MUFON UFO JOURNALNUMBER 258 OCTOBER 1989

Founded 1967OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF I¥HJFOMJ MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC.

$2.50

ICUR Meeting in London

Photograph by John Shaw

Front row (I to r): Robert S. Digby, Walter H. Andrus, Jr., Sir Patrick Wall.Back row (1 to r): John L. Spencer, Bertil Kuhlemann, Maurizio Verga, Gian Paolo Grassino, Stephen Gamble.

MUFON UFO JOURNAL(USPS 002-970)

(ISSN 0270-6822)103 Oldtowne Rd.

Seguin, Texas 78155-4099 U.S.A.

DENNIS W. STACYEditor

WALTER H. ANDRUS, JR.International Director and

Associate EditorTHOMAS P. DEULEY

Art DirectorMILDRED BIESELEContributing Editor

ANN DRUFFELContributing Editor

ROBERT J. GRIBBLEColumnist

ROBERT H. BLETCHMANPublic RelationsPAUL CERNY

Promotion / PublicityMARGE CHRISTENSEN

Public EducationREV. BARRY DOWNING

Religion and UFOsLUCIUS PARISH

Books & PeriodicalsLOREN GROSS

HistorianT. SCOTT GRAIN

GREG LONGMICHAEL D. SWORDS

Staff WritersTED PHILLIPS

Landing Trace CasesJOHN F. SCHUESSLER

Medical CasesLEONARD STRINGFIELD

UFO Crash / RetrievalWALTER N. WEBB

AstronomyNORMA E. SHORT

DWIGHT CONNELLYDENNIS HAUCK

RICHARD H. HALLROBERT V. PRATT

Editor / Publishers Emeritus(Formerly SKYLOOK)

The MUFON UFO JOURNAL ispublished monthly by the Mutual UFONetwork, Inc. , Seguin , Texas.Membership /Supscription rates:$25.00 per year in the U.S.A.; $30.00foreign in U.S. funds. Copyright 1989by the Mutual UFO Network. Secondclass postage paid at Seguin, Texas.POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 toadvise change of address to theMUFON UFO JOURNAL, 103Oldtowne Rd., Seguin, Texas 78155-4099.

FROM THE EDITORI expected some response to John Spencer's two-part article on witness-driven

investigations. What I did not anticipate, however, was how vigorous and prematureit might be, given that Spencer's article only concludes this issue! My own opinionis, that regardless of what one thinks about the issue of whether or not abductionsare mostly physical or mostly psychological, certain other of Spencer's ideas shouldbe given weighty consideration before they are so summarily dismissed. Surely,for example, one cannot quarrel too vehemently with his suggestion that the witnessbe returned to the center of his or her own experience? And surely we all needto be on the watch for investigator-contamination? Read carefully the conclusionof his article, then, and see what you think. Next issue we'll carry some of themore pointed responses that have already come in.

There's more food for thought here, too, from the Kecksburg Crash to the "corncircles" of England's farmland. For more on the latter, see also page 50 in TimeMagazine for September 18, 1989, which includes three color photographs, butarrived too late for mention in my "UFO Press" column. Meanwhile, we hopeyou enjoy this issue of the Journal and look forward to the next.

In this issueKECKSBURG CRASH UPDATE Stan GordonNEW MODEL OF INVESTIGATION: PART I I . . . . John L. SpencerUFOs: A FUTURIST PERSPECTIVE John SchuesslerMAGNETIC MOMENT: A REVIEW Joe Kirk ThomasTHE RAINBOW DECLARATION .... John E. Brandenburg, Ph.D.CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS Ralph NoyesTHE UFO PRESS Dennis StacyABDUCTION RESEARCH:

THE CHALLENGE AHEAD Ron Westrum, Ph.D.IN OTHERS' WORDS Lucius ParishLOOKING BACK Bob GribbleLETTERS Johnson, Mauge, PackoTHE OCTOBER NIGHT SKY Walter WebbDIRECTOR'S MESSAGE Walter AndrusCOVER: Photograph by John Shaw

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Copyright 1989 by the Mutual UFO Network, Inc. (MUFON), 103 Old-towne Road, Seguin, Texas 78155-4099 U.S.A.

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The contents of the MUFON UFO JOURNAL are determined by the editor anddo not necessarily represent the official position of MUFON. Opinions of contributorsare their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, the staff or MUFON.Articles may be forwarded directly to MUFON. Responses to published articlesmay be in a Letter to the Editor (up to about 400 words) or in a short article (upto about 2,000 words). Thereafter, the "50% rule" is applied: the article authormay reply but will be allowed half the wordage used in the response; the respondermay answer the author but will be allowed half the wordage used in the author'sreply, etc. All submissions are subject to editing for style, clarity, and conciseness.Permission is hereby granted to qoute from this issue provided not more than 200words are quoted from any one article, the author of the article is given credit,and the statement "Copyright 1989 by the Mutual UFO Network, 103 OldtowneRd., Seguin, Texas 78155" is included.

Kecksburg Crash UpdateBy Stan Gordon

In my original article ("The KecksburgUFO Crash," MUFON UFO Journal,September 1989) I covered the basichistory of this little known, apparent crashof an unidentified aerial object onDecember 9, 1965 in a wooded area inSouthwestern Pennsylvania as reportedin 1985. Since the original investigationof that report, our continuing efforts tofind more facts of the case have reveal-ed important new details. Besides myself,two other individuals have been mosthelpful in tracking down governmentdocuments related to this event. They areRobert G. Todd, a well known researcherinto FOIA UFO documents and JohnMicklow. Micklow is PASU's Field In-vestigations Director, a retired police of-ficer and former military intelligence of-ficer. This is a 1989 update on this signifi-cant case.

Crash Witness

From information we received over theyears from various sources, we always feltthat there were other witnesses who hadseen the crashed object imbedded in theground at the impact site, prior to the ar-rival of the military. Our belief is thatseveral civilians as well as law enforce-ment authorities had the opportunity tolook at the object. Except for telling theirstories to a few close friends, they havekept the secret of what they saw tothemselves.

In September of 1988, we receivedanother lead to a possible witness of thecrashed object. This tip paid off. We soonbegan to conduct interviews with a localresident who has given us supportingevidence to the object described by Pete.Jack, a pseudonym for the actualwitness, lived about a mile from the crashsite at the time of the occurrence. Jackhad been listening to the radio, and hadjust heard the report that something hadcrashed in the area. He drove up the roadto the highest lookout point. This road isnow called Meteor Road, since it was thistrack that was jammed with cars from thepublic during the night of the search in1965.

When Jack got to the top he looked

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

down to the wooded area below and sawa group of about 10 people standingaround and pointing to something.Curious, he walked down the steep bankto see what was so interesting. When hearrived at the spot, he noticed a series oftrees had been knocked down, and about20 feet away from him and the group wasa strange object semi-buried in theground.

It was nearly dark and Jack used hishigh beam flashlight to explore thedevice. His basic description is quitesimilar to Pete's. But Jack claims that atthe time he saw it, bright blue sparks "likea welder's torch" were coming from it.This sparking kept up for some time, butseemed to be almost stopped just beforehe and the others left the site. The objectmade no sound, but the observers werehesitant to approach it any closer. Thepeople talked among themselves as towhat the strange object was. There wereno homes in the area, and apparentlynone of these people (we don't knowtheir identities) ever officially called thisreport in to the police. Jack's report of theblue sparks now brings up the possibilitythat some of the reports of a blue lightin the woods during the early eveninghours may not all be dismissed as theprank we had discussed before.

It also has to be pointed out that ap-parently Jack and the others got to thesite before either Pete, the other membersof the search team or the military. Jackcame in from the opposite side fromwhere the state police had initiallyentered. Pete also came into the areafrom a different point. Jack mentionedthat as they were moving out of the area,they saw distant lights in the woods.Some of the people commented thatwhoever came out of the object waswalking away, but it was likely that theywere seeing the search parties beginningto arrive at the location.

Jack now makes the third person to in-dependently take us down to the wood-ed area, and direct us to the exact spotwhere we believe the object was imbedd-ed. One witness, whose home was takenover as a command post by the militaryduring the night of the crash, recounted

how the military trucks came down hisroad and into his field. The military cuttheir fence line so they could drive downclose to the edge of the woods, not farfrom the crash location. After the militarypulled out of the area late the next day,some of the family members went downinto the woods to look around. Theyfound deep drag marks in the groundleading up from the impact spot to theedge of the woods, indicating that themilitary had winched the object and load-ed it on a truck.

Not Russian

I wrote that the Air Force report on theKecksburg UFO indicated that no spacedebris was expected on the date and timeof the incident. I quote from the report:"Major Quintanilla called SPADATS, andthey knew of no space junk entering theatmosphere today." Yet over the years wehad information that a Russian Satellite,designated COSMOS 96, may have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on thatdate, and could possibly be a source forthe; report.

For many years we tried to obtain astatus report from our government onCOSMOS 96. FOIA requests were sentto the Air Force, NASA, the Departmentof State, and NORAD, none of whichwould take time to provide this informa-tion. Even NASA's Satellite SituationReport seemed to show conflicting infor-mation. Finally, a January 5, 1989response from the U.S. Space Commandto John Micklow provided the informa-tion we had been looking for.

According to the report "COSMOS 96re-entered December 9, 1965 at 0818GMT in the vicinity of 51.8 degrees Northlatitud'e; 274.8 degrees East longitude."This data appears to rule out COSMOS96 as the source of the Kecksburg UFOsince it. re-entered'in the area of NorthCentral Canada at 3:18 a.m. local time.The fireball related to the Kecksburgevent occurred at 4:44 p.m.

