highly upset chimpanzee. Quickly, they dropped to their knees, aimed their weapons and blew multiple holes of assured death into the out-of-control Crazy Ga-Ga. After a couple of minutes, there could be no doubt. Crazy Ga-Ga was dead.

Inside Penelope's house, the scene mimicked a horror movie. Splashes of blood decorated the living room walls, floor and even the ceiling. Gladys, beaten and bitten to a bloody pulp, sported a ghastly appearance, her face having been violently torn away and eaten during Crazy Ga-Ga's furious rampage. By the time paramedics arrived, loading her mangled body into the ambulance, Gladys was in shock, but even with a bloody, ripped larynx the whispered words overheard by a police officer were clear: "She slept with her monkey. . .she slept with her monkey. . ."

**********

Three months later, following a lengthy and exhausting jury trial, Penelope was found guilty of sending naked photos of herself to Congressman Weiner, thus sullying the esteemed reputation of a public servant, and secondarily she was convicted of sleeping with a monkey. Charged also with depraved indifference in the mutilation of her friend Gladys, charges were dropped because the victim's testimony was prejudicial to the case, and alleged perpetrator Crazy Ga-Ga was dead and unable to provide any words or actions in his own defense. Still, Penelope would be lucky ever to see the light of day again, considering the years she was likely to spend at a newly-dedicated maximum security prison named, strangely enough, The Congressman Anthony Weiner Correctional Facility for Women Gone Wild.

Gladys, on the other hand, had survived, but now endured the crushing pain and patience required during extensive rehabilitation and surgery. But, on the bright side, modern times dictated that Gladys could have a face transplant to restore something of a normal appearance. From her very first week in the hospital's intensive care unit a specialist, Dr. Voodooman from Zulu, had taken on her case with enthusiasm.

Dr. Voodooman and his team of experimental surgeons from Zulu were anxious to provide Gladys with a new look, and they toiled day and night as they bandaged and unbandaged the mutilated anatomy formerly recognizable as a face.

**********

Six months later, the occasion Gladys had prayed for every day and night since regaining consciousness and meeting the consistently upbeat Dr. Voodooman arrived -- the unmasking of her new face, concealed by dressings and bandages until this dramatic moment.

National media representatives crowded into the small hospital room as Dr. Voodooman began unwrapping Gladys' new countenance, perched breathlessly as they watched history in the making. Even Gladys' husband who, truth be told, spent more hours burying his attention in televised sports events than his wife's care, attended the affair.

Long swaths of bandage dropped to the floor until, finally, only an all-encompassing facial mask was visible. "Ladies and gentleman of the press," announced Dr. Voodooman slowly and deliberately, with a voice almost zombie-like in its flow, "we present to you a successful facial transplant to demonstrate, once and for all, that medical science of the future is here now, and our work can only become greater."

Skillfully, Dr. Voodooman peeled away the last barrier hiding the new face of Gladys. The media members gasped and then screamed in horror. Gladys, puzzled and confused, looked around the room and then to Dr. Voodooman. "What is it? Dr. Voodooman? What's wrong?!"

As every member of the press except a photographer from The National Enquirer scurried from the room, Dr. Voodooman merely smiled and handed a mirror to Gladys, as her husband stiffened and fell into a chair, speechless. "I'll check back with you later," reassured Dr. Voodooman, fleeing the room.

Gladys steadied the mirror and positioned it to have a gander at her new mug, then screamed loud enough to disturb the bedbugs inhabiting every bed on the hospital ward. Her husband leaped out of his chair and mumbled, "I just remembered, there's a hockey game on TV, gotta go. . ." as he quickly exited.

"Lady," asked the Enquirer photographer, "how about some pictures now?" Instead, Gladys, still frantic and crying, pitched her mirror toward the remaining figure, as he snapped a picture and departed the room.

But there remained another mirror, on the wall directly facing the foot of Gladys' bed, and that one couldn't be thrown out of the way. No, Gladys, even in her panic and shock, couldn't avoid gazing upon her new face -- the face of the only donor available after her tragedy months before -- the face collected carefully by the scalpel of the enigmatic Dr. Voodooman, when nobody asked questions regarding its origin or appearance after he secured it in a refrigerated container placed solely in his care. A familiar face instantly recognized by Gladys, who would forever be committed to a mental institution, long after Dr. Voodooman escaped from the country and her husband became even more infatuated with TV sports.

Yes, it was the face of Crazy Ga-Ga., forever joined with Gladys, and even though Gladys herself would never smile willingly again, Crazy Ga-Ga's long dead, but remarkably rejuvenated lips now took on an evil, mocking grin, impervious to and sardonically appreciative for the utter spasms of horror squirming endlessly, deep within Gladys' throttled brain. . .

. . .zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Uh? Whew. . .I guess, was, I think that was a dream? More like a nightmare. Jeez, this computer makes me doze funny. Enough of this for today. . .

Andrew Gold on UFOs

2011-06-07T10:21:00.002-04:00

Popular recording artist Andrew Gold died this week. Ten years ago I discovered that he was the son of award-winning composer Ernest Gold, who scored the music for the 1956 United Artists documentary motion picture, "U.F.O." In 2001 Andrew responded to my questions with a very candid e-mail, and you can read all about this in my movie blog on the following page:

http://ufothemovie.blogspot.com/2011/06/andrew-gold-1951-2011.html

A Journey Back to Radiofrightopia

2011-06-01T15:47:00.003-04:00

It's not that American radio, in general, is a bad broadcast medium now. It's just not as much fun as it once was. Everything is so corporate and regimented, with little room or, frankly, tolerance for spontaneity. Each minute is planned out by the book, every song played is slotted for a specific time, and pretty much every caller to a talk show on any level is screened, lest they interfere with the "flow" of a particular show. In many cases, radio stations which offer a menu of new or even old music must pay recording labels and faceless middle men immense sums of money, and in today's economy finding sufficient sponsorship to pay for it all can be a nightmare, so sometimes even sponsors of questionable repute are welcomed into the fold. It's all so damned complicated now. Unfortunate corporate decisions, lawsuits, government interference, fast-track options, sellouts and buyouts have all left their mark on an industry either too wounded or drugged out on an airwave high to notice its own arterial blood spurts. The intimacy between broadcaster and listener has suffered tremendously. That's progress, some might say. Oh yes, there's money in radio, sometimes big money, but what one gains in comparison with what one loses can be important. A plethora of faithful listeners doesn't always equal success.

Sometime in the 1960s I purchased the premiere issue of an old copy of Radio Digest. Dated February, 1939, the publisher intended to showcase transcripts or adapt sections from broadcasts of important radio programs of the era. I think I purchased it via mail order because it featured a piece about Mercury Theater's famous "War of the Worlds" presentation of October 30, 1938. (Not to be confused with broadcaster Glenn Beck's company, also called Mercury, which I believe was named to pay homage to Orson Welles' organization -- but, by the way, isn't that sort of like Disney trying to copyright the term, "Seal Team 6?" Maybe some things perfectly named should simply be left alone and admired from afar, the fragrant historical bloom of their existence left intact.)

In fact, Radio Digest included the entire transcript of H.G. Wells' drama as performed by Orson Welles and his fellow Mercury Theater players. Yes, this was long ago -- even the cartoon shown here jokes about the Nazis, whose intentions and ability to inflict colossal international horrors were on the verge of making the world sit up and finally take notice.

The Mercury Theater actors, we are told, perched before their "live" radio microphones, wrapped in anxiety because they felt Wells' book was "old-fashioned," and the listeners' likely boredom with the old "men from Mars" theme would cripple audience numbers.

However, they failed to realize that members of the public who tuned in faithfully to hear (ventriloquist) Edgar Bergen and (his wooden associate) Charlie McCarthy on another network would tune in to the Mercury Theater broadcast long after preliminary warnings about "War of the Worlds" being a fictional broadcast. Nor, it seems, did the Mercury Theater players realize the frighteningly realistic depths to which they would carry their dramatization. Remember, this was a time long before television, when radio and newspapers were the ruling media. Ethereal voice transmissions reaching family radios provided entertainment and time-passing trivialities, as well as important news.

The rest is well-recognized history, of course, and even today UFO researchers accept that the panic ensuing due to that broadcast weighed heavily upon future U.S. government attempts to curb public interest in real UFO incidents.

What sort of panic erupted during radio's finest scary moment in 1938? According to Radio Digest, drawing upon reports originally printed in a publication entitled Radio Guide Weekly, the instances abounded:

Police officer John Morrison, in charge of the switchboard at the Bronx Police Headquarters watched as "all the lines became busy at the same time." The first caller he took shouted, "They're bombing New Jersey!" The excited caller explained that he heard it on the radio, and upon going to his roof "could see smoke from the bombs, drifting toward New York."

"I can see the fire from here!" insisted a Boston woman speaking with a newspaper reporter. "I'm getting out of here!" she exclaimed. "Everybody in the neighborhood is getting out of here!"

From San Francisco, a caller asked, "My God, where can I volunteer my services? We've got to stop this awful thing!" In a cruel twist of fate, the city power plant at Concrete, WA "failed at the height of the broadcast," plunging already terrified residents into darkness and a firm conviction that Martians had landed. Many fled into surrounding hills and would not return to their homes until searchers went looking for them.

Evidencing something a bit more extreme, a Pittsburgh man arrived home amidst the broadcast to find his wife clutching a bottle of poison, screaming, "I'd rather die this way than like that!" Interrupting what could have been the golden news story of which tabloids of the yet-unborn fifties would drool over, the husband grabbed the poison and succeeded in calming his frantic wife.

Reminiscent of a John Waters film, an hysterical woman in Indianapolis rushed into a church during evening services and threw the entire congregation into panic mode and flight when she screamed, "New York is destroyed! It's the end of the world! You might as well go home to die! I just heard it on the radio!"

In New Jersey, a man reportedly phoned New York's Dixie Bus Terminal, warning them to "keep your buses out of the war zone." Offering no additional information, he simply announced, "The world is coming to an end, and I have a lot to do."

Finally, from East Orange, New Jersey, Radio Digest tells of a man searching desperately for gas masks, but only finds two ammonia masks, inadequate for modern warfare. Feeling unable to protect his wife, three children, mother-in-law and himself in any other way, he loaded his shotgun. "If we could not escape the gas I was going to use the gun to kill my children," he explained. "And when I found out it was only a play I wanted to kill the man responsible." (Contemporary societal note: Proper marital etiquette suggests that any similar situation occurring today might result in the man shooting his mother-in-law "by accident," using a fear-of-aliens defense in court. Successfully.)

More than 70 years after the Mercury Theater incident, radio broadcasts continue to bring horror stories to anxious listeners. Unfortunately, most of the worst stories aren't fictional -- and yes, as we said, the fun is gone, traded away for the complexities and uncertainties resolutely ensconced in a world tethered by hopelessly scrambled brains.

Maybe They Shoulda Tried Helium Balloons

2011-05-23T10:55:00.003-04:00

The good news is that UFOs weren't enlisted as the culprits intent upon harvesting The Chosen over the weekend. However, yep, even a broken watch gives us the correct time twice a day, but whether 6:00 p.m. or 6:00 a.m. last Saturday, there was no miraculous mass-ascension of souls at the supposedly appointed hour. My initial assumption regarding this sad state of affairs was that folks are just too darned fat now, and if it's becoming standard for overweight people to require two airline seats, how in the world can we expect them to be lifted up by a god of their choice? I doubt that even souls have escaped the weight problem.

But relax. Scientist Dr. Stephen Hawking says we're afraid of the dark and find comfort in religion, even though when the brain's "hard drive" goes south that will be that. No souls for Hawking, obviously. I wonder if he ever questions whether crows have a higher caw-ing?

I've always been suspicious of the pearls of wisdom we think God imparted, but that's primarily because His words passed from human to human, and we humans have a remarkable penchant for mixing truth with fiction, for writing accounts tailored to one's personal liking, and for hearing things in conversation never actually said. It's kinda like those TV commercials for sexual performance enhancement pills -- every time I saw them I was certain the drug pushers were referencing "a reptile dysfunction," and I simply couldn't understand what medical mysteries had befallen national lizards, and why their condition urgently necessitated magic perk-up pills. But then I figured out what was really being said, and realized that reptiles had nothing whatsoever to do with this silly human invention designed to prolong human fantasies prior to giving up the ghost, as it were, and ascending to That Place where so many souls were supposed to go last Saturday, except Judgement Day apparently went as limp and flaccid as a . . .well, it didn't happen.

On a similar note, I'm not at all sure The Faithful of the world had it right last weekend. Maybe religious historians called the wrong play, falsely interpreting ancient writings to warn of people being lifted up by The Rapture, when the real words warned that The Faithful would actually be carried away by The Raptors and eaten.

It's like that Osama bin Laden thing. He may well have gone on to enjoy 72 virgins after taking that final ocean dive with his freshly-ventilated head, but I have a pretty good feeling that all the afterlife virgins of his twisted faith are old male virgins. Joke's on you, dude.

APRO and the Meier Book

2011-05-17T14:32:00.004-04:00

In September of 1979 Jim Lorenzen, international director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) dispatched a letter to the general APRO membership announcing the publication of a new book entitled UFO Contact From the Pleiades, published by Genesis III Productions, Ltd. This would be a handsome volume, the first in a series of books featuring UFO photos from the Billy Meier collection, and APRO had "just concluded exclusive arrangements" with Genesis III to bring the book to membership attention. The publisher's brochure regarding the book was enclosed with each letter.

While admitting the book was "sure to be controversial," this was not one of APRO's finer moments, because accompanying and preliminary praise about the book's potential just seemed out of character for APRO's generally cautious attitude.

However, two months later Jim Lorenzen issued yet another mailing to members (shown here), this time the copy of a letter he sent off to Genesis III Productions, denouncing an inference within the book that he endorsed the contents. Lorenzen clearly indicated that he was mislead about the subject, and offered evidence which went far to cloud the Meier story.

In the years since, "Meier-ers" have continued to support Billy Meier, while a wealth of evidence appears to indicate things far removed from truth. Having purchased an initial copy of UFO Contact From the Pleiades myself, I reserve the right to say categorically that I believe the Meier photos are fakes and that his story is nonsense.