Project Moondust

It was of interest to note, in the letter3

Kecksburg Crash Sitefrom the U.S. Space Command, thiscomment: "It is unusual for an object tosurvive re-entry. If in fact it does, and itis recovered, it is referred to the ForeignTechnologies Division at Wright PattersonAFB, Ohio." Robert G. Todd's research in-to Project Moondust indicated that theForeign Technologies Division of the AirForce, NASA and the U.S. State Depart-ment, were all involved in one aspect oranother with this project. As I reviewedin our first report on the Kecksburg Crash,Todd had obtained an Air Force in-telligence document under FOIA whichstates the following: "Peacetime employ-ment of AFCIN intelligence teamcapability is provided for in UFO in-vestigation (AFR 200-2) and in supportof Air Force systems command (AFSC)Foreign Technology Division (FTD) Pro-jects 'Moon Dust and Blue Fly. Thesethree peacetime projects all involve apotential for employment of qualifiedfield intelligence personnel on a quickreaction basis to recover or perform fieldexploitation of Unidentified Flying Ob-

jects, or known Soviet/East Blocaerospace vehicles, weapons systems,and/or residual components of suchequipment." (Emphasis added.)

In the past, myself and other col-leagues had filed FOIA requests with FTDat Wright Patterson AFB for informationon Project Moondust and the Kecksburgaffair. No useful information was everreceived. After receiving the January1989 letter from Space Command,Micklow approached FTD concerning theobject taken from the site, and he re-ceived a most interesting response fromFTD, unlike the typical turn down letterscommon to FOIA requests in recentyears. The January 27, 1989 responsestates, "We are unable to act upon yourrequest because the information you seekis not included within the definition of an'agency record' which is defined as theproduct(s) of data compilation, regardlessof physical form or characteristics, madeor received by the Air Force in connec-tion with the transaction of publicbusiness and preserved by the Air Force

primarily as evidence of the organization,policies, functions, decision or proceduresof the Air Force."

FTD in the past has claimed noknowledge of Project Moon Dust,, whiledocuments obtained from the DefenseIntelligence Agency clearly show thatFTD was on the distribution list for reportsunder this project. Todd's records showthat both Project Moon Dust and ProjectBluebook (UFO investigations) were FTDprojects. In recent years there has beenmuch speculation that Moon Dust wasstill active in UFO retrieval operations, butno evidence of this came forth until Toddpressured the Air Force for an answer asto the status of Moon Dust.

A July 1, 1987 response to Todd, fromColonel Phillip E. Thompson, DeputyAssistant Chief of Staff of Air Force In-telligence states, "The nickname 'ProjectMoondust' no longer exists officially. Ithas been replaced by another namewhich is not releasable. FTD's duties arelisted in a classified passage in a classifiedregulation that is being withheld becauseit is currently and properly classified, andthe authority for withholding is 5 U.S.C.552 b(l) and AFR 12-30, para lOa."

Todd, as well as myself, is quite con-vinced that the Kecksburg UFO retrievalwas carried out under a Moon Dustoperation. My impression is that certainelements of the 662nd Radar Squadronwere trained and prepared to respondvery quickly to incidents of this nature,and did so at Kecksburg.

In May of 1989, we located a formerradar operator who was assigned to the662nd Radar Squadron in 1965, but whounfortunately was transferred to anotherunit several months before the Kecksburgaffair. In subsequent interviews with thisparty, we learned a good deal about theunit and its involvement with UFO cases.This officer had a secret clearance, and,certain information he was unable toreveal to us. As we discuss this informa-tion, keep in mind that NORAD, theNorth American Aerospace DefenseCommand, states that they have neverinvestigated UFO cases, yet documentsobtained under FOIA clearly show thatthis is not the case. From documents ob-tained, we learned that the main functionof the 662nd Radar Squadron was toprovide search, SIF, and height-findingradar data and data link, and voiceair/ground radio communications to thedirection center, Detroit Air Defense Sec-

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

tor, during Mode 1 and Mode II opera-tions, and to operate as a NORADSurveillance Site in Mode HI operation.

The former officer revealed the follow-ing information on the 662nd RadarSquadron. The primary objective of thissquadron was to provide input radar datafor the Northeast quadrant of the coun-try to the NORAD network. They haddirect input radar coverage of the area.They also had direct links with NORADvia telephone, and other communicationslinks and their control center. They oftenparticipated in drills with NORAD. Theunit quite often received UFO sightingreports from the public, and would followthe basic procedure of (a) contacting thelocal civilian authorities, such as flightcenters and airports, to determine if at allpossible if the object could be an aircraft,and (b) if this could not be confirmed, orif the size, speed and direction of the ob-ject in question did not conform to an air-craft, they would follow procedures set upby NORAD to turn control of the radarinformation directly over to their ControlCenter (which is out of state). This wasaccomplished by utilizing certain buttonson their console, which would thendirectly link their radar to Control Center.Once this was accomplished, the localoperator had no control on his console.Once control was turned over, theOakdale radar unit had no participationin determining the status of the UFO, orin knowing what action was taken, suchas scrambling interceptor aircraft.

If fighters were scrambled, they wereusually dispatched from bases in Ohio orNew York. When a UFO would berecorded by radar and observed, a writ-ten report was made by the radaroperator and watch commander. Thesereports would then be forwarded to theircontrol center and NORAD. These in-cidents at times seemed to becomealmost a daily occurrence, and theoperators became so used to them thatthey would treat them as routinesightings. Reporting procedures were stillfollowed. The officer said that "some ofthem, the UFOs, would be unlikeanything that was flying at the time. Thespeed of some of them was incredible,and simply would just sometimes vanishfrom the screen in a second. No airplaneswere capable of doing this."

The squadron was a 24-hour, sevendays a week operation. The radar stationwas always manned, and personnel there

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

had high security clearances. This officerhad a secret clearance, and other officershad higher security clearances. It was notunusual when a UFO was observed,tracked and procedures followed, that theradar operator originally spotting it onradar did not know what conclusion hadbeen reached as the Control Centerwould take control, and any informationwas on a "need to know basis only." Butone thing was certain: all UFO data fromthe squadron had direct input to NORAD.

Site Selection?

One interesting aspect of the crash inthe Kecksburg area is the apparent slowspeed and controlled trajectory of the ob-ject as it made its descent toward the im-pact site. When looking over the terrainof that general area, it looks as thoughthe object knew where it wanted to go,selecting the deepest section of a wood-ed area, over miles of surrounding openfields. The hundreds of onlookers to themilitary operation that night in Decemberof 1965, could only see lights from thesearchers in the distant woods. The ac-tual impact site was basically in a hollowof the woods surrounded by hills andfields. Unless you were at the spot wherethe retrieval operation was taking place,you would have no idea as to what wasreally occurring.

The Air Force report on the KecksburgUFO incident indicated that variousgovernment agencies wanted to knowmore about the object in Pennsylvania.Among these inquiries was one from Mr.J.L. Bourassa, Chief Special FacilitiesDivision, OEP, Code Blue Grass. Furtherresearch has revealed that Mr. Bourassawas the chairman of the Federal AgencyRepresentatives Meeting of the SpecialFacilities Branch of the Office ofEmergency Planning (OEP) and Chief ofthe Special Facilities Branch from 1964to 1968. Todd has furnished this infor-mation relative to OEP. The Office ofEmergency Preparedness was set up inthe Executive Office of the President byan act of October 21, 1968 (82 Stat.1194), as the successor to the Office ofEmergency Planning, which in turn hadbeen set up by an act of September 22,1961 (75 Stat. 630) as the successor toa series of agencies on emergencymanagment dating back to the KoreanWar period. The Office of EmergencyPreparedness (OEP) had the function of

Continued on page 9

A New Model of Investigation: Part IIBy John L. Spencer

The first part of Spencer's address tothe Fifth International London UFOCongress appeared in the September1989 Journal. Spencer is a MUFONresearch specialist. His new book,Perspectives, will appear in the UKearly next year.

Let me first suggest that I think all cur-rent, widely held theories about what liesbehind abductions are wrong, in par-ticular the rather bizarre and unlikely ideathat aliens are engaged on a somewhattacky study of genetic bloodlines, ofcreating hybrid human/aliens, of artificialinsemination and even rape, and soon.

Let me again suggest that the reasonfor this is that all these stories arise fromone source, the Betty and Barney Hill ab-duction; they are copies of the original,and the original was a nightmare, not areality.

Strong words which seem to suggestthat I believe the truth of abductions ispsychological. But I don't believe that.

Let us digress for a moment and lookat some of the extraordinary coincidencesin the development of UFO mythology;which is not to say that UFOs are a myth,but that the reality is being clouded bymyths, tabloid press generated for themost part, but aided by improper in-vestigation over the years.

First coincidence - the origin of theterm flying saucer revealed a mistake thatshowed the power of media suggestion.Kenneth Arnold used the phrase "like asaucer would if you skipped it across thewater" to describe the flight movementsof the objects he saw at Mount Ranier,their movements, not their shape I wouldstress. But the press used the expressionto describe saucer-s/iapes, and im-mediately afterwards we get repeateddescriptions of saucer-shapes. Even tothis day it is the commonest form ofdescription received, though it is often notappreciated that Arnold described his ob-jects as boomerang-shaped.

Second coincidence - within 24 hoursof the Arnold sighting, though Arnoldhad claimed no such thing, the press

speculated on an extraterrestrial answer.This was confirmed "for certain" atRoswell one month later when theArmy recovered a crashed saucer andalien occupants, or so we are led tobelieve.

Third coincidence - if you could havedead pilots you would expect live ones,and sure enough Adamski soon reportedmeeting with them.

Fourth coincidence - after the early1950 "nice contactee" claims of Adam-ski and others, science fiction generatedan image of aliens that was malign andUFO stories seemed to pick up thistheme; aliens became just that bit moresinister until the present day image ofthem is very sinister indeed to read DavidJacobs' appraisal of Post Abduction Ef-fects. Bear in mind that the Hills reportedtheir abduction in the early 1960s, follow-ing a decade of now classical alien inva-sion films.

Fifth coincidence - the aliens describ-ed by Betty and Barney Hill were distinct-ly alien rather than human, alien eyesand body shape for example; and subse-quent aliens have been similar enough,but they have in fact got more alien astime passes. For example, the Hill's alienshad whites to their otherwise alien eyes;recent similar aliens have no whites, justthe black wrap-a-round eyes that perhapsthe cover of Whitley Streiber's bookCommunion made most famous. Whoneeded the aliens to get more alien? Notthey themselves surely, and perhaps notthe witnesses.

Lastly, of course, Betty's dreams -which the doctor believed to be no morethan that - was confirmed as true by theclaims of other cases, many of whichshow exactly the same characteristics.

The question is ... Are we in this fieldof research really the possessors of suchextraordinary insight that we can alwaysguess - and apparently correctly guess -the truth based on very little evidence andnot only that, but then be lucky enoughto have it confirmed so soon afterwards?I have to suggest that we are not, and thatthe answer to this convenience lieselsewhere.

Suggestions

I suggest this, then: That abductionevents - of some kind - are real. Whilethey do have deep psychological effectsand meaning they need not be whollypsychological, they may have their originsin the very physical, very real world.

I suggest that witnesses are experi-encing something and they turn to UFOinvestigators to help them find out whatit is; and that is when it goes wrong,because the investigators have a modelin their mind of what an abduction is,based on the original material and onsubsequent material that was once basedon the original, and they are influencingthe witnesses' recall very severely, most-ly unwittingly on their part, but they aredistorting what witnesses are recalling,using techniques that have the unfor-tunate side-effect of impressing a new"truth" into the minds of the witnesses.Particularly regression hypnosis.

I suggest that the use of this techniqueis unreliable, and possibly dangerous.Hypnotic recall is not a guarantee oftruth, it cannot sort fantasy from reality,even less so when the user is searchingfor a truth he wants to find. And someinvestigators don't even use medicallyqualified practitioners to do this work,though even that would no betterguarantee the truth. Experiments by veryprominent and qualified people in thisfield, such as Martin Orme, show that youcan implant a fantasy easily, that you canreinforce that fantasy by constant recall,until even the subject cannot be con-vinced of its non-truth.

I suggest that current abductionresearch is therefore the pursuit of amythology, ignoring the witnesses' ownclaims for the most part, even overridingthem and worse, altering their memories.

We must remember that the Hill hyp-nosis sessions were not undertaken tostudy UFOs. They were undertaken fora medical purpose to relieve the Hills ofstresses they felt were burdening them.As such, the Hill case is one of few,perhaps the only case in the States,where the "research" has not been under-

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

We must remember that theHill hypnosis sessions werenot undertaken to studyUFOs. They were under-taken for a medical purposeto relieve the Hills of stressesthey felt were burdeningthem.

taken with a view to understanding UFOsor abductions, and not undertaken byUFO investigators, with or withoutmedical help.

I would like us to consider three in-teresting recent cases which show howUFO abduction research has developed.All are from Budd Hopkins in the UnitedStates, though I must stress that this arisesonly from the fact that his cases areamong the most thoroughly documented,making them most valuable for study. Ishould stress that I have no doubts aboutHopkins' sincerity in his quest to helpwitnesses and seek the truth, though Ipersonally disagree with his conclusions,and the techniques of research used.

In one case, Hopkins worked with awitness who had a fear of spiders.Hopkins was able to show that thisstemmed from a childhood incidentwhen the boy was in bed and saw aspider's web, with spiders, right next tohim on the window. Hopkins usedregression hypnosis to reveal that thespider's web and the spiders were in factan alien face peering at the boy. Freedof his arachnaphobia the boy is now thepossessor of a life-long history of abduc-tions. Now, we know that arachnaphobiaexists and is in fact one of the commonestphobias, so why does this arachnaphobiahave to be alien abduction?

Ants & Spiders

The second case was of a woman whohated ants; she felt compelled to smashup their nests and destroy them. Regres-sion hypnosis revealed that she likenedthe color of the ant eggs to the skin colorof the aliens that had abducted her; thiswas the "real" cause of her fears.

Thirdly, there is the key case of thebook Missing Time, that of StevenKilburn, where he went to Hopkins witha fear of a lonely stretch of road, and

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

regression hypnosis revealed that he hadbeen abducted on that stretch of road.

Questions must arise from these cases,particularly when we note that in no casewas the start of the event the memoryof a UFO sighting, or in fact anythingto do with UFOs. Questions like why -with so many types of aliens reported -does Hopkins always reveal the sametype?

Questions like why, given the natureof the material to work from, an abduc-tion is always revealed; why do abduc-tion researchers always uncover abduc-tions, why do past-life (reincarnation) in-vestigators always uncover past lives, whydo ghost-hunters always find ghosts; allare using regression hypnosis, why dothey not occasionally uncover materialfrom other fields? Given that reincarna-tion is true, if it is, then we must all -without exception - have had past lives;why does this not come through exceptwhen called for? If Steven Kilburn hadgone to a researcher of past lives wouldhe have discovered that he had oncebeen killed on that stretch of road hefeared?

Surely this shows that the nature ofregression hypnosis is far from objective.And surely we must fear just how sub-jective it is.

Another type of inconsistency shouldbe noted at this time; the claims of someabductionists are very similar and do notgreatly contradict each other. The sameis true, of say, research into governmentcover-up and conspiracy, and of, say,crash retrievals. But when we put thewhole phenomenon together, then theseindividual segments almost mock eachother:

• The claims of the contactees againstthose of the abductees would seem to bein direct opposition, for example.

• The claims of crash retrievals whichsuggest a very physical control - or lackof control - over the alien craft contradictrecall during abduction research wherealiens can move the UFO, themselvesand even their human victims throughsolid walls and rocks.

• The ability to "switch off' certain peo-ple while they abduct others is never usedto recover the craft and bodies of lostcomrades. Yet according to LeonardStringfield they do try to recover themsometimes, one such incident turning in-to something like the gun-fight at the OKCorral. But why not use the switching off

technique. From the descriptions wereceive we seem to be dealing with thesame aliens in most cases.

• As Jacques Vallee pointed out, whydo they abduct people at all, if all theywant is genetic material? They can getthat from research laboratories without allthe fuss they go through.

Alien Logic

There is an argument that we cannotbe expected to understand alien logic; butthere is a fallacy in that argument, par-ticularly in the States, because the claimsthey are making are in fact that wedo understand alien logic and it is in factvery similar to our own; for example theyseem to tag us in just the way that wewould tag a protected species. Indeedtheir whole modus operand! is exactlywhat we might do on an alien planet.In fact I agree that we probably cannotunderstand alien logic, if any is involvedin this subject; but then we must facethe fact that we probably don't under-stand abductions either, that what wethink we understand is our ideas, not"theirs'."

All these components of the UFOphenomenon add up to one thing: weare not understanding the truth yet. AndI believe it is because of the methods weare using.

Also, if we have a case revealed by oneresearcher in, say, the United States, anda similar case arises in the depths of theSouth American jungles, how can the se-cond case have been influenced by thefirst, particularly if the percipient of thesecond is from a tribal culture, perhapseven unable to read. This has alwaysbeen the strength of the claims for thereality of the subject; but the answer issimple.

The Investigator is the conduit throughwhich the information of one case can betransmitted to the investigation of a se-cond case. The investigator unwittinglyaims his research at his own pre-determined goal, and the witness is oftenled to believe truths about himself thatfrankly are not truths. In this way, all casesaffect all others. When we consider UFOinvestigations we must remember thateven when the witnesses are from verydifferent cultural backgrounds, in-vestigators are not: they are a fairlyhomogeneous group; basically all white,middle class people from the so-called

7

First World. All have similar belief systemsand the UFO story is being channelledthrough that one cultural background.Cynthia Hind tells the story (related to theLondon Congress) of "Clifford," who sawsilver-suited beings and believed them tobe the spirits of his ancestors. Picking upon the silver suits Cynthia recognizedfacets of the UFO phenomenon, andsuggests that in fact he saw aliens. I haveno argument with the claims of Clifford,or of the investigation by Cynthia. But mypoint would be that if "UFO investigation"was conducted the world over by ruralblack Africans, then would rural black in-vestigators be suggesting to WhitleyStreiber and Kathie Davis that they, too,had been visited by their ancestors. Andwho is to say who would be right?

I must stress again that I am not argu-ing that there is no physical reality to ab-ductions. I am arguing that we are mask-ing that reality behind our own pre-judices, because of the framework weoperate in.

So where is all this leading to? Theanswer is that I am suggesting we con-sider the need for witness-driven in-vestigations rather than investigator-driven investigations. We should regardour present style of questioning witnessesas a failed experiment. The method cur-rently adopted of grilling the witness asif she were a suspect rather than awitness, or even a victim, is simply nothelping us to get to the truth. It may workwhen we are taking a report of a daylightdisc or a light-in-the-sky, though there issome doubt about its effectiveness eventhen, given the nature of "leading ques-tions," but it is certainly not working in thecase of these highly emotional, traumaticand personal events. Furthermore, it isnot serving the best interests of thewitness.

Whatever lies behind the abductionphenomenon, and there may well besome sort of physical reality, it is clear thatthe important component of it for ourdetailed understanding is the effect on thewitness, generally the emotional andpsychological impact, what is importantis the reaction of the witness to the event,and I feel certain that we will discover aswe adopt this new approach that what isimportant to an understanding of thesecases will be for us to really understandwhat the witness believes the significanceto be.

The approach therefore is to adopt

8

"// a man will begin withcertainties, he shall end indoubts, but if he will be con-tent to begin with doubts, heshall end in certainties"

— Sir Francis Bacon

a passive role, letting the witness lead theinvestigation, and resisting the urge to putin our own "expertise."

What will be the outcome of such anapproach?

Well, at first it will seem like a stepbackwards because we shall have toabandon our present, and hopelesslywrong, beliefs. And we shall replace themwith a great deal of uncertainty at first,because in reality we have not actually ac-cumulated much useful data. I suggest aquote for that, which I used in my clos-ing chapter of Phenomenon, from Fran-cis Bacon's 16th century work, Advance-ment of Learning: "If a man will beginwith certainties, he shall end in doubts,but if he will be content to begin withdoubts, he shall end in certainties."

What will happen I believe, as weadopt this approach, is that we will getless coherent, less understandable stories.We shall get more conflicting stories un-til we have learned to comprehend theirmeanings.

And so it should be; because if thephenomenon is a psychological one thenwe should not expect consistency as peo-ple aren't all of the same mind. And if thesubject relates to an alien, or extrater-restrial, intervention, then in fact I agreewith the argument that we cannot expectto understand alien logic, so we shouldnot expect consistency in our under-standing then either.