I paid a bunch for that book, and someday when I find somebody really gullible, rich and willing to part with tons of cash for this (low) numbered "collector's edition," I shamelessly intend to take 'em for every dollar I can get. There's one born every minute, you know.

A Slow Death in Washington (Part Five)

2011-05-06T13:31:00.003-04:00

So far, I've not found any other NICAP last-gasp reminders, but this membership application -- progressing at last from drab black and white to at least a hint of attention-getting color -- arrived in December of 1973. Despite a few worthwhile publications issued from time to time in addition to NICAP's UFO Investigator, it was all downhill from there. Eventually, Dr. J. Allen Hynek's Center for UFO Studies purchased NICAP's voluminous files (the complete series of the UFO Investigator are available on compact disc via the Center, see link) for a tidy sum as NICAP disintegrated, so at least these documents found a good home. In the real world, however, funding, time and temporary storage space always loom as potential annihilators of one's best intentions.

Be sure to visit the nicap.org site for much more about NICAP and some of the best UFO evidence ever documented.

Fouling the Ocean with Demon Blood

2011-05-02T13:12:00.005-04:00

As if the Japanese nuclear disaster wasn't enough, now we're told that Osama's carcass was dispatched honorably somewhere in Davy Jones' locker.

First of all, thank you big time to the U.S. military, the best and, unfortunately, too often most unappreciated military force in this screwed-up world.

Second, if you folks were instructed from higher-ups (WAY higher up, that is) to give this monster a proper burial at sea, whilst you stood aboard ship gnashing your teeth over providing pleasantries to the bastard, that alone seems the worst part of the operation.

This pathetic throwback from centuries past deserved nothing more than one of those beheading festivals he so cherished.

At the very least, how comforting it would be to find out that the person who administered the fatal head shot was a woman, with Osama hearing his last words (translated, of course) ever: "I got'cher burka right here, little man."

One more thug gone, so many more to take his place. . .

A Slow Death in Washington (Part Four)

2011-05-02T12:59:00.004-04:00

Echoes of the ousted Major Keyhoe's previous pleas for monetary contributions resounded as 1971 kicked in, even though NICAP had undergone many changes, including a change of address on Connecticut Avenue. By then, John L. Acuff was NICAP's president and G. Stuart Nixon remained secretary-treasurer.

This January 18, 1971 "Special Report" drips with semi-assurances that NICAP's status will be maintained with the satisfaction of indebtedness, and offers hope for the future. But, again, as Richard Hall's recollections (nicap.org) indicated, NICAP's position, both economically and operationally, reflected other troubling issues, and in the end apathy and, allegedly, an overriding quest for something of personal profit in a nonprofit organization caused an inevitable demise. The UFO issue, to put it bluntly, became subservient to administrative whim.

Yet, for a few more years NICAP limped on and on before a rather uneventful death. Next time, we'll feature one of the organization's last gasps.

A Slow Death in Washington (Part Three)

2011-04-26T13:52:00.002-04:00

The sixties departed and 1970 spewed forth a reinvented NICAP, though by then not even administrative plastic surgery could hide the blemishes. The board of directors had moved quickly to authorize significant changes, the most dramatic being the removal of Major Keyhoe and Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr. The shakeup was not a pretty sight.

For a brief period, board member and former Air Force Col. Joseph Bryan III became acting president, with the addition of G. Stuart Nixon as secretary-treasurer. The new NICAP also rolled out a new logo, the one shown in the accompanying letter and reflected in my series here (I added the colors myself). Almost overnight, members were computerized, given membership cards, individual numbers and new renewal rates for the UFO Investigator, NICAP's journal. The black and silver logo was even sold as a tie tack, a curiosity which I purchased and still keep as a shining memento to a part of NICAP left untarnished as administrators, computers and prettying up replaced NICAP's core values.

The "very promising future" indicated by Bryan at the end of his letter may have had legs for a time, but a succession of problems took a toll. Nothing I write here could take the place of two particular articles available on the home page at nicap.org -- one by the late NICAP assistant director Richard Hall and the other by associate Don Berliner (Berliner's older piece covers NICAP up to the early seventies). To fully understand the history of NICAP's rise and decline, these must be read. Even now, knowing the importance of the organization's impressive accumulation of UFO case files involving witnesses of often extraordinary observational backgrounds, I find it astounding that as a society we are where we are regarding UFO investigations. And where are we? Maybe I'm not astounded after all.

As 1971 crept in, only a few months after Bryan's optimistic letter to members, yet another letter went out to the membership, and this time options didn't appear quite so hospitable, as we'll see in Part Four.

A Slow Death in Washington (Part Two)

2011-04-22T13:23:00.005-04:00

The urgent request issued among members to save NICAP's financial status from the brink in the spring of 1969 did little to comfort Maj. Keyhoe and what remained of his office staff. Bigger guns were required to gain further contributions vital to NICAP's continued operation.

On August 6, 1969, Keyhoe dispatched yet another plea for funds, and again the top of the letter reminded members that confidentiality was to be assured. In retrospect, I think these hush-hush attempts were extremely self-defeating. Indeed, the dire straits in which NICAP floundered should have been announced to the country with fervor; surely, somewhere in an informed cross-section of the U.S. there existed people who questioned the Condon report, knew that the UFO subject deserved real scientific scrutiny -- and would gladly have parted with a significant number of dollars to keep NICAP's private investigations going if they only knew of the need. But no, NICAP's declining, yet still impressive, membership was instructed to keep its mouth shut about the organization's inner trauma. Fund-raising in silence seldom goes well and, frankly, it was also a bit ironic that an organization aggressively dedicated to fighting government censorship would resort to asking its members to withhold crucial operational problems from the public.

Still, this letter was different from the last. This time, members of NICAP's board of governors joined in urging members to contribute. Unlike Al Chop -- who had exited the board long ago simply because he did not want his impressive duties as a NASA public affairs official to be confused publicly with his NICAP and UFO interest -- former Air Force UFO project monitor (Maj.) Dewey J. Fournet hung in there, endorsing the NICAP plea with two fellow board members, Keyhoe and assistant director Lore.

In the following months, NICAP experienced changes aplenty, upheavals which would come and go as times of apparent success and months of pending disaster rolled onward. The full NICAP story may be found in depth elsewhere, and as a member familiar with the situation only as a member, out of the mainstream, I can't fill in all the blanks -- but I can offer more documentation, and next time we'll share another letter to members.

A Slow Death in Washington (Part One)

2011-04-20T16:35:00.007-04:00

Major remnants, and ghostly traces of files which survived the defunct National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), can be found at the remarkable NICAP historical site (see link). What a shame, how a powerful lobbying organization once held in respect by high-ranking military and former military members -- and more than a few influential members of Congress and other areas of government who, unfortunately, often didn't want to go public regarding their views about the importance of the UFO issue -- could die a slow and disturbingly quiet death. No, 'twasn't bullets, bombs or swords that killed the beast of burden, but apathy, lack of funds and other resources, and seemingly credible rumors of infiltration by government operatives.

By April of 1969 the University of Colorado's "Condon Report" on UFOs was known far and wide, its negativity and scandal-tainted pages condemned across the nation by anybody familiar with UFO history. Significantly, its release also harkened the beginning of the end of NICAP, despite valiant efforts to convince press & public that Condon's nevertheless under-funded and far from enthusiastic "study" gushed with enough whitewash to submerge a small island.

I had already been a NICAP member and activist, mainly in terms of publicity and checking out occasional UFO reports, for five years, but when the organization began unraveling faster than ever during 1969 I was tucked away with the Air Force, serving in a medical capacity. I'm not sure I realized how badly things were going at the Washington, D.C. headquarters, a place I had happily visited during the summer of 1965, when I met director Major Keyhoe, assistant director Richard Hall and -- not to forget -- Mrs. Lelia Day, the pleasant NICAP office secretary whose long-time presence probably allowed her to know the intricacies of Keyhoe, Hall and NICAP better than many other contacts.

By 1969, Richard Hall had departed NICAP and Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr., co-author of an insightful book about UFOs, had assumed Hall's position (years later, Lore printed his own periodical, the UFO Research Newsletter, a news-packed report of few pages detailing major UFO activity (another long-departed, historically essential publication which, sadly, should be, but isn't, available on the Web).

The April 10, 1969 letter reproduced here is not the first-ever indication of NICAP's funding problems, but this plea fundamentally denotes the starting-gate "first gasp" of the organization's assured demise. NICAP, after all, had been a feisty survivor since its inception in 1956, and like other UFO membership concerns it was probably inevitable that an economic and public relations death star would sweep it out of orbit one day.

CONFIDENTIAL -- NOT FOR PUBLICATION, screams a line at the top. I suspect Maj. Keyhoe was primarily responsible for this warning, and why wouldn't he be? Keyhoe was a former Marine, government employee and an aide to Charles Lindbergh, and -- he had his pride. It couldn't have been easy begging for money, and this was not the first time he had to do so. Yet, the letter promised a spirited agenda, and the intent was both honorable and important.

Nevertheless, four months later NICAP's financial situation was exceptionally dire, necessitating members of its board of governors to join in the plea -- and we'll pursue this additional landmark document in part two, next time.

The Reverend Robert Will Save Your Soul

2011-04-11T11:15:00.002-04:00

A little Divinity Diversion here: This arrived in the mail way back in 1972, about three months after I left the Air Force. Unfortunately, it was far too late to make me "permanently free of military slavery" (where were these people when my draft notice hit in '68?).

I don't know whether the "Church" still exists, but this came out of California, so I can only assume it flourished and grew. I left out their address--if you really wish to join up, I'll let you search the yellow pages under the category, Umm...

I don't know, maybe I could have thrived if I'd sent in 10 bucks and obtained a certificate allowing me a "Holy Legal Church." Then again, I tend to sleep late on Sundays, so my flock would tire of showing up, only to be locked out, week after week.

But way too cool this would have been. Just make the imitation sheepskin out to The Reverend Robert. Heck yeah, I'll save ya. Oops, too late. . .

Breaks on a Plane (and the Brainstorm)

2011-04-06T15:21:00.003-04:00

"Judge Judy" has mystified the world by inadvertently linking with Los Angeles CBS-TV reporter Serene Branson and others of recent months in speaking on-air gibberish as a perplexed audience watched, transfixed, and we're nearly swept back to the days when Captain Mantell's UFO-chasing death was attributed to a "death ray" by journalists with a bent for the sensational and unverified.

Nonsensical broadcast speech? Might be caused by secret government microwave experiments. Maybe cell phone towers. Could be something in the drinking water. Perhaps political operatives are behind it. Anybody consider the Tea Party wielding a heretofore unknown neutron beam vocal particle larynx destabilization accelerator? Ha, I thought not.

But physicians appear to agree on the diagnosis of migraine, at least in certain instances -- and yes, migraine can evidence itself in strange ways, arriving in forms other than pounding headaches. . .as I found out myself.

One evening in recent years, as I sat comfortably in a room doing something I generally strive to do less of -- watching television -- in the upper right area of my visual field suddenly popped up what seemed a miniature TV screen. Impossible to avoid, I became instantly absorbed in this peculiar experience, apparently watching a little box thingie displaying all the colors of the spectrum, as images of nothing recognizable flashed by in a horizontal stream at a measured, almost calming pace. I was too amazed to be frightened or particularly concerned, it was just the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. The procession of vivid colors continued for perhaps a minute or two, then vanished as quickly as it had materialized.

Weeks later, having an opportunity to speak with an ophthalmologist, I happened to mention the incident, and was surprised when he instantly diagnosed "it" as an ocular migraine -- a phenomenon he had encountered with his own vision! Like most people, when I think of a migraine I assume headaches, so this was rather a revelation to me, despite bits and pieces of personal knowledge about some things medical.

I don't know whether a connection existed, but at another time on a quiet evening I suddenly experienced what sounded like the noise of jet engines mixed with the din of ringing alarm clocks and the whirring sounds of electric shavers. So intense was what appeared audible trauma inside the house that I actually froze while standing in a room, absolutely immobile as a few agonizing seconds ticked by. Truly, this was one of those "What the. . .!" times, and the experience momentarily unnerved me, but with no residua. There was nothing inside or out identifiable as the culprit. And no, it was not a case of "sleep paralysis."

I'm inclined, therefore, to more confidently grasp the migraine theory for gibberish talk than some others might be. Brains can be funny critters. Not to exclude, of course, the possibility that tiny malevolent other-dimensional freakazons disguised as earwax cause TV viewers to hear only what "they" want us to hear.

BREAKS ON A PLANE: A gaping hole rips through the fabric of a Boeing 737, but this time everybody survives, few injuries are sustained, though subdued panic showed its face. The national press goes crazy, showing the opening into nothingness over and over and over and. . .

And the interviews with oh-my-god-I-thought-I-was-going-to-die passengers and authorities explaining everything -- simply endless! Yet. . .

Yet, let an airline/UFO encounter occur, you know, some little incident where a disc or cigar-shaped whatsit approaches and even circles an airplane in flight, maybe with flashing colored lights of brilliant intensity and enough presence to throw the pilot into either a steep climb or dive in expectation of a collision while flight attendants and passengers fall out of their seats or go flying around the cabin. . .and what?

And nothing. Okay, a bit dramatic -- but not unheard of in past years, when both airline companies and the government seemed content, if not complicit, in making these little encounters go away quickly. With the fond and able assistance of the right spokespeople and a media unwilling to deal with assumed impossibilities. Besides, UFOs are considered bad for business in the flight industry. We've heard that from more than one pilot and flight controller. But, yowie! Better to spend hours on a story about somebody and their grandmother who smelled an undetermined burning odor in flight; far preferable to gape awe-stricken as departing riders tell harrowing tales of air turbulence during a storm; and the media can scarcely get enough when a drunken passenger runs naked down the aisle. UFO dangers? Sorry, just not newsworthy for more than an hour. If at all.

APRO Memories and Something New

2011-03-29T11:57:00.003-04:00

Over the years, I tended to save documents and mailings that most folks would throw out after a time, and today I'm posting a couple more from the defunct Aerial Phenomena Research Organization -- and shortly after I drafted this blog entry there was a new development pertaining to APRO. But first:

The membership letter dated April 25, 1974 actually reached most members about a month later and designates a rare occasion when APRO's Jim and Coral Lorenzen journeyed way back East in the U.S. to offer a UFO symposium. The occasion included a worthwhile speakers' list.