In fact, we can only expect consisten-cy when we - the investigators - are draw-ing up the story lines. And, unfortunate-ly, that is what we are presently doing.

I hope that I have presented someevidence to suggest where we may be go-ing wrong. Although in its early stagesyet, I think I should offer at least someglimpse of why I believe my alternativesuggestion is correct. I have many ex-amples in my own recent work of wherecases which exhibit similar basic details towell known, classic cases have takenquite different turns when using this type

of approach. Space is limiting, but I willcite from two such cases.

The first is a repeater witness of a num-ber of sightings, daylight discs and nightlights, some that are clearly closer en-counters rather than distant sightings. Thepseudonym we adopted was "Marianne."Although I spoke to her recently, in hermid-twenties, the sightings occurredwhen she was around 12 years old.

The sightings did not inspire her tobecome involved in the subject of UFOs;yet her reflections on her sightings havenot changed over the years; she holdsthem to have been designed specificallyfor her, and that the reason for them wasto "wake her up" to the Earth, the needsof the Earth. Indeed, at this present time,she is a prominent ecologist, involved inwork to protect perhaps the most vitalresources on the planet. By the time ofthe last sighting she felt that sheunderstood the "message" meant for her;she felt the meaning was clear to her, andthe sightings stopped and have neverrecurred.

Her description of the closest sightingis clearly in the same league as thedescriptions of thousands of otherdaylight discs; it appeared to be metallic,flying as a structured vehicle. Now thequestion is this: Is the importance of thesighting the description of the discs or theeffect on Marianne? In the past we haveconcentrated on the former, precisely log-ging the flight path and the size and thecolor, and so on, because this seemed tobe relevant. Perhaps it doesn't matterwhat size the UFO was, or where it wasgoing, or whether it was there at all in theobjective sense. And the fact thatMarianne has been inspired to work inthe field of ecological study we might wellregard as having no relevance to theUFO; there seems to be no reason to linkthe two, after all. But there is a reason!Marianne is the reason!

She believes that the two are linked,cause and effect, and who are we to sayshe is wrong and we are right? Until weknow for certain what the UFOphenomenon is we cannot ignore datalike that, and we have been doing so toour detriment. To be fair, we have to agreater degree overcome this lack in thestudy of lights and discs sightings; but wehave not done so in the case of the morepersonal, abduction reports.

We cannot guarantee that the informa-tion we receive will actually be, in the

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

end, what is important; but what we canguarantee is that it will be what is impor-tant to the witness rather than to the in-vestigator, and it seems that that may bethe data we will need in the end.

Relevance?

My second case is similar; it concernsa man called Anders, in Sweden, and formost valuable assistance with this case Iam indebted to Bertil Kuhlemann. It is amost interesting and complex case, atleast worthy of a presentation all its owntwice as long as this, so 1 can only givea few points again. Firstly, there is enoughevidence to suggest that the event issimilar to all these other cases we havediscussed; an apparently physical craft,and an abduction.

In fact, in this case we even have anindependent witness to part of the eventfrom a nearby, but remote, location.(Anders was hauled aboard the craft ina cone of light and that light was in-dependently reported, though Anderswas not seen. Having been to both sites,where Anders was and where the witnesswas, it is clear to me that Anders wouldnot have been seen, though he may wellhave been there.) There were two briefregression sessions before Anders himselfcalled them off, realizing they were notwhat he wanted.

For the past ten years the investigationhas been conducted by a researcher quiteoutside the UFO field and there has beenlittle or no questioning of the witnessabout the UFO or the entities, quite simp-ly because the witness has not suggestedthat this is important to him. What hasbeen done is some very exotic research,at the witness' instigation, into energylines in the Earth that can be used to linkpeople, almost telepathically; into psychicaspects of crystallography; into dowsing,not just for water, but energy fields; intobiorhythms, and much more. The samequestion must be asked; is this material,which seems to have nothing to do withUFOs as such, relevant or irrelevant to thesubject? And the answer js we don'tknow, but we must remember that we arein no position to judge; we must take ourlead from Anders, and let him be thejudge until at least we have learned, forcertain, enough to know better. And I feelsure that we don't know better yet.

So again, let me stress the point of mypresentation: that we have conducted in-vestigations badly because we have pos-

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

sibly unwittingly, led the witnesses alonga path we thought was relevant, butwhich seems not to have been, injectingin them a recall based on other casesfrom all over the world, details of whichwe were well aware of, even though theywere not, and details based in the first in-stance on the tantalizing dreams of Bet-ty Hill. We must be ready now to put thewitness in the driving seat, to listen, pro-perly and with open ears, not openmouths, to what the witnesses are say-ing before we shall get any closer to thereal and objective truth that lies behindthe subject.

I shall close, with tongue firmly incheek, on one last quote called "Com-munication," which I found on the wallof an office dealing with Public Relations.I feel sure that if witnesses as a groupcould address abduction investigators asa group they might have this to say to us:"I know you believe you understand whatyou think I said, but I'm not sure if yourealize that what you heard is not whatI meant."

I must again stress, as I did to the Lon-don Congress after the formal close of mypresentation, that I have ignored the workof investigators who seem to have per-sonal and ulterior motives and whosework appears to be unreasonably pre-judiced. The investigators and groups thatI have cited, for example Budd Hopkins,Cynthia Hind and MUFON as anorganization, are all examples of manyUFO investigators in England, Europeand America who seem to me to be do-ing diligent and excellent work within thecurrent framework of UFO research. It isthat framework, rather than those peo-ple and organizations that I am critical of,and I feel sure that if we could establisha new framework which would lead to amore truthful understanding, then thesesame people and organizations would bebetter placed to continue that good work.It is too easy, and quite wrong, to snipeat people purely on the results of theirwork; they have to have the right toolsand UFO researchers must look to pro-ducing those proper tools.

The above article, and the originalpresentation, is extracted from a detailedreview of the Hill case, and of abductionsgenerally, which form the basis of JohnSpencer's forthcoming book Perspectivesdue to be published in the UnitedKingdom in January 1990.

KECKSBURG, Continued

advising and assisting the President inpolicy determination and the coordinating of emergency preparednessactivities.

So possibly information on theKecksburg UFO crash went directly to theWhite House. There is no doubt that themilitary was greatly interested in whatevercrashed in the woods, and to this day theveil of secrecy remains. We continue atthis time to pursue other sources of in-formation on the case. We know thatpeople exist who have informationrelative to the December. 9, 1965 UFOcrash/retrieval operation at Kecksburg,PA. If you have any knowledge relativeto this event, please contact, us. Ourpolicy is to keep the identities of infor-mants confidential.

For inquiries, write Stan Gordon,Director of Operations at: PASU, 6Oakhill Ave., Greensburg, PA. 15601, orcall our 24-hour PA. UFO Hotline at(412) 838-7768.

UFONEWSCLIPPINGS SERVICE

The UFO Newsclipping Service willkeep you informed of all the latestUnited States and World-Wide UFOreports (i.e., little known photographiccases, close encounters and landingreports, occupant cases) and all otherUFO reports, many of which are car-ried only in small town and foreignnewspapers.

Our UFO Newsclipping Serviceissues are 20-page monthly reports,reproduced by photo-offset, con-taining the latest United States andCanadian UFO newsclippings, withour foreign section carrying thelatest British, Australian, New Zea-land and other foreign press reports.Also included is a 3-5 page sectionof "Fortean" clippings (i.e., Bigfootand other "monster" reports). Let uskeep you informed of the latest hap-penings in the UFO and Forteanfields.

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Unidentified Flying ObjectsA Futurist Perspective

By John F. Schuessler

Mr. Schuessler is MUFON's deputydirector of administration.

For the past twenty-five years I havecollected reports of unidentified flying ob-jects (UFOs), personally investigatingseveral hundred interesting, but perplex-ing cases. The tendency has been to col-lect the data on a given report, attemptto provide a prosaic explanation, file thedata and go on to the next case. My in-terest remains strong because a significantnumber of UFO reports remain unex-plained and I believe it is important forthis residue of unexplained reports to beviewed from a futurist perspective.

We futurists believe that the world willbe shaped by human decisions and ac-tions rather than a divine fate. We usescientific means to study fu tu repossibilities rather than attempting to befortune tellers or seers.

The book The Study of The Futurestates that "futurists appear to beremarkably open to all types of ideas; infact they seem to be constantly searchingfor new information about the world andare never so happy as when they havefound a genuinely exciting new idea. Andno new idea seems to faze a futurist." Itgoes on to say that "they (futurists) allseem to think in global rather than na-tional terms; indeed, in several instances,the perspective seems to have becomeextraterrestrial if not universal."

Futurists have a great respect forscience and historical fact. They constant-ly scrutinize the past for clues to thefuture. Futurists are hard-working peoplewith a sense of a mission. They have abroad concern for humanity. They arenot comfortable with terms like "impossi-ble" or "can't be done." Instead, theywould rather explore a range of possiblefutures.

Past Patterns

The reason that the past is importantto the futurist is that conditions that haveexisted in the past will continue into the

10

We futurists believe that the world will be shaped by humandecisions and actions rather than a divine fate. We usescientific means to study future possibilities rather than at-tempting to be fortune tellers or seers.

future and certain patterns of events willrecur from time to time. This allowsfuturists to successfully apply the tools oftheir trade - trend extrapolation,scenarios, mission flow diagrams, mor-phological analysis, relevance trees,delphi polls, models, games and simula-tions. Futurists can help humanity dealwith the future by understanding a rangeof possible futures and what can be doneto deal with them.

The past is rich with UFO reports, dataand information. Numerous polls havebeen conducted. Results of studies andinvestigations fill file cabinets and com-puter data bases all over the world. Pat-terns of belief and disbelief have evolvedover time. The peoples of nearly everynation in the world are familiar with UFOsightings. Awareness is at an all time high.This historical data base is quite sufficientfor extensive study and analysis by afuturist.

The importance of the futurist perspec-tive is demonstrated by statements madeby noteworthy individuals as recorded inThe Encyclopedia of UFOs, edited byRonald Story. Nuclear physicist StantonT. Friedman states "There are no goodarguments to be made against the con-clusion that some UFOs are intelligentlycontrolled vehicles from off the Earth."