The other sheet was folded into mailings of the APRO Bulletin (May-June, 1975 issue) a year later, touting APRO associate Hal Starr's radio series, "UFO Report." In addition to well-known radio personalities such as Starr, Frank Edwards and Long John Nebel, American and Canadian locations hosted a smattering of UFO-related radio shows in the fifties, sixties and seventies. These were particularly valuable in keeping the UFO subject out in the open and in front of the microphone, a true public service provided long before "Coast to Coast AM" assumed the broadcast throne (which young people probably believe was a "first" -- sorry, not true).

A SIGNIFICANT PIECE OFAPRO's HISTORY AVAILABLE FOR FREE: Frank Warren's UFO Chronicles (see link) noted a few days ago that nearly all old copies of the APRO Bulletin are being scanned and put up for free download at:

http://www.openminds.tv/apro-bulletins

I'm a bit ambivalent about this for two reasons. First, I think it's great and a wonderful tribute to the work of the late Jim and Coral Lorenzen and their many associates around the world who truly illuminated the fact that UFOs are a global phenomenon. However, in constant fear, as I am, of copyright infringements and stepping on the toes of those who claim ownership of various publications, I'm hoping that no problems crop up. I've mentioned in the past that I wanted to scan old copies of the Bulletin for this blog, but never felt comfortable doing so. Nevertheless, if this nonprofit venture continues unimpeded, some super UFO history will be out there for instant access, and I could do nothing less than applaud the project. I wrote a few things for the Bulletin myself in days of old, so it's a little strange for me to see these Internet reflections of the past.

Tsunami Mommy, Robert's Rambles and Other Atrocities

2011-03-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

(World War II photos from undetermined government and public news sources: The 1941 U.S. Joint Resolution declaring that a state of war exists between the U.S. and Japan; Stripped of their uniforms, Japanese prisoners are escorted to a carrier by U.S. Armed Forces personnel; A prisoner of war held by the Japanese who died while trying to get a drink of water; An American serviceman identified as Tay Dodds of Canton, Ohio, carries to a waiting stretcher a Japanese woman whose fractured leg had been set and dressed by U.S. Navy doctors.)

Earthquakes. . .tsunami chasers. . .Haiti. . .New Zealand. . .the Japan of 70 years ago compared to its current status. . . Godzilla, Gorgo and other monsters are deemed blameless for the latest tragedy. . .nuclear plant radiation added to a world already on fire. . .our Japanese friends who rejoiced in buying up extensive U.S. parcels and industries during better times. . .voices of dead American WW II military men echo the nearly forgotten words, "Remember Pearl Harbor". . . and please don't forget us. . .but let bygones be bygones, say some. . .as public schools in the U.S. continue to downplay the significance of that historic event. . .and, of course, Japanese terror was our fault, too, children are taught. . .so, is the mother of all tsunamis yet to come?. . .Libyan rebels battle with -- with armaments from where?. . .expensive and high-tech stuff paid for and sent by whom, even before the worthless United Nations entered the scene?. . .as the U.S. slips into yet another armed conflict to help people who will probably hate us later just as much as they hate us now, despite our efforts and expense. . .and just how do we in the U.S. continue footing the bill in futile attempts to save a world of ingrates while our growing deficit anchors domestic needs to immobility?. . .just look at Hillary, she appears to have had it up to here. . .by the way, for the record, pit bulls don't wear lipstick. . .UFOs and nukes must be addressed. . .but, nuclear plants in the United States. . .as we build them in the future, I suggest mounting them upon giant missiles. . .and if we experience a major earthquake or other nation-crippling disaster, have them set on "automatic" to launch the entire nuclear fuel source into the atmosphere, headed with an explosive charge toward the capital cities of our sworn enemies. . .why let a perfectly good nuclear crisis go to waste, to paraphrase an escapee from the current administration?. . .and public unions continue a rampage of sorts as union leaders presumably do everything but have sexual relations during frequent visits to The White House. . .workers of the world unite, oh yes, what a lovely spring day that will be. . .until the bloom falls from the rose. . .while the masses care about little more than sporting events, as wool clipped from their own sheep persona is pulled over eyes twice and thrice blissfully betrayed. . .and drugs yet flow over bodies and borders to anesthetize minds ill-equipped to either teach or learn. . .common sense being dead in the water. . .children of influence. . .children of opportunity. . .but mostly children born of toxicity and poverty. . .but things can only get better. . .until the next disaster. . .magnified via overpopulation and crazies. . .and one day we will learn the hard way that the future is not ours, simply because it never was ours. . .whilst something equally as beautiful and horrible as our species creeps in to replace us as pretenders to the universal throne. . . and brief moments shall tick away on a sidereal clock face, deceptively ornamented with Mickey Mouse-like hands of radium. . .yet, we party on, incapable of understanding that a covert purpose of crying is to absorb, conquer and destroy laughter. . .and the tears always win. Always.

When Harry Met Saucers

2011-03-12T13:02:00.002-05:00

The country was abuzz over UFOs in 1966, and no journalist or commentator worth his or her salt neglected to ask all the wrong people all the right questions -- and sometimes, there just wasn't enough time for the wrong people to regurgitate enough timeworn answers to insufficiently quench everybody's curiosity. This comes from the May 22, 1966 transcript of NBC-TV's "Meet the Press."

The years fly by. . .

("Goodnight, David.")

("Goodnight, Chet.")

Whispering Sweet Nothings

2011-03-01T14:31:00.002-05:00

The odor of nostalgia in bloom, isn't it great? Some of you may remember the April 18, 1977 issue of the magazine, U.S. News & World Report, whose "Washington Whispers" column included this stunning announcement. Various explanations have been offered over the years, but even though nothing materialized publicly from this shocker, it's apparent that some personnel in the Carter Administration were not unfamiliar with the UFO subject. You can read more about UFOs, Jimmy Carter and other U.S. presidents at Grant Cameron's Presidential UFO (see link) Web site.

Undescended Spectacles

2011-02-24T11:19:00.005-05:00

Mummies? Politics? World crises? Hey, isn't this blog about UFOs?

It is, but not as much as it was. The truth is, when I initiated these pages in 2007, my intention was to post documents from my old UFO-related files, and this I have done.

Am I trying to be funny? Sometimes. Am I funny? That's up to the readers to decide. My only claim to comedy fame is writing and selling two (count 'em, two) jokes to professional comedy writer Robert Orben back in the seventies for two dollars each. At that price, no, I don't even remember the content.

Do I take UFO reports seriously? Yes, I do. I did. For decades. But it's somebody else's turn to stay current, to take the calls, to fill out the forms, to buy or review the new books. I can only be the past, and others among you the future. Oh, I can still scan and put up some older things on occasion, and I hope you find them of interest, but as you can plainly see by visiting many of my linked Web sites, updated information and "now" stuff resides there.

I'm especially proud of our "U.F.O." movie blog (see link), and though I've scanned and put up a wealth of scans and background information, it is still occasionally updated with new material, thanks primarily to contributions from Barry Greenwood.

My Air Force blog reflects four years which I, to say the least, didn't see coming until a military draft notice received during the Vietnam years welcomed me (not exactly in those words) to participate in the chaos of that era, though as a medical airman, enlisted in the Air Force, I served in stateside hospitals (darned Air Force recruiter promised me photography school. . .) .

The dog tribute blog (see link), begun for reasons unfulfilled, never progressed beyond a few nice pictures of my departed Pekingese. I was going to take it down but, surprisingly, was contacted by people who loved the pics. . .and Pekes. It stays.

Which brings me back to the subject of UFOs. I can't really add much comment to almost four years of blog entries, but I can look to the current day: UFO books continue to be written -- some good ones, too, from what I've heard.. Leslie Kean, Richard Dolan, and then names with which I'm unfamiliar. Major U.S. UFO organizations have dwindled, but some remain. MUFON, for one.

I subscribed for many years to the MUFON Journal, but never considered myself a "member," Now, there's apparently so much in-fighting (and out-fighting), what a shame. The late Coral Lorenzen (APRO) was never a fan of MUFON -- quite the opposite. Regarding the MUFON of years ago, she ridiculed the organization for existing as an entity whose membership seemed overwhelmed by gee-whiz teenagers, rather than true investigators. And Coral insisted to me that a MUFON official had accessed (that's not the word she used, but I'll be kind here) APRO membership lists with intentions of luring away a number of people better suited to investigate UFO reports and enhance membership totals. Unfortunately for MUFON, some of those approached about jumping the APRO ship squealed to Coral. I've a feeling that Coral would look upon the current MUFON and say, "Told you so."

So now what? Dedicated Americans such as Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have done everything but stage a Broadway musical to gain wide public and Congressional interest in UFOs and the phenomenon's peculiar relationship with nuclear missiles, and serious researchers in several countries work their investigative talents to the bone to alert people to the evidence. What changed? What will change?

Really?

I joined NICAP in 1964, always certain that the organization's extensively documented UFO evidence and lobbying efforts in D.C. would crack the UFO mystery wide open. Not. Didn't. Infiltration by the spooky element was no help either, as the organization slowly fell apart. Okay, NICAP is gone, but the NICAP Web site (see link) is a winner. You want UFO evidence and reliable history? NICAP.org is the place.

But. . .still we wait for the fireworks. I joined the APRO membership in 1965 and later became a field investigator. Nothing ultra-dramatic there, but I did what I could. APRO was the place to go in the U.S. to swoon over important UFO reports gathered from all over the world, incredible accounts of UFO encounters that astounded researchers in the fifties who had wondered for years whether UFOs were a global phenomenon. They were. They are.

So. Nearly 50 years have elapsed since I took an active interest in UFOs, encouraged by an uncle's significant library of books on science, science fiction and the strange and UFOs. And Charles Fort. Space travel. Analog Magazine. Archaeology. Shelves filled with dusty volumes about antiquities and the future and Edgar Cayce and pilots who chased UFOs and pilots who disappeared while chasing UFOs. My uncle's telescope, set up in the back yard on evenings, an atmosphere far less encumbered by civilization's light sources than today.

And there were memberships to INFO and SITU, and subscriptions to publications such as Gordon I.R. Lore, Jr's UFO Research Newsletter, a superb and fascinating round-up -- while it lasted -- of important UFO events.

The mystery endures, the publications grind on and proper funding continues to elude the best of intentions, but still the crucial rule-changing, jaw-dropping spectacles have not materialized. We are impatient, and the world doesn't give a damn.. UFO solutions remain unrevealed. Chances seem reasonable that none of us living long or born today will ever crack the egg. Maybe we aren't supposed to know, and if Betty Hill had it right, we really AREN'T supposed to know.

So I'll bring on the mummies, the humor, the sarcasm, I'll bring on diversions and let those who obfuscate continue to revel in obfuscation, because the world is on fire and rational thought has come down to whose religious tenets seem the least crazy.

What the heck, I live in a country apologized for and watched over by a weak president, and a pathetically indecisive Administration schooled more in intellectualism and give-away diplomacy than the blood-and-guts approach the world craves from us here and now. I watch in awe as cowardly state legislators flee their own states, afraid to vote and obviously paid for lock, stock and barrel by dangerous and increasingly powerful public labor unions whose main purpose involves demanding more and more from the voiceless taxpayer.

We have, but won't use, our strong military to destroy Somali pirates and thugs, even though the world knows exactly where the roaches live. The strongest evidence ever indicating invasion of our southern borders by radical Muslims and potential suicide bombers should be trumpeted from coast to coast, but I live under an Administration afraid to utter the politically incorrrect words, radical Islamic terrorists, and the best my "leaders" can do about Mexican drug lords is to offer useless words of sorrow at the funerals of border agents and dedicated members of our intelligence community -- as it cowers in silence while the ACLU sues the FBI over an alleged infiltrated mosque situation.

My president tells me that fossil fuels are the fuel of the past, yet we have little alternative for now or the immediate future except nuclear plants that aren't built yet, windmills whose blades freeze solid during brutal winter weather (as England discovered this year) and sunlight that can't be relied upon (in parts of the Northeastern U.S. our last full day of sunlight was almost six months ago). The greener things get, the more the idiocy blooms -- helped along, as new research appears to suggest, by frequent use of cell phones whose radiation lights up one's brain scan like flashlights in a rat den. Yes, our children are the future, maybe with compromised brains unable to properly learn or think. Or maybe we're already there, just look around.

I live in a nation currently run by the most incredibly inept and gutless Administration I have ever known, and I long for a presidency filled for a few decisive months by a crusty, no-nonsense four-star -- no, make that a nine-star -- general with wartime experience who knows how to go after international thugs like an attack dog, with deadly, uncompromising force. Surprised at my attitude? Me too, but the times, they are-a-changin.' And by changin' I don't mean hope and change.

Meanwhile, the fighting among UFO "personalities" continues, the evidence reposes and, as a recent TV automobile commercial advises, "you can have this, or you can have that."

Sorry, but I think I'll put my money on "that," because I've had more than enough of "this."

Egypt Unwrapped, Mummies Rejoice

2011-02-17T12:40:00.002-05:00

(No UFO information today. . .but we do have Egypt in our sights as the world burns. Somehow, I don't think all of this will end well, but what do I know?)

Well, we'll see if the liberated people of Egypt, intent upon a new country and lives drenched in freedom, find what they seek. O' course, we hope also that those new freedoms don't involve a radical element determined to cover Egypt's women from head to toe, whilst simultaneously honing beheading skills and conducting routine finger and hand disarticulations.

Obviously, with freedom comes choice, and with choice come freedoms previously unimagined. Unfortunately, there's also some indication that the particularly voiceless in Egypt will also embrace the absence of restraint: We're talking mummies here -- mummies, ancient Egyptians hankering to walk the streets again. Remember what the wise pharaohs knew all too well: What heals or awaits another life under the bandage can also fester under the bandage. And I'm betting that the mummified dead were none too happy centuries ago when their brains were extracted through their noses. Grumpy, who wouldn't be! Like zombies, mummies will likely be scavenging throughout the cities and countryside in search of new brains.