Physicist James McCampbell says "Aproductive approach to understandingUFOs is to accept the sighting reports atface value ... From this perspective, onesees UFOs as metallic vehicles displayingflight characteristics that are decidelysuperior to the best aircraft manufacturedon Earth. It must be that their origin issome civilization that is not from theEarth."

Planetarium Director Walter N. Webb

says "The claims of humanoid occupantsand human abductions must not bedismissed as absurdities, but rather mustbe carefully studied as part of the wholeproblem. For in their content may lie theanswers to the most perplexing scientificmystery of our times."

Dr. James E. McDonald, who was anatmospheric physicist at the University ofArizona Institute of Atmospheric Physics,said "If there was even a slim possibilitythat the Earth were under extraterrestrialsurveillance in any form, that would bea matter of the greatest scientific impor-tance, warranting the most rigorous in-vestigation. In fact, the evidence thatseems to point to the conclusion thatUFOs could be such devices is far fromnegligible ..."

More recently, Whitley Strieber wroteCommunion, a best selling book re-cording his personal experiences withnon-human beings. The pear-shapedhead of a typical small alien visitor ap-peared on the cover of his book. Due tothe popularity of this book and the manypublic appearances of Mr. Strieber, thepublic became very aware of the smallalien beings involved in the abductionexperiences.

Lear Scenario

Pilot John Lear presented a frighten-ing picture of what might be going on ina series of papers and lectures relating toa deal made between the U.S. Govern-ment and a race of ExtraterrestrialBiological Entities called the "Grays." Hedescribed government sanctioned abduc-tions of humans, the capture and flightof alien saucer-shaped vehicles,underground facilities for aliens, genetic

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

engineering experiments and a host ofother concepts hinted at by a number ofother prominent UFO researchers. JohnLear used one of the tools of the futurist- the scenario. He gathered data from anumber of sources, looked at thehistorical data base for confirmation, wentinto the field for a firsthand look at whatis going on and concluded his work bycreating an intriguing scenario of UFOrelated activities. Some people classify hisscenario as bizarre or crazy; while otherssay he is right on target. Whether he iscorrect or not remains to be seen.However, if only twenty-five percent ofwhat he says is true, then mankind willhave an interesting future.

Researcher Bill Moore, in a remarkableappearance at the 1989 MUFON UFOSymposium held in Las Vegas, Nevada,also made some startling statements. Bill,as you know, co-authored the best seller,The Roswell Incident, after conducting anoutstanding investigation along withNuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman. Thisbook chronicles the story of a UFO crashin New Mexico in 1947.

Bill Moore stood before an audienceof UFO experts and members of the lay

' public and stated ten positions which heclaims he believes to be true. To beginwith, he believes that a "highly advancedextraterrestrial civilization is visiting planetEarth and is actively manipulating ourawareness of their presence here." Hebelieves that two of our U.S. governmentintelligence agencies are aware of this factand are conducting highly classified UFO-related projects. Further, the matter ofalien abductions of humans is regardedas serious by members of our govern-ment. As a result of his presentationmany members of the audience weredisrespectful in their response to Bill.

In a similar manner several MUFONexperts resigned from the organizationbefore the 1989 symposium because theydisagreed with the outspoken position ofJohn Lear and did not want to appear tosupport his position by appearing on thesame program with him. And in like man-ner, John was quite upset by this showof disrespect for his work by thoserecognized as "experts" in the field.

Much of the problem is a result of theridicule cur tain. Over the yearsdebunkers, skeptics and others haveused the tools of ridicule, threat and pro-fessional denigration to stop the witnesses

from reporting UFOs and the expertsfrom investigating them. The mediaquickly learned the fine art of "UFO ex-pert bashing" and continue to use it ona regular basis. Experts, then, havebecome cautious about what they sayand avoid the more controversial aspectsof the phenomenon. That means theyalso avoid contact with the more con-troversial figures in the field.

John Lear was a recent victim of thebashing because his views fell outside thenorm for "acceptable" UFO beliefs. BillMoore had a similar problem because ofhis activities related to deception anddisinformation. Most researchers sufferfrom this problem at one time or another.

Will they recover? I believe they will ifthat is their desire, for the spectrum of"acceptable" beliefs seems to broadenwith time. Several years ago a leadingUFO organization accepted the conceptof UFO reports, but not those ofhumanoids or "critters." Now, most ex-perts accept the critters as a legitimatepart of the mystery. I would expect thetrend to broader acceptance of a varietyof ideas to continue, and perhaps evenaccelerate, ,, as more data becomesavailable.

Some people feel that individuals likeJohn Lear and Bill Moore should beavoided and ignored. They describethese outspoken men as crackpots andgovernment agents. While this could betrue, there is evidence to the contrary.John Lear is a pilot with an impressiverecord. He has flown more than 160types of aircraft, holds 17 world speedrecords in a Lear Jet and is the only pilotever to hold every airline certificate issuedby the Federal Aviation Administration. Inlike manner, Bill Moore is a collegegraduate who spent 14 years as a highschool teacher and later became a best-selling author.

My own engineering background haskept me at arm's length from the morecontroversial aspects of the UFO pro-blem. Yes, I said problem. The modernera of ufology began after World War IIand continues to this very day. UFOreports are nearly continuous and fairlyconsistent. In some periods this con-sistency could be considered to be bor-ing. Nevertheless, a significant historicaldatabase now exists.

My futurist background, on the otherhand, views the UFO problem in a dif-

The futurist in me says itis important to be openminded - to be a part of thesolution and not a part ofthe problem.

ferent light. I see new ideas arising, newtheories being developed and tested, andmany new opportunities for mankind justover the horizon. The futurist in me saysit is important to be open minded - to bea part of the solution and not a part ofthe problem. There will be ample oppor-tunities to develop a variety of scenarios,to examine a number of interestingtrends, and to participate in the resultingsocio-technological changes we will befacing.

Future Perspective

Rather than trying to eliminate theideas put forth by the Lears and Mooresof ufology, I propose an alternative. Thatis to look at their paradigms from afuturist perspective in order to extract themaximum value from their work.

As an example, Moore states that ahighly advanced extraterrestrial civiliza-tion is visiting planet Earth. Lear says thatin addition to aliens visiting Earth, theyhave made agreements with our govern-ment. Although neither man can provehis point at this time, a majority ofAmericans tend to agree with them. Forsome it is a leap of faith, while for othersit is a matter of acceptance of theavailable data.

For the futurist, this paradigm is onlya starting point. I must ask: "What is thetrend in scientific thought about the pro-bability of extraterrestrial life?" Whilewriters have suggested the idea of aliensand alien visitations in books and articlesfor many years, the evolution of scientificthought has been much slower. Asrecently as 400 years ago it was believedthat the sun revolved about the Earth.Giordano Bruno was burned at the stakefor daring to propose otherwise. Todaywe try to burn individuals personally andprofessionally when they propose suchthings as visits by aliens.

Recent history demonstrates that scien-tists are ready to put their careers on theline in the search for extraterrestrial

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989 11

intelligence. In 1960 Dr. Frank Drakelaunched Project Ozma when he aimeda West Virginia radio telescope at thestars for the purpose of seeking intelligentlife out there. Today the NASA AmesResearch Center is using an array of radiotelescopes to prepare for a search foralien signals. This project is called SETIor Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.It has turned into a multi-million dollar,multi-year search for radio signals fromsome other civilization located light yearsfrom Earth. These projects and similarones conducted by other nations repre-sent an accelerating thrust by scientists tocommunicate with aliens. The thrust willcontinue.

UFO experts such as MUFON Interna-tional Director Walter Andrus, PhysicistBruce Maccabee, Astronomer Peter Stur-rock, Radiation Specialist Peter Rank,and a host of other respected individualshave added another dimension to thesearch for alien life. That dimension isdescribed by the accumulation andanalysis of data related to UFO sightings.Hundreds, even thousands, of welldocumented and unexplained UFOsightings have been thoroughly in-vestigated. Extrapolation of this mass ofevidence leads some to the conclusionthat we do not need to look to the depthsof space for communication with aliens.Scenarios are being developed whichsuggest aliens are already here and com-municating with certain individuals on aregular basis. This viewpoint is rein-forced by opinion polls conducted overthe past 30 years which show an increasein the belief that UFOs exist and that theyare intelligently controlled.

Up to this point we have discussed thesearch for alien life by using radiotelescopes and the work of scientists whopursue a similar quest by examining dataassociated with UFO reports. Anotherimportant category of inquiry remains tobe discussed. That is the case for abduc-tion of humans by aliens. One early andwell documented case of abduction wasthat of Betty and Barney Hill in 1961.They saw a UFO in the sky, and watchedit maneuver into the proximity of theirautomobile. Later they notice they hadexperienced a time lapse and soughthelp The investigation revealed a detail-ed story of abduction, medical examina-tion, star maps and lingering after-effects.Then in 1973 Charles Hickson andCalvin Parker reported a similar incident

12

which took place near Pascagoula,Mississippi. Since that time people arereporting abductions in record numbers.

A statistical analysis of the abductioncases shows some interesting trends. It issuggested that the medical examinationsare becoming more sophisticated, moreof the abductees seem to be recallingevents during the abduction experience,and a growing number of abductees havephysical artifacts (scars) to prove thevalidity of their experience. Most of theearly cases lacked detailed descriptionsof sensory information such as the feelof the aliens' skin and clothes, soundsrelated to the operation of the craft, andthe purpose of the medical examinations.Some of the more recent cases havebegun to fill in the missing information.

We could look at some additionalvariations on the theme of humansmeeting (or trying to meet) aliens; suchas - radar and photographic evidence ofUFOs, electronic data taken duringsightings, and physical trace evidence leftbehind at landing sites. However, I don'tbelieve that is necessary at this time.

What I believe is important is to goback to the futurist perspective, which isopen to new concepts and is global innature. Examining the informationpresented by Lear and Moore in this con-text, I find an opportunity to considersome new and daring (bizarre to some)aspects of the extraterrestrial life theme.