Here at the blog, we urge Egyptians to remain friends with the USA and to shun factions wishing to enslave Egypt's masses, but -- for the sake of global safety and your own lives -- please, we beg of you, on Election Day in Egypt, whenever it occurs, DO NOT vote for the PPMP (People's Progressive Mummy Party). Why make a bad situation much worse?

SPEAKING OF A BAD SITUATION: We wish to praise that courageous Egyptian TV journalist who resigned from her job rather than report lies fed from the ruling party. Even more striking was the sight of American TV reporters, whose words often appear heavily scripted to politically pretty up, disregard or condemn the truth every day, openly admiring her position. We sure would like to see Brian, Diane or Katie announce some evening: "And before we leave you tonight, I want you sheep to know that much of what we feed you on these newscasts is slanted, irrelevant, meaningless, presumptuous and hardly worth a rat's butt, and most of what you see here in high def is about as nutritious for your mind as poisoned Chinese dog food. I can't do this anymore and I resign, effective immediately. Thank you for tuning in here night after tedious night. Have a good evening, and keep grazing right here on your local station."

UFOs: The Joint Resolution

2011-02-05T12:40:00.002-05:00

A UFO conference held in Fort Smith, Arkansas in October, 1975 was an important event, and certainly crucial for me -- though I wasn't even there. This, you see, was a meeting well attended by numerous UFO researchers, scientists and technical personnel. This was also a time when I was putting together a magazine article about the 1956 United Artists documentary motion picture, "UFO," and it was vital for me to locate former Air Force Maj. Dewey J. Fournet, Jr. who acted as monitor for the Air Force's UFO project in the early 1950s. Fournet was prominently portrayed in the movie by an actor. By the mid-seventies I had no idea where Fournet himself could be found (remember, there was no public Internet then, and locating people could be an expensive or fruitless venture).

However, fortunately, researchers Richard Hall and Jim and Coral Lorenzen, who knew that I wished to interview Fournet, encountered him at Fort Smith and contact was made. If you haven't visited my blog regarding the movie, please check out the link on the right, and among numerous entries inserted over the years are letters posted from the late Maj. Fournet and others.

The Fort Smith conference, as we stated, was an important event, a bold attempt to entice UFO researchers and organizations to share information and conduct their work employing the highest scientific and ethical standards. Coordinated by Bill Pitts, the three-day conference enlisted several guest speakers, and attendees received a copy of "A Joint Resolution," a clarion call drafted specifically for the sessions by Dr. Richard F. Haines, whose books and current affiliation with the organization NARCAP (see link on the side) are well recognized.

The legendary two-page document is displayed here for your interest. Its message is no less relevant 36 years later, and actually far more so, though some of the major UFO organizations and involved people (so many names) are now long departed. In some ways, the Resolution ultimately turned out to be more of a harbinger of ideas, methods and people drifting apart over time than a rock of cooperation among various factions.

Selling Sounds With Saucers

2011-01-26T12:02:00.002-05:00

Even after the 1970s had drawn to a close, leaving the public with memories of such movies as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Star Wars," the theme of aliens and space fiction remained popular among artists of many persuasions during the following decade.

In November of 1980, this curious magazine advertisement for Delco-GM car speakers was making the rounds. An artist's impression of Mars, perhaps, with red sky and red surface? Unidentified flying speakers in the sky, including an unintended George Adamski "scout ship" motif on the left? A "2001: A Space Odyssey" style monolith speaker imbedded in the ground?

What a pity, how so much otherworldly ad art mildly suggestive of UFOs becomes quickly forgotten after serving a specific purpose. Yes, saucers sell, but for some peculiar reason the fantasy usually attracts more public interest than the evidence.*

* Per new blogging guidelines, I probably should mention that I'm neither endorsing the product in this advertisement, nor being compensated in any way for posting it -- not that in-vehicle audiocassette or citizen band radio speaker systems are exactly burning up the world of high-tech more than 30 years later. Nor, in my explicit defense, is this an endorsement of contactee George Adamski, any contactee who ever wrote a book claiming a relationship with social events and civilizations on planets in our solar system, or photos of vacuum cleaners disguised as purported flying saucers in general. Hmm, yeah, I guess that covers it all.

Forgotten But Not Gone

2011-01-18T12:14:00.003-05:00

Hi All,

Weather in the Northeast has slowed my blog activities, but that's really to your advantage because you don't have to endure my @^%$#@*& about political issues. I do have some things I want to post, and that will happen as soon as a thaw occurs. O' course, that may not be until after the new Ice Age. Be sure to check in now and then, and always catch up with the links displayed here. -- Robert

Rhetoric Reloaded

2011-01-11T13:03:00.002-05:00

It wasn't because of Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Indeed, even the analytic powers of a butt-sniffing junkyard dog would have told us immediately that the Arizona shooter was mentally disturbed. There is no worthwhile story behind the story, unless one deals with mental phenomena, but that hasn't stopped the national media and political pundits from diving deep into their blood-drenched sideshows.

More gun control! More ammo control! Less freedom of speech! Stomp out political talk shows! Remove words from the dictionary! No more images of targets, nooses or anything potentially offensive to those who make a living out of being or pretending to be offended!

And now certain members of Congress are rising out of their insignificance, as they often do, suggesting tweaks and changes to basic American freedoms -- all because a young man long disconnected from anything resembling reality ignited after a long, slow burn. The horrors perch upon his shoulders, not ours.

I don't know how, to quote from the past, I don't know how you keep 'em down on the farm, and I don't know how you keep deranged people from exercising explosive and murderous rights they've somehow awarded themselves. But when the media and alleged government leaders turn rabid in a heartbeat while situations such as that in Arizona blow up, there's only trouble and idiotic agendas ahead.

Interesting, too, how the press falls in love with mass murder incidents, yet can't spare more than a chuckle when multiple witness UFO abductions come to light. Or UFO incidents at nuclear power plants and missile bases. Or Stephenville. Maybe because there's no blood. Maybe because there's no bizarre mug shot. What's a little radar between friends when instead one can access All The News and see the face of a crazed killer? Worth a thousand words, you know.

Once again, the efforts of a lone gunman offer questionable license for political and media opportunists to threaten everybody's basic freedoms, and if they can't do it with legislation, they'll attempt it through regulation. Beware.

Blackbird (Not) Singing in the Dead of Night

2011-01-04T17:59:00.004-05:00

Thousands of dead birds in Arkansas (and Louisiana and Kentucky and. . .?), sprinkled about, their carcasses followed predictably by predatory experts who swoop out of the sky in pecking order, tweeting in unison, "I know what! I know what! Awk! Awk! Everybody craves ideological carrion at appropriate times.

First, the cause just HAD to be fireworks from somewhere. Then it MUST have been an errant thunderstorm, maybe with some hail. Probably was, could have been, might be, not quite sure but. . .

And why were blackbirds -- just blackbirds? -- flying in the night sky by the thousands? Shaken out of trees? Accelerated into a mystery sky by fear, by wind, by a downdraft, by an updraft?

I'll add my two cents to the explanatory recipe, why not? Maybe 'twas mischievous poltergeists throwing stones to relieve boredom of the centuries. A penchant for blackbirds. Only?

Blunt trauma? Perhaps that happened when they hit the ground or other obstacles. Perhaps it was mass bird suicide, as the troubled flocks beat themselves with sacks of potatoes so few external marks would show. Maybe they wanted to die pretty.

Is Charlie Fort in the house? Can time travel return us to the days of a relatively sane International Fortean Organization? Any chance of digging up the bones of the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained and giving it a new paint job? Instead, we cower at the mercy of debunkers who can, and will, explain everything. Maybe this time they can. Maybe deadly storms caused by global warming or global cooling or global word-of-the-day were the culprits.

Internal bird organs destroyed, livers crushed. For a change, is there no evidence of burning from within? Can microwave energy be excluded? Should I pull my old UFO ultrasound articles out of the swamp and flush away the mold, just in case crackpot science becomes respectable again?

So perhaps the birds were frightened by the beginnings of some force intent upon creating a crop circle and they, sadly, were pounded by its ferocity. As stalks of vegetable matter in crop enigmas are seen to be damaged from inside-out, maybe feathery innocents were mistaken for a crop, though the circle part didn't work out well at all. Internal burns, or not?

Or that a black triangle cruising low over the land mistakenly but specifically sucked up red-winged blackbirds, its propulsion system causing great internal trauma.

Oh, but, protest the experts, multiple bird deaths are nothing new. No, they are not, but if a weirdo storm caused this level of horror, why aren't such incidents happening all the time, raining dead birds, bovines or marsupials all over friendly welcome-wagon neighborhoods?

Where was it -- Tennessee? -- a few years ago, when something happened during daylight hours, causing dead, extensively burned birds to fall from the sky? Local radio station people put pictures up on a Web site, maybe it's still there. That incident's explanation, however, really tended toward government or hush-hush industry experimentation. Clear blue sky that day, if memory serves.

Ah, so maybe Arkansas actually encountered the entrails of a failed -- or successful -- crowd control experiment, where military spooks went Ultra on an unbridled aviary intended to represent the rest of us down here on terra not so firma.

Still, we scratch our heads over that incident in the town of Fenner, NY, a year or so ago, where one towering member of a windmill farm toppled over in the dead of night, and despite months of investigation nobody knows why. The structure appeared normal from top to base.

Things don't seem to be going well for either living or inanimate objects sharing the skies anymore. For those who fly a lot, for their sake I hope scientists find out really, really soon what can crush the innards of multiple birds flipping around in dark skies for no logical reason. Otherwise, worries over in-flight terrorists and obese people requiring two seats may be the least of air travelers' worries. Yet, flying is safer than driving, you know. Or it was. Happy New Year.

CAPTAIN HONORS, Sir: The Navy should have left you alone. But somebody always has it in for somebody else. Why the "inappropriate" video showed up years after the fact is interesting politically. I'm 100 percent for young gay people joining the military, am not much for gay jokes, but I also have a sense of humor. I suspect, despite your offbeat and "offensive" humor -- and dumb skits -- that away from the camera you evidenced respect and deep admiration for every Navy member who served honorably under your command. Considering (as a veteran) that military forces ultimately exist under clouds of perpetual danger, I have no problem with over-the-top laughs when you can get them during tough or boring weeks of duty. Too bad your politically correct detractors didn't remember the movie or TV series, M*A*S*H. Agenda and publicity-driven wussies in the U.S. enjoy nothing better than toppling valuable military leaders. Good people serving under you will miss your command, and I dare suggest that the clueless or vindictive who know little about the great things you've accomplished during your career couldn't care less. A curse upon them all.

CONGRATULATIONS TO CLEAR CHANNEL Syracuse (NY) for demonstrating once again that innovation in local broadcasting often equates with the word, boneheaded. Perhaps embarrassed by the riches of ownership of several Central NY radio stations, these folks have now taken to playing a game of musical airwave chairs, perhaps out of desperation. For reasons best known to themselves, management relegated the programming and forgettable music on one of their FM stations to a likely money-losing former sports station's spot on the AM band. Next, they extended the once-upon-a-time great AM station WSYR to the FM band, probably to reach more listeners in other directions. Now, instead of hour after agonizing hour of boring and lackluster programming on AM, one can double his or her appreciation of the same spotlessly utter poop by tuning to the FM version for a simulcast. At least now, assuming they run baseball games on the FM band, perked up listeners might hear pitchers spitting out tobacco wads this summer in exciting stereophonic splendor. Sounds to me like Clear Channel Syracuse doesn't know what to do with its abundant kingdom of crappy AM and FM stations, and REAL innovation is just too far out of the box for management to grasp. Instead, apparently kept alive thanks mostly to sponsored partnerships with local auto dealers, home builders and others who possibly dictate more about programming than should be allowed , CCS feeds the works to listeners who expect nothing and even less, and that's what they get. The jewel of CCS's AM programming remains a four-hour afternoon talk show so devoid of ideas now that pre-recorded interviews from other shows or its own of the same day are promptly repeated (um, so that listeners who tune in late won't miss anything, uh huh. . .). When, day after day, the best a local uninspiring host can offer is to interview the mayor, the police chief, the school administrator, the priest, the hysterical parent and other over-exposed locals, the premise wears thin to all but the most patient of tuners-in. One wonders if the CCS profit margin has suffered in the current economy, though expectations must be high, now that green zombies have returned their attention to revitalize the Syracuse and Central NY area corpse, while residents wisely escape to other less-taxed states by the score. Unfortunately, to me, the stench of unimaginative and sterile corporate-sanctioned broadcasting hangs over Central New York 24 hours a day like odors from a rendering plant hungrily consuming wasted talents and the brain-dead.

More Free Online Books at NICAP

2010-12-31T13:22:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I think about the vast quantity of American dollars I spent acquiring UFO books decades ago -- well, until I started reviewing books for various publications, when authors and publishers honored me with free copies -- and I remember a few of the clunkers I purchased, the $10, $15 or $20+ books that would have been overpriced even at ten cents.

If only I could have seen the future, when Francis Ridge and associates responsible for the NICAP.org Web site would take some of the best oldies and worthwhile literary newcomers and put 'em up free of charge for the world to download and read.

They've done it again. We previously mentioned numerous entries already posted, and as dedicated NICAP historians and veteran researchers continue to construct one of the best UFO reference sources on the Internet, at least four newbies have been added. Go to NICAP.org, click on the online books section, and you'll now find the additions shown here.

Dr. Richard F. Haines' 1990 volume regarding strange aerial objects observed by flight personnel and others during the Korean War offers further proof that UFOs, UAOs or whatever we wish to call them are an international phenomenon worthy of scientific scrutiny. The rare 1961 book by Richard Hall and Professor Charles A. Maney was one of the earliest to offer some truly critical scientific thinking about UFOs. Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe's 1953 volume published by Henry Holt & Co. joins his earliest book on the NICAP site (as time goes on, perhaps Keyhoe's Flying Saucer Conspiracy and, his last, Aliens From Space will join the lineup). Completing the online book library at this time is Francis Ridge's 2010 report on the death of pilot Capt. Thomas Mantell during a UFO chase. Drawing upon multiple analyses performed by respected researchers and professionals, the long-presumed balloon explanation is thrown into serious question. Just what did Mantell pursue -- and what happened to facilitate his fatal crash in 1948?