For example: if the abductions are real,then how can they be happening withoutthe cooperation of some human groups,government-based or otherwise? Wehave data on thousands of animal mutila-tions. What is the purpose for the mutila-tions? Lear does at least provide an in-teresting scenario for same. Moore saysa craft crashed at Roswell, New Mexico.If so, that craft and others must be storedsomewhere and have been subject to ex-tensive analysis for many years. The ap-plication of the technology found therecould be the answer to the power andpollution problems we are facing today.

If the picture of the cover-up is aspainted by both Moore and Lear, thenperhaps we can begin to understand whyUFO researchers lose their jobs for theirinvolvement, and why more than thepopulation average number of them suc-cumb to brain tumors and other life-ending ailments, while some give up infear of what will happen if they persist intheir quest.

The mystery continues. The old waysof viewing that mystery have not resolvedthe issues or provided satisfactoryanswers. All they have done is polarizethe various schools of thought so as toplace groups of researchers in silos, pre-venting them from working cooperativelywith others. Silos prevent progress.

Teamwork, the hallmark of the spaceage, is the only profitable route to followif we are to resolve this UFO problemsometime in the foreseeable future. Tryto resist impulse the next time you feelthe need to criticize the work of anotherperson. Instead, ask yourself how youcan learn from and then apply that infor-mation. Remember, you need not agreewith the person's viewpoint in order tofind the information useful.

The film of Communion, starringChristopher Walken as WhitleyStrieber and Lindsay Grouse as AnnStrieber will be released on October20, 1989 in 80 cities.

Edward Conroy's book Report onCommunion will be published onNovember 10, 1989 by William Mor-row and Company. This is ameticulously researched investigationof the life and work of WhitleyStrieber, and an analysis of the validityof his experiences by a professionalreporter. Mr. Conroy, a San Antoniowriter, interviewed dozens of Whitley'schildhood friends, their parents, cur-rent witnesses to his experience, hisdoctors and UFO investigators bothhostile and supportive.

Whitley Strieber's Transformation willbe published in paperback in August1989. Transformation tells of thedevelopment of his ongoing relation-ship with the visitors.

MUFONMUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

Magnetic Moment: A ReviewBy Joe Kirk Thomas

Mr. Thomas is a MUFON researchspecialist and a frequent Journalcontributor.

This article reviews the recent book byJohn Ackerman, To Catch A Flying Star:A Scientific Theory of UFOs, publishedby Univelt, San Diego, California. I notethat John and I seem to have similartechnical backgrounds, and have ap-parently gone through some of the samemental gymnastics in trying to makesense of the anecdotal data, in light ofwhat is known about physics andforeseeable technology. As my musings,however, have led me to a somewhat dif-ferent view from John's, it is inevitablethat much of this review is structuredaround differences in opinion about thetechnical merits of some of the ideas hehas presented.

After a foreword by Walt Andrus, abrief introduction to the anecdotalevidence, and the establishment of thehypothesis that UFOs are indeed vehiclesof extraterrestrial manufacture, a point onwhich I have little confidence personally,the author quickly moves, in ChapterThree, to a physical theory. Much of hisbook is predicated on the hypothesis that"... flying discs suspend themselves andmaneuver by interacting with themagnetic field of the earth, heavenlybodies, or the ambient field in deepspace."

Now it's known that a magnetic dipole,such as a small disc magnet, immersedin a uniform magnetic field, will ex-perience a torque attempting to align itsaxis with the direction of the field, but notranslational force. A dipole in thepresence of a gradient field, however,will. A gradient field is a field whichbecomes stronger or weaker in somedirection. Since the earth is itself a largedipole, with magnetic field lines diverg-ing from the south pole (Antarctica), andconverging on the north pole(Greenland), it has a gradient field. Johnhypothesizes that UFOs suspendthemselves by using their powerfulmagnetic fields to interact with the localearth gradient. Reproducing one of theequations in the book:MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

F = M dB + M dB + MdBz x z y z z z

dx dy dz

Here the x axis is aligned east-west, they axis north-south, and the z axis is ver-tical. The terms such as 9Bz/dz are thegradients, in this case the rate of changeof the z component of the magnetic fieldwith increased z (height). If the UFO'smagnetic moment, a measure of thedipole's strength, is large enough, it couldgenerate forces of repulsion equal to theforce of gravity. The author assumes theUFO's magnetic field to be generated bya current flowing around its periphery,and then calculates the value necessaryfor levitation. Assuming a vehicle weightof only 1000 kilograms and a diameterof 10 meters, he finds the current to be1.25 x 1013 amperes.

Thus, it is that on page 39, John's Fly-ing Star flies straight into a brick wall. Forthe sad truth is that the "magnetichelicopter" won't work!

Forgetting for the moment the size ofthe dipole moment required tocounteract the force of gravity, there is afatal flaw that renders this mode of pro-pulsion useless. In the above equation,the gradient 3Bz/dx is essentially zero.Stated plainly, the vertical component ofthe magnetic field does not vary along theeast-west direction. The other two gra-dients do exist, however, and so levita-tion may still be possible. But when itcomes to forces in the east-west direction,the flaw is indeed deadly. That equationreads:

= M dBx x

M dBy

+ M dBz x

dx dy dz

Unfortunately, all the gradients arezero. Why? There are no x componentsof the magnetic field along the magneticeast-west direction, and their gradientsare therefore zero also.

For readers who may not understandthe above argument, I would propose asimple experiment. Procure two smalldisc magnets from an outlet like RadioShack. Hold one stationary, to representthe earth, and move the other, represen-ting the vehicle, about it. One will ex-perience forces of both attraction and

repulsion, but there is no orientation ofthe moved magnet for which one will ex-perience a force directed around the cir-cumference of the stationary magnet!

If the vehicle cannot develop forcesalong the east-west axis, then clearly itcannot fly in these directions! There is noorientation of the UFOs magnetic dipole,no tricks of torque or balance, which willpermit such flight.

A second objection is the size of thecurrents required to produce the desiredmagnetic field. For this discussion, somebackground is necessary.

In the early '80s, while employed as anelectromagnetic interference engineer, itbecame obvious to me that many of theeffects reported in CEII cases appearedto be the effects of magnetic induction,i.e., voltages induced by powerful low fre-quency magnetic fields. This led to sim-ple laboratory experiments1'2 that show-ed that both the heating of finger ringsand interference with conventionalautomotive ignition systems (of the typein general use before 1980) could occurat magnetic field levels (at the point of in-terference) of .1 Tesla and a frequency of100 hertz. This information was consis-tent with a previous theoretical study3

which showed that the formation ofwilted rings and dehydrated circles underhovering UFOs could be explained by thesame mechanism of similar magnitude.

When this data was factored in withdistance data" from UFOs, however, thesizes of the magnetic moment requiredto cause the interference were awesome.The mean magnetic moment was about1012 amp-meter2. In terms of the 10meter diameter torus with a minor radiusof .5 meter proposed by John, a currentof 1.23 x 1010 amperes would have toflow around the periphery.

Magnetic Pressure

This result is unfortunate for tworeasons. First, it means the magnetic fieldat the surface of the toroid would exceed5000 Tesla, far beyond the critical fieldany foreseeable superconductor couldhave. John is cognizant of this problemand proposes, as an alternative to a

13

It means the magnetic fieldat the surface of the toroidwould exceed 5000 Tesla, farbeyond the critical field anyforeseeable superconductorcould have.

superconductive ring, a plasma super-conductor. In my view, however, the realproblem is the "magnetic pressure" ofalmost 1.5 x 10' pounds per square inchthat the torus would have to bear!

Mind you, these staggering values arefor a magnetic moment of 1012 amp-meter2. But for John's vehicle to levitate,it must utilize a current of 1.25 x 1013

amperes, which would give a magneticmoment of 1015 amp-meter2, a thousandtimes greater. The magnetic pressurewould be a million times greater!

I'm sorry, but this is where I draw theline. It just doesn't make sense to go tosuch herculean efforts merely to move asmall 1000 kilogram vehicle around inearth space.

As a power source, John hypothesizesa fusion reactor burning the isotopes ofDeuterium and Tritium, a general conceptcurrently absorbing considerable federalfunds. This idea has several problems,one being that although much cleanerthan current day fission reactors, fusionstill emits copious amounts of radiationin the form of both neutrons and x-rays.Furthermore, is it likely that a technologypossibly a million years more advancedthan ours would utilize a technology weare just now developing?

If UFOs have the attributes they seemto, what would they need a power plantfor anyway?

At the root of that question is another,namely, what is the purpose of thegargantuan fields in the first place? If onereturns to the 10 meter torus John pro-poses, and calculates its inductance, onegets 15 microhenries. If it bears a currentof 1.23 x 1010 amperes, appropriate fora moment of 1012, the energy stored inthe magnetic field can be easily calculatedfrom:

U = 1/2 L I2

One finds an astonishing 1.132 x 1015

joules. As a point of reference, please

note that this corresponds to the energyreleased in a 330 kiloton thermonuclear.warhead5. One third of a megaton ofTNT!

ET Tech?

If you belonged to an extremely ad-vanced civilization, and you were taskedwith designing a small excursion craft toget about a small planet, and you had atyour disposal ultra-strong alloys and hightemperature superconductors with verylarge critical fields, you might well betempted to store said vehicle's energy inthe form of a large, inertialess externalfield. There are other possible reasons fordragging such a field around, but noneof them make sense. It is unlikely, for ex-ample, that it could be a prophylactic,designed to keep automobiles at adistance. Would a designer allocate 330kilotons for this purpose? Or propulsionor an adjunct to it? Not likely, based onsome of the above considerations.

Before the reader becomes enamoredto the concept of dragging energy aroundin an external magnetic field, however,I should point out that there is a "fly inthe ointment."

Specifically, the problem of magneticcatastrophe. What would happen if thesuperconductor "went normal," or therewas some other malfunction in thestorage system? The 330 kilotons ofenergy has to go somewhere, and if themagnetic field is disrupted, it can only gointo its most primal form (heat). Theresult would be a fireball differing littlefrom that of a 330 kiloton thermonuclearwarhead. The possibility of such acatastrophe would force the reliabilityissue to unbelievable limits. (One mightalso wonder what such a scenario saysabout "crashed saucer" stories).

Having shown the proposed propul-sion system to be inoperable, and offereda serious alternative to the fusion enginethe author has suggested, the readershould not assume that I believe this bookto be without merit. Quite to the contrary!I appreciate the work done in trying tomodel this bizarre phenomenon, and findthe second half particularly interesting.

Chapter Four is an attempt to explainthe anecdotal evidence, from commonUFO characteristics of size, shape, flightand behavoir to reported physical effectsthat can be linked to magnetic or possibly

What about the problemof magnetic catastrophe?What would happen if thesuperconductor "went nor-mal," or there was someother malfunction in thestorage system?

electromagnetic fields. No physical theoryof UFOs can possibly pass muster withoutgoing through this exercise.

Chapter Five, titled in the Table ofContents as UFOs, Quasars and Pulsars,but in the text as Astronomical Observa-tion of UFOs, asks a question I perhapswould never have even thought of. Howcan astronomers discriminate betweenpoorly understood phenomena likepulsars and quasars and the signatures ofdistant interstellar spacecraft? Suchvessels will undoubtedly emit energy,perhaps copiously; and may well be mov-ing at velocities approaching the speedof light. Yet, because these vehicles areof artificial manufacture, any determina-tion of their distance based on Hubble'sLaw will be wrong! Thus a close in-terstellar craft receding from us at closeto the speed of light, and therefore ex-hibiting significant red shift, could beassumed to be an infinitely larger object,a quasar, for example, at the extremes ofthe universe. Interesting reading.

In Chapter Six, Verifying the Theory,the author proposes two avenues ofstudy. One is the detection of UFOs bymuch the same plethora of instrumentsthat have been suggested by otherauthors for over two decades. The otheris laboratory verification of the modelsdeveloped. The latter can be deceptive,as showing that a concept derived froman examination of UFO anecdotes willwork does not prove that the anecdotesthemselves are true. The sad thing aboutthese proposals is that they reflect whatufology should be, but isn't. These pro-posals, after all, take money. And herewe have a Catch-22. The funding is notavailable because of a lack of hard data.There is no hard data because fundingis not available.

Continued on page 27

14 MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

The Rainbow DeclarationBy John E. Brandenburg, Ph.D.

Dr. Brandenburg, a plasmaphysicist, addressed the MUFONsymposium on the subject of theMars "face." This is his first articlefor the Journal.

The Rainbow Declaration is adeclaration of principles to govern therelations between peoples of differentworlds.

The declaration was written inresponse to the MJ-12, Aquarius andLear documents. The situation impliedby these documents, should they betrue and accurate, is not good. How-ever, rather than rail against the situa-tion portrayed by the documents,whose basic facts remain unconfirmed,it seems far more constructive, at thistime, to describe the situation onewould desire to exist. The key to solv-ing a problem is to first define it, andby defining a desirable situation we canmeasure our own circumstances.

In a desirable situation, the relationsbetween the people of a technologicallyunadvanced and politically disunifiedworld and a more advanced, spacefar-ing people of a different world, wouldbe according to principles andguidelines set down within a communi-ty of spacefaring peoples.

If such a community existed, andthe principles were justly framed, ad-vanced peoples would be forbiddenfrom pressing their technological ad-vantage "over less advanced natives,nor would spacefaring aliens be al-lowed to pursue divide-and-conquerstrategies against politically disunitednatives, or interfere with the natives'technological and political "gestation"period that would precede theirbecoming a unified, spacefaring peo-ple themselves.

The Rainbow Declaration, then, isan attempt to articulate such a set ofprinciples that could be observed byspacefaring peoples. It draws freelyupon historic documents and classicscience-fiction for its concepts and

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

language. Such borrowings are in-tended as an act of homage and at-tribution rather than plagiarism.

God Exists

The first portion of the documentis addressed to humanity, the peopleof Earth. The second portion is ad-dressed to all the peoples of theCosmos. 'The Rainbow Declarationevokes God as Creator and Judge ofall peoples of all worlds of origin. Itis by this recognition of God that acommon ground and bond isestablished between all peoples, andthe moral forces behind all principlesof justice is derived. The declarationis thus a perscription for relationsamong three intelligences, the natives,the aliens, and their common Creator,before whom they are equally belovedchildren.

Despite the lofty and peaceful toneof the declaration, it is a statement ofrights that are basically non-negotiable. It asserts what is properand just, and asserts the right of op-pressed people to rectify that whichis not proper and just. It is thus bothan appeal for peace and a call toarms, a statement of what is true, andan appeal for what ought to be true.

Let us hope that in the future, whenhumanity journeys between stars, thatwe will observe these principles, orothers similar to them, with all peopleswe shall encounter. Perhaps i f ,weresolve to do this in the future, thisresolve will help us to solve problemsthat exist in the present.

The text of the Rainbow Declara-tion is as follows:

Rainbow Declaration

We, the people of Earth, do makethis solemn Rainbow Declaration.. Weacknowledge our common childhoodbefore our Creator, God, and Judgeof all the Cosmos, both visible and

invisible. We recognize the planetEarth as our Planet of Genesis, ourhome, and our everlasting treasure.We pledge to keep and preserve theEarth for all humanity for all genera-tions. We call upon all humanity totreat one another with kindness,justice and peace. We call upon allhumanity to work together to ease theeffects of hunger, disease and over-population. Let there be no more kill-ing of the whales, great and small,and let humanity seek to preserve thewhole family of living things on theEarth. This declaration takes its namefrom the Rainbow, which symbolizesthe promises of God to humanity, theunity within diversity that is human-ity and the beauty of the Earth whichis humanity's.

In true Unity there is strength andgeneral benefit; therefore, on all mat-ters concerning extraterrestrial peopleswe shall be as One. We recognize theoffice of the Secretary General of theUnited Nations, acting with the adviceand consent of the Security Council,as the sole representative of humani-ty in all dealings with extraterrestrials.All relations and agreements will beopen and public, and all agreementsmust be ratified by the Security Coun-cil to be in force.

To our fellow peoples in the com-munity of the Cosmos, we extendgreetings; we recognize you as fellowchildren of the Creator of the Cosmos.Please give careful consideration to ourdeclaration, that it might serve as abasis for our good relations.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all peoples are createdequal and are endowed by theCreator with certain inalienable rights:

The right of Possession of theirhomeworld, their Planet of Genesis.No one shall take any portion of theirworld from them.

The right of Sanctity of Planet ofGenesis from alien intrusion or in-terference. No alien visitation shall

15

occur until the people shall realizetheir Unity and achieve space travelof their own; this is the Prime Direc-tive for all spacefaring peoples. Noalien spacecraft shall make close ap-proach, or assume close orbit, ormake any landing, except openly andby consent of global authority.

The right of Possession of GeneticCode. No alien shall take a people'sGenetic Code for any use, exceptunder reciprocal scientific exchange,negotiated openly by global authority.

The right to permanent occupationof all bodies orbiting their Planet ofGenesis or the sun of their Planet,which is their Star of Genesis, andpermanent authority over the spacecontaining these bodies. No alien

bases may be established permanent-ly on bodies or stations orbiting aPlanet or Star of Genesis, but mustbe evacuated (upon landing by thepeople of thisrlanet or Star, exceptthere shall be negotiated a treatygranting temporary lease.

The right of Freedom of PeacefulNavigation of Space shall be enjoyedby all peoples except where it conflictswith the Sanctity of Planet of Genesis.

The right of peoples to Assert andDefend the aforementioned rightsand the right to give and receive aidconsistent with these rights, whenthese rights shall be endangered. Incases of dispute, the burden of proof-of-innocence shall fall on those whoare alien, for it is the burden of the

strong and advanced to help preservethe rights of the weak and lessadvanced.

We pledge to uphold these rightsand principles in all relations with allpeoples we shall encounter, whetherwe be aliens or they in these en-counters. We declare that all peoplesshould seek to treat all other peoplesas they themselves would desire to betreated, and that all peoples of theCosmos should seek peaceful andmutually beneficial relations with eachother. We delcare that it is our deepestdesire that humanity might take itsplace as an honored and valuablemember of the community of peoplesof the Cosmos.

Circular ArgumentsBy Ralph Noyes

If only Condon had been followed up... If only that damning conclusion hadnot been reached that "nothing of scien-tific value would come of further studies."If only that academic iron curtain had notbeen slammed down in 1969 ...

These vigorous complaints are madein a remarkable new book [1] not, as youmight think, by an aging ufologist withfour decades of bafflement behind him,but by a British atmospheric physicist ofinternational repute, Dr. G. TerenceMeaden, editor of the Journal ofMeteorology and a senior member of theTornado and Storm Research Organiza-tion. And he makes these sharp com-ments not as a student of UFOs, but asan assiduous researcher for nearly tenyears past into that remarkable puzzle ofthe decade, the British cropfield circles.

I gave readers of the MUFON UFOJournal a brief review of thisphenomenon last October [4]; and theJournal has carried other reports of it. Butit may be as well to summarize what we'retalking about.

Usually in fields of grain, thoughsometimes in other crops, swirled andflattened areas are discovered during thegrowing season. The crop is bent over atabout ground level, but goes on growingand ripening. The disturbed area isgeometrically precise, approximating to

16

a circle though usually departing slightlytowards the oval or elliptical. There is asharp cut-off between the flattened cropand the rest of the field. Sometimes ringsare found rather than circles.

In many cases the rings and circlesform distinctive patterns: for example, acircle with a ring around it; a circle withtwo rings; geometrical groups of circles;and sometimes still more complex forma-tions. Well over a dozen basic patternshave now been reported. Since the first(singleton) circles were reported in 1980each year has brought reports of new pat-terns and of an increasing number ofevents. Reports have been heavily con-centrated in Hampshire and Wiltshire,with marked clustering near Westbury(since 1980), Winchester (since 1981 -though with an indication of some earlierevents) and the Avebury area (since1987).