It's a new year, and there are new and old classics to read -- for free -- thanks to NICAP.org. Don't miss the most compelling UFO evidence on the Web.

The Summer of '76 Memorialized

2010-12-23T13:18:00.002-05:00

June 8, 1976 from the National Enquirer. The sub-heading remains far more interesting than the headline itself. UFOs aside, I want to know more about that aquatic rabbit on a mission who attacked Carter's boat on a strange day when carrots apparently weren't enough to quench the appetite of a terrorist bunny.

Replication Illustration

2010-12-20T15:00:00.003-05:00

There are so many things I would love to feature here from the past, yet I constantly worry about copyrights and infringing upon other people's hard work without proper credit or compensation. My only defense, of course, is that I make no money whatsoever with any of my blogs, so what I place before readers is done strictly out of respect or concern for historical perspective. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I probably don't.

Some of the most amusing UFO-related cartoons appeared in national magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of those formerly stalwart newsstand dwellers are gone forever, victims of the digital age, high expenses and a diminishing readership.

This cartoon, invoking World War II's evil Hitler, graced a page from November 18, 1967's Saturday Evening Post. Despite its vintage, the artist's theme reminded me instantly of researchers such as Dr. David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins. Each has spent years speaking with alleged UFO abduction victims, and some frightening possibilities regarding alien entities interfering with human reproduction have come to light, as many of you already know (you can read their books).

The cartoon almost seems prophetic in a humorously twisted way, and maybe a little scary to anybody familiar with abductee research.

Season's Geekings

2010-12-10T15:22:00.002-05:00

Why say anything if I've little to say? Weather here in the Northeastern U.S. is everything I've never wanted, and for now I'm retreating from blog entries. I wish you all a merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a great 2011, which you'll have to endure even if you aren't looking forward to its arrival. Will we experience government UFO "disclosure" in the U.S. during 2011? Will Elvis return? Does Judge Crater's mummified corpse administer a star chamber?

And to you Wikileaks geeks -- now that we know more about you -- may you all burn in Cyberhell for possibly compromising the lives of Americans (particularly military members) and America's friends around the globe. Many of you seem much too young and hopelessly idealistic about the world. Anarchy (your failed project here in the states?) might seem fun and sexy for a few days, but eventually all the wrong people usually move in to enslave the very folks who open chaotic portals. You pathetic milksops who lounge behind computer anonymity might dislike or even hate the United States, but this nation remains the world's best hope for hope itself. What you fools HAVE accomplished, to my regret, is to encourage calls for more government control of the Internet -- something that nobody should ever desire.

If you Wikileaks enthusiasts were bold enough to try your antics on, say, the Russians, it probably wouldn't be long before you gutless little weasels would find your cups of gruel, insect food, fecal derivatives or whatever you eat seasoned with just a dash of polonium -- which, like yourselves, is tasteless, yet disastrously effective. Start looking over your shoulders, hacking twits, because surely there are people out there working day and night to meet you under appropriately nasty circumstances one fine day, no matter how far and how deep your reach extends. And your youthful stupidity probably won't save you in a world which seems to be more angry, more hysterical and more paranoid than ever. Or maybe it's just me.

Wikileaks Unplugged

2010-12-02T14:04:00.002-05:00

Though the extent of any "damage" caused by the Wikileaks project remains up for debate, it is rather interesting to be reminded how governments perfectly content with spying on their own people tend to become rabidly exercised once spied back upon. It might even be argued that the Wikileaks drama subverts America's case against alleged U.S. government computer hacker Gary McKinnon to a microscopic affair.

No Wikileaks UFO surprises? Of course not, that stuff would be classified much higher up. Yet, if we've learned anything the past few days, it's (again) that guarded computer communication and cyber security remain giant variables.

So governments lie, we learn. Wow. But some things we just know, don't we, as if by instinct?

Still, outrageous and damning -- and hilarious, and by now perhaps dead in the waters of Amazon.com -- though Wikileaks revelations may be, we hoped that the OBVIOUSLY condemned people currently hiding out whilst casting forth the world's diplomatic manure would live long enough to give us diplomatic impressions of Russia (they just did, according to news reports referencing the "Russian Mafia," "Batman and Robin" and other delights), China and other disturbing entities whose ruthless leaders have long deserved nothing less than a naked unmasking to reveal their cockroach faces. And if said Wikileaks folk have uncovered sufficient information to portray a fair portion of United Nations members as the virtual thugs and rats they are, more power to 'em. Should all of this be accomplished, the United States will look pretty darned good by comparison. The truth hurts, doesn't it? I fear I would make a terrible diplomat in a world where the U.S. has a plethora of enemies pretending to be friends and friends who want us to cure international ills primarily at our expense, in terms of both lives and money.

FROM WIKILEAKS TO WINTER WEEKS: Despite some of my way-back lineage (e.g., Canadian, for starters), I'm not an immense fan of winter's cold, snow and ice here in the U.S., though I do appreciate wintertime's cleansing effects and the unlikely prospect of attacks by anacondas hiding in snowy treetops. That said, I may not be blogging much during the next 2-3 months. Depends upon wha'sup out there in the real world from Dec-Feb. But, as always, if I'm not here the links certainly are, and if you stay in touch with Billy Cox and all the others you'll be well-informed about UFOs and other things that go bright in the night.

No, THAT '70s Show

2010-11-27T13:32:00.003-05:00

You could have lived just about anywhere in the 1970s and heard about interesting, if not downright impressive, UFO sightings. We've explored the seventies often in these pages, and here's another drawing of something strange. The object depicted was seen low in the sky by at least two witnesses in Central New York, and as it slowly cruised overhead it made a repetitive sh-sh-sh noise. The top appeared to have red, blue and yellow lights, while the bottom displayed a white fluorescent light all around. Eventually, the object shot away at fast speed. Witnesses claimed that anything resembling a helicopter was out of the question.

Beset

2010-11-19T12:17:00.005-05:00

The old couple had read about this sort of thing before, and they stood engulfed in terror as events began to unfold.

Yes, as years passed each had read about encounters with strange beings and situations, and now it was happening to them. The old woman shuddered as alien hands grasping peculiar instruments explored her body, inch by inch. "Why, oh why are you doing this to me?!" she screamed. "Who are you?!"

She thought instantly of Betty Hill, whose account of helplessly enduring a probe from head to toe was horrifying. And now it was her turn.

Her husband, a couple of years older than she but no less frightened, thought immediately of the two fishermen in Pascagoula, Mississippi who claimed to have been examined with a device that looked like a large eye. This time, there was no "eye," but he knew all too well that something incredible, technology he couldn't even imagine, was systematically examining him.

At last, the weird procedures having been completed, the two old people were reunited, and each hugged the other so tightly that no force in the universe would ever separate them again. However, their moment of presumed serenity was shaken as a human-like voice whispered in their ears: "Okay, you're all set. You folks can proceed to your flight," advised the TSA agent, rushing off to scan other airline passengers waiting impatiently in a long line.

Another old couple, stepping forward as security personnel beckoned them on, also remembered reading about this sort of thing before, and they, too, stood engulfed in terror as events began to unfold. One of them remembered reading about the Travis Walton case, when strange beings had descended upon him and. . .

(That's my politically correct Thanksgiving story for all of you intent upon commercial flights this season. In the meantime, the new movie, "Cool It" opens today, I believe, and it should help greatly to dispel all the nonsense the global warming crowd has frightened your children with (e.g., climate change is all our fault). Even one of the higher-ups in this mud puddle has allegedly (finally?) admitted the climate change thing is more about distribution of wealth than real science. Beware, folks, always beware . . . and don't let 'em mess with the Internet, as demons far worse than a "fairness doctrine" are about to rear their ugly heads in Congress, as well as internationally.)

Enduring Significance Condensed

2010-11-10T12:36:00.003-05:00

As a teenager, exploring books about UFOs fascinated me, but I was also always on the lookout for magazine articles about the subject which had become classics. In March of 1967, I bought a used copy of Reader's Digest from a mail-order place in California.

It was, looking back, $2.50 well spent for the July, 1952 issue. Though sharply abbreviated, RD had taken notice and re-published the all-important article from LIFE Magazine of April 7, 1952 entitled, "Have We Visitors From Space?" LIFE's report (influentially written by H.B. Darrach, Jr., and Robert Ginna and eventually spotlighted briefly in the 1956 documentary motion picture, "U.F.O.") was the culmination of official and public concern over widespread flying saucer reports, including Kenneth Arnold's sighting, and extending to far more dramatic encounters. In addition, the Digest included James R. Aswell's piece, "Flying Saucers -- New in Name Only," which asserted that UFO reports went back to at least the 1800s.

More to the point for me, however, was the RD issue date of July,1952. Though published in June, the cover date of July would coincide with the famous month and year when UFOs were detected on two dramatic occasions, bolstered by radar and visual contact, over Washington, D.C. Just holding this 1952 summer artifact in my hands brings home the realization that the nation, for a time at least, became vitally concerned about the UFO mystery -- as well it should have -- and, as we now know, there were "higher up" conversations about telling the people of official fears that the UFO enigma represented extraterrestrial contact. Instead, lucky us, we got the Robertson (CIA) panel convening in 1953 and enough subsequent information suppression over the decades to keep the public in the dark indefinitely.

But, okay, folks wanted to know about UFOs in 1952. What else was on their minds? Reader's Digest is a reliable time capsule, often reflecting the daily lives and concerns of just plain us.

The July issue held, for instance, author James A. Michener's commentary about a tragic American military loss during the Korean conflict, with RD sure to mention in a footnote that Michener's words, based upon a newspaper account which reached him while visiting Korea, were released to news agencies throughout the U.S. Far East Command.

Another writer advised people to stay rooted in their communities and not to rush off to other places just because the grass always seems greener elsewhere, while yet another warned the country that high taxes cause inflation. Accountant Frank Wilbur Main stated, "Public pressure was largely responsible for holding the tax bill of 1951 to an increase of approximately 5.6 billion dollars, instead of the ten billion dollars requested by President Truman." Pocket change in 2010. The good old days.

"An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent booklet form," was the Digest's slogan of the day, utilizing by 1952 some 35,000 "community representatives" across the nation to sell subscriptions to the little magazine which emphasized family and religion with no apologies.

What else mattered in the July, 1952 issue? There's a piece about actress Greta Garbo with comments from people in high media places who knew her, including comments from the late columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, whose own (untimely) death and reputation attracted controversy among the conspiratorial.

Right out of history, there's motion picture director Elia Kazan, writing about Communism's threat and his appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities -- and his testimony subsequently lost him many friends among the, um, Communists basking in the Hollywood community. Counterfeiting of British money by Nazis during WW II made the pages, as did pleas for smaller government and less people on the public dole.

An article on Batista's Cuba. Batista? Wow, that was a long time ago. "Will Batista give Cuba an honest, efficient government -- or another fast shuffle?" asks a blurb atop the page. Hmm. I think I can answer that. Starts with F for Fidel. . .

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. Sure, I remember watching his TV show on the old family black and white TV, even though I'm no way Catholic (I watched Liberace's show, too, but don't play the piano or dress in sequins). I believe that actor Martin Sheen borrowed his own name from the Bishop, otherwise he would have remained Martin Estevez (sons and actors Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen are named after. . .well, now you know. . .).

This Reader's Digest issue also questions the wisdom of attempting flood control with dams. They were on to something important there. A report about ion-exchange resins? Oh, water softeners, okay. . .

Kuwait. Wealthy beyond belief thanks to oil. And. . .? What? Butter vs. margarine? That debate was going on even in 1952? Endless. Then there's a piece entitled, "How to Write a Letter," and almost 60 years later I've every confidence that most of those who live almost totally in a world of texting wouldn't know how to write a reasonable letter if instructions regarding its preparation came with microwave instructions.

Surprisingly, even back then there's a piece about natural resources, though exhaustible, that should be converted into inexhaustible resources. Looks good on paper, anyway, and I'm writing this much too late at night to figure out what the author is saying. Then we have a warning about mob rule in NY City. Looks pretty tame in comparison with today's social horrors.

Pre-cooked and frozen foods had recently become important to the U.S. military (particularly the Navy), whose food preparation areas were previously burdened by garbage, bones and other substances difficult to get rid of -- and often a clue to the location of Naval vessels if left behind where enemies could track tell-tale trash.

"Stop Killing Your Husband!" begs another article, condensed from a health magazine. "The typical husband," advises the author, "tends to put on weight as he grows older because he needs less food and often eats more." Like, wow. I guess some things DON'T change after all. Reminds me of that debate about margarine vs. butter.

Making industry more productive by putting the human element into factory work is encouraged in another article, essentially telling management not to make useless jobs seem, um, as useless as they really are. Speaking of jobs you may not like to do, a pearl diver writes of his dangerous encounter with a giant octopus. Beware, diver dude, by 2010 we know there's more intelligence in an octopus than one can comfortably entertain.

Nostalgia? A piece glowing about the benefits provided by the easy availability of hundreds of millions of honeybees in the U.S. stands in sharp contrast to the current day, when bee colonies all over the country mysteriously lose their valued occupants quickly and completely.

As if reverse deja vu by decades, an article near the end of this 1952 issue suggests the Republicans will have a tough time defeating the Democrats. I guess they needed the Tea Party and a witch to run back then, too? Political talk. I am not a Communist. I am not a crook. I am not a witch. I am not gay. One trouble with politics is, there's always more I'm not than I am.

Obviously, people did attempt to enjoy, tolerate or avoid all that life had to offer 60 years ago and, just like today, unfortunately, despite the evidence and despite the furor, intense public interest in UFOs came and went faster than dysentery on a cruise ship. Nevertheless, imagine the tremors felt throughout the faithful Reader's Digest (and LIFE) readership when July, 1952 rolled around, providing even more excitement than the April 7 LIFE Magazine blowout.

(The entire LIFE Magazine article from April 7, 1952 may be read at the NICAP.org site. See link and when accessed use the on-site NICAP search engine.)

Dr. Carl Jung: Psyched Out

2010-11-01T18:07:00.003-04:00

This is an oldie intended primarily for those of you too young to remember oldies.

When this Associated Press photo and blurb began making the rounds, probably in the late fifties or very early sixties (Jung died in 1961) it was referenced by numerous media and UFO research sources. Psychologist Jung, having already written a book about "flying saucers" and attempting to connect reports about the phenomenon to archetypes, eventually started to embrace a far more "alien" explanation. You may be assured that most students of psychology and Dr. Jung are unaware of the famed psychologist's evolvement regarding the UFO issue. Now who's crazy?

Season of the Mask

2010-10-27T13:17:00.005-04:00

It's fitting that Halloween and Election Day share such close quarters on the calendar. This Sunday, people of all ages will temporarily escape their true identities and make believe they're something different. On Tuesday, we'll vote nationally for people who likewise wear reality-altering masks for all occasions, every day: Politicians.

Because "change" is again in the wind, I suggest the Democrats and Republicans dispense with the donkey and elephant images and perhaps replace them with, as shown here, a mask-and-gun villain or the giant experimental critter gone wrong from the movie, "Tarantula." Fangs you can believe in.

One thing seems likely: The chances for UFO disclosure may be even less likely in the near future. "Tea Party" candidates, if anything, appear particularly focused upon fiscal responsibility, the Constitution and religious ideals, and their uneasy affiliation with the GOP and nonetheless crucial issues of national defense might effectively sweep the UFO issue under a very thick government rug already rife with neglected subterranean bumps beneath its fibers.

And again we ask -- President Jimmy Carter, where is the truth about UFOs? And John Podesta, hey, weren't you on a mission to reveal the facts about. . .? Didn't we anticipate, once known, that President Bill and Hillary Clinton's UFO interest would eventually result in. . .??? Grant Cameron's Presidential UFO Web site (see link) addresses such questions in detail, and while donkeys and elephants will consume an unfortunately small percentage of American voters next week, the elephant most enduring is that officially unacknowledged two-ton pachyderm reposing comfortably still on the sofa in the living room.

MAYBE THEY DIDN'T PAY THE ELECTRIC BILL? Hot on the heels of Robert Hastings' UFOs & nukes presentation at the National Press Club, here comes Wyoming's Warren Air Force Base this week with news of a "power failure" affecting a battery of nuclear missiles. Move along, folks, nothing to see here. And, after all, it IS almost Halloween. The Warren event was just a kinda sorta routine power loss, one-of-those-things, and hardware was still functional with a backup power system, we are told. And nary an inference about UFOs. None, in fact. Whew. That's reassuring. Then again, if UFOs were involved, how would we know, other than waiting until Hastings' next conference 10 or 20 years from now, when on-site personnel come forward?

Or. . .could the whole thing have been staged to somehow lessen interest in Hastings' press club affair (see, this stuff happens all the time at nuke bases. . .and we don't need UFOs to do it. . .) Good grief, now I sound like a conspiracy fan.

The power failure issue, for me, became secondary to the media's treatment of the story. Early reports stated that the White House had been fully informed at once, but later in the morning today (Wednesday) at least one broadcast alleged that the WH didn't know about the incident until hours or days after the affair. We assume this will all be sorted out quickly, and the public will be issued as much of an explanation as we deserve. Ha. UPDATE: Aha, so it was just a computer problem and not a power failure. Well, I feel a lot better now, how about you?

The Fish with a Human Face

2010-10-22T12:30:00.004-04:00

We so enjoy the experience when Dr. This or Dr. That clears his throat authoritatively, pats multiple diplomas lovingly and announces that life on other planets almost certainly won't resemble us. These, by the way, are the same folks whose egos and education teeter unsteadily, jeopardized by unspoken fears of instant irrelevancy one day if the science wrapped around UFOs becomes apparent.

But it's still Halloween month, UFOs or not-UFOs are showing up all across the skies, darned nearly smiling for the cameras and nobody knows for sure what's going on. At least today I can spotlight a fifties fright film that WASN'T responsible for causing UFO panic in the streets, or making legitimate reports appear fringe sci-fi.

And if the title of this entry led you to believe this is about mermaids, well, sorry to disappoint you. Not exactly a mermaid here. Nevertheless. . .

His aquatically disturbing appearance fascinated theater audiences everywhere, scared teenage girls into their boyfriends' willing arms and undoubtedly, in the preliminary tradition of a future shark named "Jaws," kept a few people from the beach and precipitated water-based hoaxes aplenty. His name? Who needs a name when christened "The Creature From the Black Lagoon?" How can anybody forget your monster designation when you return in a sequel entitled, "The Revenge of the Creature?" How tired can you become of being THE creature by the time producers attempt a surgical conversion to landlubber status for you, as they churn out "The Creature Walks Among Us?"

Scary, yes, but The Creature spawned an attribute missing from current-day digital monster recipes: Pathos. He evoked pity as well as fear, this fishy miscreant whose killings ranked only secondary to the invasion of his watery space by humans intent upon capture, domination and, ultimately, humiliation bent upon surgically forcing him to transform into something he could never be: Us. How could we possibly tame the beast when we are the beast?

True, when all the water dripped off, the cameras stopped rolling and zippers unzipped, there were only men in rubbery monster costumes who portrayed Universal International Pictures' scaly throwback darling of the deep. But until then, lenses -- even 3-D lenses on one thrilling occasion -- painted a picture of horror balanced equitably with a dash of pity.

There was a time less cluttered, you may recall, when movie makers lovingly knew how to create memorable monsters with character, avoiding, for a while at least, vacuous cookie-cutter format slashers possessive of neither heart nor soul.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO AND OTHER FAULTS IN THE CRUST: During my four reluctant (but highly productive) military years -- that means, essentially, that the draft pursued me and I enlisted -- long ago, one thing keeping me going was an appreciation of freedom of speech in the U.S. Oh yes, speech constraint during one's military time is a valid consideration, when national security is involved. But in daily civilian life, unless one libels or slanders somebody or something, say whatever you like. The First Amendment, as society has noted time and again, particularly serves to protect unpopular speech.

Too bad National Public Radio doesn't get it. I really don't give a flip about Juan Williams, but his statements on Fox-TV should not have resulted in a loss of his job (bulletin -- just hired by Fox at two million a year). You know what? I feel uncomfortable sitting next to people in Muslim garb, too. NO, I wasn't raised that way -- the 9/11 event and follow-up incidents such as the Fort Hood massacre tipped the scales because, hmm, whadoyaknow, terrorist acts routinely have radical Muslims behind them. Unfortunately, those of the Muslim faith don't come equipped like "E.T." with red or green lights glowing in their chest cavities so we can tell who is whom.

Yet, I'm not without compassion. Maybe I'd be willing to travel to the Middle East and form women's diving and synchronized swimming teams for radical Muslim women wearing burkas. Imagine that image on TV? There's nothing like time travel back through the centuries.

I think the Williams thing surfaced especially because he appeared on Fox ("the enemy"). Strange, too, that everybody's fave benefactor George Soros just gave a million bucks to public radio to encourage journalism or something or another. Hmm.

We look around and find, here and there, firings of people in media who express personal views. I've heard that Facebook is discouraging anti-gay comments, doubtless because of recent tragic gay teen suicides. However, again, the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular comments. Me, I'm 110 percent for gay people serving openly in the military, but if somebody wants to condemn the thought in strong terms publicly, go for it. It's your right.

Should NPR be de-funded of government contributions? Maybe. Why shouldn't they stand on their own two feet like commercial networks must? The thing is, we want ALL views of an issue to be heard and protected as free speech, and the less government control in this area the better. The FCC? Representative of what? And Juan Williams -- I believe he just received a crippling overdose of the poison embraced by radicals in media, government and education. It's name is political correctness, it ain't pretty and it's been in our neighborhoods much too long.

Post Hole Digger

2010-10-16T11:53:00.004-04:00

Oh cry, cry the wretched literary disparity necessitated by freedom of the press at The Washington Post.

It was a dark and stormy night. No, wait, I think that's been done before. It was the best of times, it was the worst. . .darn, this is so difficult sometimes.

Please be assured, I wish no ill will toward John Kelly, staff writer at the Post, who seemed surprised to receive a wealth of angry mail following his, hmm, rather dismissive piece about Robert Hastings' (nonetheless important) UFOs and nukes presentation before the National Press Club on September 27. In his October 5 article, journalist Kelly sampled a few pieces of mail sent along by folks who thought maybeeeeee he should have attended for other reasons than merely to enjoy the donuts.

So the donuts, like the NPC proceedings, by now have been long swallowed, digested, fermented and, um, dispatched. And Mr. Kelly's report about the affair, ufologically focused though it could have been, will be remembered as a few paragraphs about donuts at some press meeting relative to something or another.

But what a difference a few years make. Instead of lamenting what is, better that I return to those thrilling days of yesteryear and what was. Witness The Washington Post in July, 2007, and, being much too lazy to come up with new verbiage today, I'll quote from a 2007 five-part article I wrote for this blog entitled, "As Weird as it Gets." You can access the series in the search engine above if you wish, but here's the portion regarding the variety of journalistic face I prefer worn at the WP:

_____

While most of us slept during the wee small hours of July 26, 2007, oblivious to the routine world of consciousness, a fast-paced drama portrayed to the press in benign terms, yet of perhaps immense significance simply because the public learned of it at all, was playing out over the skies of Maryland, not all that far from the highly restricted air space of the nation's Capitol. While the basics happened to emerge here and there from the deluge of information that confronts newspaper and electronic media editors daily, chances are good that the story escapes you to this very day.

Around 1:00 on that otherwise quiet Friday morning, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado made radar contact with an apparent low, slow-moving aircraft outside of D.C. Unable to establish radio contact with this unidentified target in a post September 11 country that can no longer afford to leisurely ask questions first and shoot later, NORAD immediately scrambled two armed F-16s from the 113th Air National Guard squadron at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington.

We are told that as the jets investigated, the image faded from NORAD radar and the pilots returned to base after seeing nothing in the skies. However, as peculiar stories often tend to do, this one became increasingly mysterious.

WTOP-AM, an all-news radio station in D.C., began getting calls from listeners near Andrews AFB who were not only "shaken from their beds" as the jets took off in a hurry, but claimed to have seen either a bright blue or orange ball of light moving very fast while the jets screamed overhead in pursuit.

By the next morning, reporter Steve Vogel of The Washington Post had sorted out the facts and revealed a few surprises as well for the daily edition. He, like WTOP, spoke with witnesses and was given particularly to quote from one named Renny Rogers of the nearby Maryland suburb of Waldorf. Rogers, whom UFO (unidentified flying object) researchers later learned had actually run in and outside of his house twice as the jets were engaged in an apparent chase, described seeing a "light blue object traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed."

"This Air Force jet was right behind it, chasing it," he added, "but the object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my neighbor, 'I think those jets are chasing a UFO.'" Rogers had already insisted to a WTOP reporter that the object displayed no smoke or trail, no flashing lights, appeared smooth and seemed "eerily silent."

Maj. Douglas Martin of NORAD in Colorado, according to Vogel's report, stated that radar had detected "a track of interest," but fighter pilots observed nothing. "Everything was fine in the sky and they returned home," Martin advised. Maj. Barry Venable, another NORAD spokesman, bluntly told The Washington Post, "There are any number of scenarios, but we don't know what it was."

Other than the Post, media coverage of this incident, intriguing especially because of the official candor involved in even confirming publicly the presence of an unknown on radar that necessitated a military scramble, proved pathetically sparse and the incident received brief mention in a handful of cable news programs and newspapers before disappearing into accounts on various Internet sites.

Nevertheless, the fact that The Washington Post bothered to cover this story at all further authenticated its significance. Incredibly, just a few days before the scramble, WP reporter Peter Carlson had written an astonishingly open-minded look back 50 years ago, when Washington experienced well-documented instances of UFO activity, including reportedly solid radar returns and pursuing pilot visualization. UFO researchers, accustomed to decades of abundant UFO-ridiculing newspaper reports in the U.S., were taken aback that a major U.S. newspaper afforded the subject a thoughtful examination. This writer's brief query to Carlson revealed that his article did elicit a good response from readers.

In an intriguing footnote to Carlson's piece, the July 26 F-16 scramble coincided exactly 50 years to the day with July 26 of 1952, when a major multi-UFO event occurred over the Capitol.

_____

There you have it, readers. Some Washington Post writers alert the public about UFOs, while others judge donuts. Still, I guess writing about refreshments at press club gatherings beats the approach taken by the perpetually snooty New York Times, which chose to offer nothing of substance whatsoever about Hastings' presentation. Maybe they were busy waiting for a bulletin-level pronouncement from SETI, where shocking are-we-alone? news happens all the time, and there's probably not a donut in sight.

BRING "BALLOON BOY" BACK: If some reports are correct about this incident ,all one has to do is release a few balloons in the skies over Manhattan, and the major TV networks and screen crawls lap up the ha-ha-not-really-UFOs feature story like kittens at a milk festival. But give 'em the real thing and they'll sooner do a piece on dust bunnies or Hollywood blah-blah-blah. Unfortunately, the usual suspects (debunkers) may well have a balloon field day with this possible non-event to arbitrarily explain away substantial UFO cases for weeks to come.

Screen vs. Sky

2010-10-08T12:44:00.002-04:00

On September 27, my government again had an opportunity to step forward and do the right thing, and the right thing would involve a current high-ranking official representing the U.S. to come forward and say something, anything, to lend support to former military officers daring to tell us the truth at the Hastings/Salas National Press Club affair. Instead, we got stone-cold silence, an attitude firmly entrenched over the decades and always topped off with a disinformation "fact sheet" from the Air Force, a document which exists only because the Colorado UFO "study" fudged, ignored and lied as taxpayers' money was squandered unscientifically to bolster preconceived negative opinions.

Billy Cox (see link), having received for his collection yet another copy of a USAF UFO "fact sheet" denial growing mold since 1969, was informed by Vicki Stein of the Pentagon's Air Force press desk that "This is what our position is. And we're standing by it." Well, excuuuuuuuuuze me, Ms. Stein, but I'll continue to stand by the words of Al Chop, my favorite all-time Pentagon USAF press desk chief, whose 1953 letter on DOD letterhead (reprinted on this blog more than once, use the search engine above and type in Al Chop Henry Holt) essentially assured publisher Henry Holt and Co. that if the maneuvers reported by experienced personnel were correct, the only remaining explanation for UFOs was extraterrestrial intelligence (the "interplanetary answer").

Air Force and government denials at any level do not speak well for us as a free society. If the U.S. can't provide answers about the UFO subject, our government at least must have the integrity to stand behind and support its honorable former and current military personnel. Instead, over and again throughout the years we document accounts of service personnel who experience profound UFO-related events, and they are either warned never to speak of these incidents, or to sign oaths promising non-disclosure, or are intimidated into "believing" that nothing happened at all. Such threats can be most convincing -- but ultimately for what purpose? We must all thank and hold in the highest regard former military personnel who eventually feel they must come forward and display the temerity to tell the people the truth, at least as much of the truth as they know, about UFO events clearly unrelated to human technology or ability.

But -- now you puzzle over the pictures shown here today? Well, it's still October, Halloween month, and since the seriousness of the UFO issue continues to be characteristically superceded by things of lesser substance, why not join in?

I guess we all like a good science fiction movie, but always remember that, during the 1950s, where government sources couldn't make UFO inquiries go away, the motion picture industry could. The unfortunate melding of the UFO subject with the popular genre of science fiction on film was destined to create ridicule on the streets, less pressure on Congress to explore sightings in depth and the need for even more sci-fi and horror movies craved by the public. Invasion of the Saucermen and The Man From Planet X were two fifties favorites at the drive-in and, as you can imagine just from the publicity stills shown here, the atmosphere for sober attention to UFOs wasn't about to improve anytime soon.

Retrieving the Norm After the Storm

2010-10-04T11:39:00.005-04:00

I like October. It's a month when people can at least pretend to be scared when All Hallows Eve rolls around. I think of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker in October, too, and of a certain October years ago when UFO reports saturated the area where I live.

Folks rightly SHOULD HAVE been frightened last month, when Leslie Kean's astounding UFO book hit The Big Time, and the remarkable efforts of Robert Hastings and Robert Salas brought UFOs and military nuclear missile base involvement to the National Press Club. The excitement peaked and hit a few hopeful spots, but public interest now slides back to economics, politics and sports.

I can only speak for myself, but in another two years or so fifty years will have passed since I became aware of the UFO phenomenon. Even as a high school student, I wrote numerous letters to the editors of area newspapers, spoke publicly and went on radio talk shows (my appearances weren't exactly equivalent to an Edward R. Murrow broadcast, but the incredible Wendy Connors, now retired from UFO research and documentation efforts, converted my old audio tapes to digital format for her vast "Faded Discs" sound archives of olden days, and my squeaky teenage voice will live on in infamy -- or until Byte Monsters from a distant galaxy come to earth and eat everything preserved digitally).

There were lectures at the public school and university level. There was TV. There was a course taught at a college. There were national magazine articles written for small payments in return. There were rewards of public awareness, but there was also intense frustration and the spending of more money than I would ever recover just to keep the UFO evidence out where people could find it. But -- this was important.

And still we wait. For something to happen. Will it? Did it? Dunno. Far easier to go back to TV athletic events and forget the cares few care about anyway.

And monsters? Ha, we got-cher monsters right here. To many folks, UFOs and monsters are all the same, so what the heck? While other younger and/or more informed UFO researchers continue beating their heads against walls of lethargy, officialdom and increasing social dumb-nation, maybe I'll just feature monsters during October. After all, everybody loves monsters, particularly when they become profitable. UFOs? Not profitable. Stuffy science, and no stadiums or scoreboards necessary.

And speaking of frightening things, remember a couple entries ago when we mentioned the proposed NY mosque near Ground Zero? I forgot to warn you of one essential: Mummies.

I can almost guarantee it. If they build that mosque, we'll have worries far exceeding radical Islam, because it won't be two years after its grand opening before mummies will be walking the streets of New York and scaring the population to death, one by one (see photo for just one example of the horrors awaiting us). Now do you understand the implications?

Yes, I know, I know. UFOs have apparently compromised the world's nuclear missile sites, and the U.S. alone counts among its citizens honest active duty and former military personnel willing to risk their reputations and honor to tell a story that must not be dismissed -- but, hell, we have monsters and sports and Hollywood personalities and. . .

Hmm. Speaking of entertainment, what is it with these new TV shows? The Event drove me bonkers from episode #1 when the title character somehow managed to sneak a big ol' handgun onto a commercial flight, a flight watched over by an air marshal, no less. By episode #2, if other viewers weren't ready to pass out while trying to keep track of all the time regressions, I certainly was. And, wow, the visitors look just like us, even down to their winter clothing. I'm sure all of this could lamely be explained, eventually, but I won't be hovering around in anticipation, because I expect a brutal cancellation first.

Werewolves what about werewolves? Sick of 'em yet? ABC-TV's The Gates featured werewolves that look like. . .like wolves. Wait a minute, they ARE wolves, ordinary wolves! Did somebody forget to hire the special effects team? And Vampire Diaries? Vampire Dullaries, dude. As last season concluded, this poorly scripted, yet (not surprisingly) heavily viewed teen TV favorite promised werewolves. What did the CW network deliver? A werewolf that looks like a wolf because it IS a wolf, looking even more ridiculous because somebody obviously messed with its appearance digitally. Couldn't they have at least put a Lon Chaney, Jr. Wolfman mask on it?

Yes, that's entertainment, and cheap fictional thrills and athletic monotony will win out over disturbing UFO incidents in real life every time. Here, let me tell you about a baseball team of mummies playing opposite zombies to huge crowds in Brooklyn. . .

The Edge-ucator

2010-09-27T12:49:00.002-04:00

Several months ago, we mentioned that famed science writer (the late) Walter Sullivan, who generally took a firmly skeptical stance about UFOs, opened up a bit years ago and actually wrote something positive about the subject in his New York Times column, when incredible, yet reliable, UFO reports suddenly emerged in great quantity (type his name in the search engine above to access that blog entry). One wonders what stuffy NYT editors thought about this, since the Times has a history of negativity about UFOs, but Sullivan's rare UFO gem sparkled.

The history of UFO research is permeated with professionals at all levels, ardent skeptics who actually take the time to examine the evidence and subsequently experience an intellectual rebirth regarding the issue. Sometimes, the change takes years.

During the late 1970s and early eighties, retired educator Dr. Max Rafferty (deceased in 1982 at age 65, when his car plunged over a dam) wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column dealing primarily with social and political issues, and of course he focused upon educational triumphs and shortcomings. In the sixties, Rafferty was superintendent of schools for all of California, and the experience obviously left him wiser and ready to take on the country's problems -- or, at least, to write about them. Generally conservative in his views, Rafferty often decried the state of public education and government policy. His papers and recorded media were donated to the University of Iowa before his death.

Okay, so I admit it, I didn't read his column regularly, but frequently viewed its headlines in the morning newspaper. But one day in 1979, during the last week of March, I double-took at the words before me in the newspaper's editorial section: RUSSIANS FINALLY SEE OWN UFOS, announced Rafferty's headline. The UFO reference alone wouldn't have bothered me, because this was a time when UFO sightings were getting publicity around the globe, and just weeks previously a news crew from New Zealand filmed a fuzzy light from an airplane, causing international "UFO mania."

However, for Rafferty to tackle this subject, well. . .he had been paying attention.

"Ever since the 'flying saucer' sightings began in the late '40s," he began, "I've been wondering bemusedly why the alleged visitors from outer space never seem to breach the Iron Curtain." Rafferty, like most Americans, hadn't realized or considered the UFO phenomenon's international reach. UFO organizations, especially the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) and its founders Jim and Coral Lorenzen, knew almost instinctively since APRO's inception in 1952 that all nations reported UFOs, and the reports were often disturbingly similar.

After relating familiar and historic boundaries of censorship and secrecy in the (former) Soviet Union, Rafferty noted the Soviets had finally been disclosing information about some 300 UFO reports, including an incident where numerous automobiles stalled just 28 miles west of Moscow.
Rafferty's intrigue centers particularly upon the 1908 explosion of something over Siberia which flattened trees for some 1250 square miles, and comments by Moscow Aviation Institute scientist Felix Zigel to the effect that the precipitant may have been an "extraterrestrial probe" heightened his interest.

Of course, current thinking about the 1908 event brings a comet, meteorites and other theories into the mix, but for Rafferty in 1979 a slight crack in Soviet secrecy leading to commentary about their own UFOs was quite the thing. In this column, Dr. Rafferty closes with a fair question, cloaked in a bantering tone: "Wouldn't you think the Russkies would have admitted the problem long ago -- the way the rest of us did -- and have joined hands and brains with us to come up with an answer? Not the way those birds operate. Sssh! Hush! Huggermugger! Jackassery. . ."

I found the attention focused by Dr. Rafferty, in a gradual manner, upon things out of the ordinary rather interesting, and even wrote him a letter expressing my appreciation that he was at least interested in mentioning the UFO issue. I was a bit surprised to receive a postcard back from him upon which he had written a line or two of gratitude.

Four months later, in July, Rafferty produced another curious column, entitled "Absolute Heresy." This time, he took great care to list things he did not believe. For instance, he did not believe that President Roosevelt "had any more to do with ending the Great Depression than the Tooth Fairy," nor "that the world is running out of oil (Cheap oil, yes, oil as oil, no)." Taking a jab at education, apparently a favorite venture for Dr. Rafferty, he denied that "today's English teachers have mastered English grammar (Oh, some have. But most of them under the age of 40 don't know the difference between a split infinitive and a dangling participle.)."

However, among 16 topics of personal non-belief, number 14 turned to UFOs: "(I don't believe) that flying saucers come from other planets (not in our solar system, that's for sure. And any others are several lifetimes away, at any conceivable speed.)." Yet, I wondered, do "believe" or don't "believe," Dr. Rafferty, but what's the ongoing fascination with the UFO topic by a man perhaps conflicted by a too-educated-to-know-better attitude?

And it got better. Nearly a year and a half later, during the month of November, 1980, Dr. Max Rafferty dared raise questions about psychics in a column entitled, "What Education Fails to Solve." Time and again, the educator had taken the American education system to task, but now he was about to partake of a mystery soup whose contents would shock and horrify teachers everywhere who preferred a nice-and-easy-and-safe educational format.

This time, he revisited a column written several years prior, regarding New Jersey psychic Dorothy Allison. Portraying Allison as a typical housewife and a normal as anybody in person, Rafferty marveled over her accomplishments in assisting NJ law enforcement officers in locating murdered children and adults through her special mental abilities. As Rafferty wrote that column, he claimed Allison had a success rate to date of helping police solve 13 murders and locating more than 50 missing children, all for no monetary gain.

"She doesn't know any other psychics and doesn't particularly want to," Rafferty explained. "She's a perfectly normal housewife. She tells no fortunes. She gazes into no crystal balls. She goes into no trances.

"And yet," puzzles the Ph.D. whose harsh wit consistently held little love for the decline of education in the U.S., "there is the 'power'? How to explain it? As an educator, I'm used to breaking down problems of the mind into component parts. . .Almost always, a pattern begins to form. . .the problem is solved and a remedy emerges. But not in the Strange Case of Dorothy Allison."

Harkening back through peculiarities of human history , Max Rafferty confesses: "Having said all of this, I'm back to square one. The accepted tools of psychology and psychiatry are useless when faced with a Something which ignores all the laws of time and space.

"Can it be, I wonder, that those 'laws' aren't laws at all? Can it be, finally, that we have been arrogantly cocksure about a lot of things of which instead we should have been humbly uncertain? Could darned well be." If only he had lived long enough to see science admit that just maybeeeeee dogs have sorta psychic-like abilities to detect when their owners have left the office and are on the way home.

Eagerly, I anticipated those rare occasions when Rafferty would open up about such things. What a self-contradiction his writing betrayed. The Soviet UFO reports fascinated him, yet he eventually found it necessary to tell his readers he didn't believe UFOs could have an extraterrestrial origin. But now -- psychics? And more self-interrogation regarding "things" about which we may have become "arrogantly cocksure?"

Not a month had passed when Dr. Max ripped another cog off the wheel. A few days before Christmas, 1980 a column entitled, "Science Moving Toward Religion," was born, and the retired educator went on at length about multiple "phenomena." He related the "Big Bang" theory to the Book of Genesis, applauded scientists for assuming an active role in investigations of the Shroud or Turin, took a thoughtful interest in research into "clinically dead persons" who report visions of light and an afterlife, and found it important that evolution was being questioned by a number of scientists who, likewise, were taking another look at creationism.

Obviously, having evolved himself to a perspective not shared by a majority of his fellows, Rafferty suggests that a growing relationship between science and religion might mean that "most if not all of our educational subject matter and basic premises will have to be drastically revised.

"The whole thing is mind-boggling. I repeat: I never thought I'd live to see the day."

Six months later, as the first week of June, 1981 crept in, Rafferty took extreme delight in writing a newspaper piece entitled, "Psychiatrists Are Apt to be Nuttier than the Patients" -- this, from a columnist who previously questioned a substantial portion of psychiatry. Discussing his obligation as education superintendent in California to help rid the system of "nutty" teachers whose diagnoses were confirmed by psychiatrists, Rafferty then goes on to emphasize a new five-year study of U.S. physician deaths conducted by a professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California.

A focus upon psychiatrists indicated that "psychiatrists are three times more likely to go crazy than you and I are. . .they're twice as apt to commit suicide. . .one out of three shrinks suffers from depression or from other emotional disorders," states Rafferty. Dr. Ferris N. Pitts, a psychiatrist who conducted the project, states, "There's something about the field of psychiatry that attracts many mentally ill doctors."

Apparently, University of California at San Diego professor Charles Rich seconds that (e)motion, taking it a step further: "Psychiatrists who give the argument that it's the job that causes their high suicide and depression rates are making an excuse." That is to say, if we may articulate even more, they were bonkers long before entering the profession.

"I'm intrigued," confesses Rafferty, evidently taking great joy in every word he writes on that day almost 30 years ago. "I was wondering about these birds almost 20 years ago, but I didn't have any research findings to bulwark my hunch back then. . .If those who sit in judgment upon our mental balance are themselves unbalanced, where does that leave us?"

Rafferty continues on to suggest that the causes of mental illness may be far different than suspected, and that it's possible that "Psychiatrists will occupy the same slot in history as phrenologists and witch doctors." Ouch. "I wonder," he concludes, "could we possibly have been so howlingly wrong for so long? Could be."

As September ended, three months later, Max Rafferty was concerning himself with presumed anomalies in photos of Saturn taken by Voyagers I and II, but his main point was that "experts" sometimes tend to avoid that which they can't explain.

A few months later, Max Rafferty would be dead -- as we noted earlier, according to online sources, a drowning victim whose car went over a dam. A highly educated man, who somehow managed to overcome what his cherished degrees and profound experiences told him he should be, instead discovered that we don't know as much as we think. Took him a few years to leap higher and higher , but, by George, he did it, he reached out, way out. Yet, I wonder. What was he thinking about that day, that day destined to be his last?

National Press Club: UFOs and Military Nuclear Encounters

2010-09-20T14:26:00.004-04:00

The arrival of two vitally important national UFO publicity events within weeks of one another in the current era is almost unheard of. Yet, quickly following in the footsteps of Leslie Kean's well-received book, UFOs, Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record comes another event certain to give the national media still another opportunity to get out the big guns and tackle what evidence indicates may be the greatest news story ever.

Next Monday, September 27, the National Press Club hosts a meeting in Washington, D.C. conducted by Robert Hastings and Robert Salas regarding UFO appearances at and apparent influence upon nuclear missiles and supposedly secure military bases, activity going back decades and seemingly occurring still.

This is hot stuff, because Hastings and Salas will feature former military officers and enlisted personnel who witnessed things and incidents of which they will speak. This is NOT some slick media flavor-of-the-day gathering -- the news headlines I pulled up to display here date back to 1977 and 1979.

I personally encourage my readers to phone your local newspapers, TV and radio stations to kindly request that they either cover the press conference themselves or prominently feature network or syndicated stories about it.

For further information and a list of speakers, please check sites such as Frank Warren's UFO Chronicles (see link) or Errol Bruce-Knapp's UFO Updates (see Virtually Strange link), which have put various press releases on their Web sites. I was supposed to receive information from the source, but nobody ever sent me anything about the conference (Maybe they tired of too many Roberts?), so I instead happily and confidently refer you to the sites above for an eye-opening description of and names involved in next Monday's highly anticipated proceedings. Best wishes to all participants, and may the disturbing truth finally win out. It all has to do with, you know, that annoying thing called the people's right to know in a free society.

Mosquerade Party

2010-09-17T12:37:00.004-04:00

About that particular site of a proposed mosque in New York City:

Though established primarily as a Christian nation and rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition, the USA has long been officially tolerant of other faiths. Me, I have problems with people of various Christian denominations (and, yes, Christians have killed their share of people over the centuries) because, instead of bringing immigrants here with brains and skills, "relief organizations" all too often -- with government blessings -- gather up non-assimilating, routinely inbred human detritus, many of whom can't even comprehend how to use a toilet, and inflict them upon our troubled nation, expecting taxpayers to pick up the tab and schools to educate the ineducable as our language suffers and our porous borders become harder to manage. Our culture slips away, ever so slowly.

I understand that Islam is a very old and extensively practiced religion, and this country has always embraced freedom of religion. But parts of Islam are held together with too many explosive bolts, angry little devices consistently intent upon converting or destroying infidels, nonbelievers. There are, literally, no two ways about it. Though many American Muslims have been moderate in their beliefs, those who attend services at various mosques themselves warn that the radical element is becoming more popular, as Islamic youth in the U.S. slip away to train for terror in Pakistan and other "youth-friendly" places. And remember, in Islam, there is no separation of church and state.

An increasing trickle of women who escaped from Islamic countries tell their stories via books and talk shows, and they warn the world about sharia law and cruelty beyond imagination. In 2010, accounts of women treated like animals by cowards and mobs and societies ruled by torture seem so out of place, yet we know. We know. We also know that our incredible young men and women in the armed services lose their lives every month, trying to make a crucial difference in places which, for my money, should just be bombed into infinity with the finest weapons we possess, but WON'T use.

And just who are the "unclean" infidels? I'm not the unclean, Jack, and I'm never going to become a civilization throwback. To me, the unclean is anybody who won't accept a dog or cat into their home solely because their religion arrogantly convinces them of superiority to Creation's other creatures.

If murders at Fort Hood by an extremist Muslim U.S. military officer and the story behind this physician didn't drive specific points home to the common senseless in society, I suppose nothing will. But the truth is, we're nowhere near ready to welcome Islam with open arms because we constantly live in fear that those arms will be blown off with either political or actual IEDs, right here in the USA, and certainly in other countries.

It's a real hoot to see members of the Administration make light of the Islamic threat as they try to play nice with everybody, but I will say without hesitation that if my father and his brothers -- all World War II veterans -- were alive today, they would agree that some politically motivated faces intent upon non-confrontation and appeasement should be slapped. They knew what mattered and when not to walk away from an obvious fight that needed to be fought in an all-out manner.

Keep in mind, extremist Muslims themselves have killed more of their own people throughout history than anybody else, a fact worth mentioning particularly because certain Islamic leaders insist that Americans hold the record. Not true.

Remember -- the U.S. government has warned us time and again that the perpetration of another terrorist action here is only a matter of time. When that happens, it won't matter how practitioners of Islam portray themselves, mosques both built and intended will probably be in extreme jeopardy throughout the country. These continue to be very dangerous times for everybody.

Even France, the last place one might expect, just passed a law almost unanimously (save for one objection) forbidding Muslim women from wearing burkas. The reason should be obvious. The world is waking up and Europe is at least making feeble attempts to curtail certain future disaster as Muslim immigrants produce far more offspring than native cultures. Will we wake up? Yet another cartoonist, this time in the USA, is said to have drawn or prepared to draw an image of the prophet Mohammad, and death threats chased that person into hiding. This should never happen in my country, and if threats, extreme anger and murder are the "benefits" that extremist factions of Islamic immigration have brought to the nation, then we need to weed out these internal factions quickly, whatever it takes, and dispose of them in ways appropriate to their actions.

We welcome religious diversity. But at the same time, there really is no fanatic like a religious fanatic throwback from centuries ago, and oft-proven Trojan horses attired as objects of peace from the Middle East must not be allowed to roam freely within our borders -- and, I'm sorry to say this, but any rational mind can only see the NY mosque as a "victory" mosque. There are too many questions unanswered, and a global history of mosques built upon the lands and religious ruins of the violently conquered, with history and antiquities obliterated in the process.

One may only hope that Islam experiences a dramatic reformation -- which does happen -- and the majority of its followers in remote places reject bloodshed and other conflict.

How does one sort out the radicals from peace-loving practitioners of Islam? That's the dilemma for a country that chose freedom as its foundation, and from everything I've heard from members of strict Islamic nations who escaped and now tell their stories, Islam's accompanying sharia law is absolutely incompatible with our Constitution and freedom of the individual. Currently in the USA, masks of deception assume many forms, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.

Will this, a mosque among many others already in NY, be constructed at the intended location? Probably. Where else would one put a "victory mosque" in NY, if not on or as near "Ground Zero" as possible?

We still have a choice: Close the gates for now, protect the borders, find out who's in the country and deal with them -- or be prepared to happily skip, jump, text and e-mail our way to cultural suicide, oblivious to the danger closing in, one terrifying human birth and one shady immigrant at a time.

I? The Jury?

2010-09-13T13:45:00.003-04:00

The jury summons arrived weeks ago, and I was dreading the inevitable day. Last week, I finally appeared in person, responding to the detailed invitation that dared to casually use the word, "Welcome!" in the first paragraph. Eight years drifted by since my last jury notification, and I lucked out then because my number never came up.

But this was far, far more concerning because I had been chosen for a grand jury -- five weeks as the member of a captive audience, forced to listen to seemingly endless whines and snorts from junior members of the district attorney's office. Hey, don't bother me, just take whomever you want to indict out back, give 'em the needle and indict them later. Surely, there's something in their past worthy of a prompt execution?

Obligation. Duty to serve. Your civic responsibility. You have been chosen to. . .

Whoa, hold on. Didn't I hear the same words when the Vietnam Era draft stopped by and invited me to a mandatory party I couldn't refuse? Haven't I been here before, same government but different circumstances? What more do you people want out of me?

"The vending machines are over there," offered a department of jurors secretary who unlocked the office door and beckoned me in. I was the first to arrive at this early hour. The only vending machine I desired was one from which I could buy an instant felony, so I could get out of this nightmare.

Other "Welcome to. . ." invitees began to arrive, and eventually we were all escorted into a large room with plenty o' seats, and checked in individually. "Look at this list," one court representative remarked to another afterward, "we've never had so many no-shows."

We had to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It's been a while for me. Did I almost start out with, "Oh, say can you see. . ." before I caught myself and got into step?

A film. Oh, GOD, not a film. But yes, 25-something minutes of CBS-TV's Ed Bradley (wait a minute, Bradley was a good journalist, but how long has he been dead?) and veteran actor Sam Waterston (who only appears dead on TV) explaining New York State's grand jury system. Okay, I get it, okay? I GET IT! Arghhhhhhhhh!

So, I learn that our job basically is to indict, to not indict or to push a case off to some other office. What the hell?! Seems to me, if your case is taking up my time and I have to endure walking and ultimately limping along for several blocks to reach the courthouse from the parking garage, you're on the hook, sorry.

Besides, how could I NOT indict anybody who comes under scrutiny? Better yet, let me decide who in this society deserves my personal indictment. First, I'd indict the so-called high school English teacher who promised my writing would never amount to anything. Okay, maybe she was right, but I'd still opt for indictment.

Then I'd indict Gray Barker, albeit posthumously, for the load of nonsensical UFO books I bought from his publishing company in my teen years. Books full of lies and fantasies written by charlatans don't age well as years go by, trust me. Saucerian Publications, you are served!

How about airline companies? Let's indict them for withholding the truth or flat-out lying about close and sometimes dangerously close encounters with UFOs, and for discouraging or flat-out muzzling their pilots from reporting such strange incidents.

Obviously, I would indict Congress for ignoring significant UFO evidence, available for decades in ample amounts from the meticulous files of competent private UFO investigative organizations and individual researchers -- and from the government itself.

But in stronger terms, I think I could easily go for an indictment of scientists and science-based "debunkers" who shamelessly continue to ignore UFO evidence. Chuckling and walking away, ladies and gentlemen, ain't science.

Regrettably, it's unlikely that I could indict members of the media who have darkened their profession's image for years by ignoring, potentially, the story of a lifetime because freedom of the press consistently allows them to exercise ignorance or to pick and choose stories depending upon. . .upon so many factors.

So I bask in the jury pool, awaiting my fate. The commissioner of jurors calls upon some to come up front, one at a time, and draw seven numbers each from a little rotating cage, numbers which will translate into grand jury members. I'm deliriously pleased-to-serve possible juror number 141. Crime must be rampant, for two grand juries at a time, 23 members per, are being formed, and we're already warned to expect attending jury sessions for about 15 out of 25 days.

The woman who draws first grabs her own number, personally assuring her future, as nervous laughter arises from the crowd, finding humor and a peculiar solace in anything that even sounds like irony. The fun continues. Ultimately, potential jurors are down to maybe 18 or 20, including me.

However, juror number 141 is not called. He is free to go, cast out into the streets for the next eight years, realizing all too well that fantasies of those he wishes to see indicted will never come true. Instead, stupidity, bad judgment, domestic violence and brutal divorces engulfing more than one out of two marriages in the USA will keep the courts occupied for years, even without the assistance of juror number 141.

Beam Scream

2010-09-09T13:10:00.004-04:00

The first month of 1985 started off with something of a semi-bang when the Associated Press reported on an interesting UFO story making the rounds in Moscow. As we've often said, don't discount the older cases and, obviously, always remember that the UFO phenomenon is an international enigma.

Though reported by the AP near the end of January, 1985, there's not a firm date of incident available, but it almost certainly occurred within days or weeks of the AP article.

Apparently, pilots and passengers aboard a Soviet (a.k.a. Russian) airliner encountered a distant "star-like" UFO which illuminated the earth below with a bright beam of light. The newspaper, Trud quoted a Soviet scientist who confirmed the case as "undoubtedly abnormal." A domestic Aeroflot flight approaching Minsk encountered "what appeared to be a large, unblinking star (which) suddenly shed a thin ray of light which fell . . .down on the ground" from an astounding altitude estimated to be 25-30 miles.

Again quoting from Trud, the AP added, "Ground control at the time registered splashes on its screens in the same part of air space." Co-pilot Gennady Lazurin, informed initially that radar showed nothing, stated, "Oh, well, they'll be saying we're not normal." (Note: That quote sums up a primary reason why pilots generally abhor reporting encounters officially, as careers and reputations may be jeopardized -- even to this very day, unfortunately, despite some slowly changing attitudes.)

Four crew members advised that they "could see distinctly everything down in the sector of the ground illuminated by the cone-shaped shaft of light -- the houses and the roads."

Things, however, took a very strange turn when the mystery beam suddenly focused on the plane itself. "The pilots," Trud continued, "saw a dazzling white spot surrounded by concentric colored rings," and the UFO then sped toward the airliner "at flashing speed," leaving a greenish cloud in its wake. The object, now at an altitude of 33,000 feet, paced the plane side-by-side and stayed with it for the remainder of the flight ("like an honorary escort," said one of the pilots).

Emphasizing the global nature of UFOs, Soviet National Academy of Sciences member Nikolai Zheltukhin -- also deputy chairman of a state commission on unexplained phenomena -- told Trud that the incident "is indeed of interest, although the commission already knows of similar cases. That the object reversed course instantaneously and reached the ground with a ray of light of unusual intensity from a very high altitude is undoubtedly abnormal. . .The airliner's crew encountered what we call an unidentified flying object."

Of further interest, the AP took a few lines to mention that the (former) Soviet Union established a special air force commission to investigate UFO reports, "but few details of its work have ever been released."

Currently, several nations continue to pop UFO files out of their inner sanctums like jacks-in-the-box. Needless to say, the U.S. isn't yet among them.