There is now evidence for occurrencesoutside these "haunted" areas and fromearlier periods; but many of these "ex-Wessex" and pre-1980 events are ratherpoorly documented. If credit is given tothem all, however, there still remains astrong appearance of an overwhelmingconcentration of events in Wessex and ofa phenomenon which has developed ex-plosively in the 1980s.

Three Books

These are the puzzles which all resear-chers have had to face. We now havethree books (published in the UK in Ju-ly) in which three very different ap-proaches are made to the problem. Thefirst is Meaden's book, mentioned above[1], and I will return to it below. The se-cond, Circular Evidence [2], is by a teamof dedicated field researchers, based inHampshire, who have poured moneyand effort into studying the subject sincethe early 1980s (and are now rightlyreaping the reward of making the bestseller lists in the UK). The third, Con-troversy of the Circles [3], is by JennyRandies and Paul Fuller of BUFORA (theBritish UFO Research Association).

Circular Evidence is superbly il-lustrated, and it contains the most de-tailed account of the remarkable "swirl-ing" and "texturing" of the crop which thecircles exhibit - an indispensable field-guide for dedicated circle-watchers in thiscountry (and in the U.S., also, if ever thephenomenon decides to make a decisivetransatlantic jump into the grain fields ofthe Mid-West). The book speculateswidely, and it contains what may turn outto be valuable hints by reporting (brave-ly, I feel!) some weirdities which have af-

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

A SELECTION OF THE PATTERNS REPORTED[Not to the same scale]

SINGLETON DOUBLET OVERLAPPINGDOUBLET

TRIPLET-IN-LINE QUADRUPLET "TRIANGULAR"TRIPLET

QUINTUPLET RINGED CIRCLE DOUBLE-RINGER

SIMPLE RING

FORMATIONS WITH KINGED CENTRES

"CELTIC CROSS"

lark areas = 5uirled and flattened crops]

© Ralph Noyes1989

flicted its authors: audible and luminousphenomena at circle sites; peculiarbehaviour by equipment; poltergeistishintrusions - the kind of stuff which con-tinues to trouble excellent (and eminent-ly respectable) bodies like the Society forPsychical Research. But CircularEvidence must be recommended for itsgraphic account and its excellent illustra-tions rather than its scientific rigour. Itsagely concludes that "final answers area long way off" (which I assume meansthat we can expect to see the publicationof Son of Circular Evidence before we'remuch older).

The BUFORA authors [3] pour a gooddeal of sceptical comment on the subject.They believe that much of the apparentclustering of the circles in "Wessex" (thename by which we call the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of southern England, in-itially centered on Winchester) reflects thepresence in Hampshire and Wiltshire ofenthusiastic field-researchers, assisted bymedia hype. And they have been muchconcerned in recent years to trash anysuggested connection between the crop-field circles and UFO sightings, despitesome sporadic evidence of a possible linkbetween the two. Their booklet went to

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

press before they had had much time todigest Meaden's remarkable new views,and we must given them credit forrecognizing the importance of the latter,even if it has lef t . them somewhatfloundering.

The crucial book is Meaden's [1]. Healone makes a direct, sustained andscientifically-based assault on the com-plex of problems which the circles pre-sent. He has, from the start, looked foran explanation in terms of atmosphericphysics, as he is singularly well qualifiedto do. After what seem to me to havebeen several false starts in earlier years,Meaden now postulates a wholly newand hitherto unrecognized atmosphericphenomenon which he calls "the plasma-vortex" and which he sees as sometimescapable of generating a large "plasmaball." The details are hard going for non-physicists (though the book is written withelegance and clarity). But the implicationsare remarkable.

.If Meaden is right, our atmosphere issometimes able to produce a short-lived,but vigorously swirling, disturbance withstrong electrical properties. (A laymangrasps after the analogy of something bet-ween ball-lightning and a mini-tornado.)

Depending on conditions, this transientenergy-form can manifest as a globe oflight, often with associated sounds. It maybe able to interfere with the ignitionsystem of automobiles and perhaps toaffect close witnesses. Descending toearth, it can make a cropfield circle. Ac-ting more vigorously it may well causemore violent circular damage at groundlevel.

Redefining UFOs

In short, a good meteorlogist whosesole concern has been to investigate crop-field circles has ended by describing muchof the UFO phenomenon. I cannot helpenjoying the irony that Randies and Fuller- stalwart defenders of BUFORA againstLittle Green Men - have spent much pas-sion in scorning the hints of a link be-tween UFOs and cropfield circles whileTerence Meaden is now keenly searchingfor one! But I will not push this schaden-freude too far: BUFORA have been right-ly concerned to keep the silly seasonPress at bay in the attempts of the latterto saddle the Association with a simplisticlink between circles and ETs; and I believeFuller and Randies now recognize that

17

•' ' .' ' !•' '. '•' .' " 'i.

1

RINGED CIRCLE NEAR AUEBURY, WINCHESTER

Meaden's book offers remarkablepossibilities for a rational re-definition ofwhat we mean by "UFO."

But wonderfu l puzzles remain.Meaden's "UFO" still shows a remarkableaffection for certain highly localized areas.And it gives the appearance ofelaborating and increasing its intrusionsfrom year to year. 1989 has broughtmore occurrences than ever before,mainly in "haunted" Wessex; and one ofthem flatly contradicts an assertion madeby Meaden within a few days of thepublication of his book. (He says, onpage 96, "Single rings around singlecircles always rotate in a sense oppositeto that of the interior." Well, they did ...Until 18 June 1989 ...). And other newand unpredicted patterns have turned upthis year. And I cannot, myself, altogetherdiscount those hints of so-called PSI-phenomena reported by Andrews andDelgado [2].

I think we shall need some other fac-tors than Meaden's to explain what is go-ing on. One of them may be somethingearth-bound which attracts the Meaden"UFO" (shades of Paul Devereux's Earth-lights - not to mention Persinger; not tomention Dennis Stacy's Maria Lights).And perhaps we shall find that Meaden's"UFO" possesses much weirdercharacteristics than he's yet letting on: an

18

// Meaden is right, our at-mosphere is sometimes ableto produce a short-lived, butvigorously swirling, distur-bance with strong electricalproperties.

ability to interact with human witnesses,for example.

I'm left with the impression that we livein interesting times and that this wholeshow will run and run. Cliches apart,however, I believe we're on the verge ofsome wholly new insights into ourremarkable world and the interaction ofhuman intelligence with it.

References

[I] The Circles Effect and Its MysteriesDr. G. Terence Meaden, ArtetechPublishing, 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire BA15 ILD, England.Cheques for £12.00 sterling or U.S.$30.00 (surface delivery).

[2] Circular Evidence Pat Delgado & Col-in Andrews, Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd.,2 Soho Square, London WIV 5DE,

England. Sterling price £14.95 (plus£2.00 for surface delivery). Sterling only.

[3] Controversy of the Circles JennyRandies & Paul Fuller BUFORA, 37Heathbank Road, Cheadle Heath,Stockport, Cheshire SK3 OUP, England.Sterling price £3.95 (plus £1.50 for sur-face delivery). Sterling only.

(4) "Those Corny British Circles," RalphNoyes. MUFON UFO Journal, No. 246,October 1988, pp. 8-10.

© 1989 Ralph Noyes

- MUFON -AMATEUR

RADIONET

EVERY SATURDAYMORNING

AT 0800 EST (OR DST)ON 7237 KHZ S.S.B.

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

THE UFO PRESSBY DENNIS STACY

Jenny Randies, director of investiga-tions for the British UFO ResearchAssociation (BUFORA), has probablywritten more UFO books than most of ushave read. The one under discussion thismonth was originally published in hard-back as Abduction by Robert Hale ofEngland last year. In its latest manifesta-tion, it goes by the title, Alien Abductions:The Mystery Solved, and is available($12.95, plus $1 p&h) as a quality240-page paperback from Inner LightPublications, Box 753, New Brunswick,NJ, 08903. The brains behind Inner Lightseems to be one of the longtime enfanttenibles of UFO literature, Timothy GreenBeckley, who, in this case, has to be con-gratulated for making a book availablethat we might not otherwise have hadhere without great expense.

Given the economics of UFOpublishing in this country, and the factthat Randies hardly boasts the cachet andlocal clout of a Strieber, Hopkins orVallee, let alone a Steiger or Berlitz, theproduction quality is probably about asgood as we have any right to expect. Myreview copy even had an additionalbonus: Pages 193-208 were bound intwice.

Of all contemporary UFO authors,Randies reminds me most of the lateDonald Keyhoe, and I certainly don'tmean that derogatorily. Her books areconversational in tone, anecdotal in ap-proach and drawn from what are pro-bably among the most extensive in-dividual UFO files in existence. Certain-ly, she is not as single-tracked or mindedas Keyhoe, who had an altogether dif-ferent agenda, which was to convince theAmerican public that a) alien extrater-restrials were invading our air space, andb) the government and military were ac-tively engaged in a cover-up of thatknowledge.

Well, we've come a long way, haven'twe, and nowhere further than in the areaof UFO abductions, a facet of thephenomenon which Keyhoe only rarelyand begrudgingly acknowledged, if at all.Keyhoe was a publicist. Randies is moreof a populist, and for that matter, moreof a thinker than Keyhoe. Her books

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

nearly always contain a few original in-sights, suggestions and theories foundnowhere else, even while firmly found-ed in what amounts to an encyclopedicbackground of UFO research, data andliterature. For the American reader,Randies also brings to her writing whatmight be called the continental or Euro-pean UFO sensibility, an emphasis on theperceptual psychology of a case, say,rather than the nuts 'n' bolts aspects thatmight be present like raisins in bread pud-ding. In addition, of course, since shedoes write from a largely British perspec-tive, we're treated to anecdotal cases wewouldn't normally encounter.

In the case of abductions, this hassome consequences for thought. In thesame way that flying saucers first emerg-ed, abductions continue to manifest as amostly American phenomenon (morethan 50% of all cases catalogued byBullard originated in the U.S.), followedby South America and Britain third. Thereason for this is as yet murky; it couldbe an artifact of the phenomenon itself,the way reports are gathered and in-vestigated, even the number of in-vestigators, population densities, or someother unidentified factor. But of those

cases that have been collated, at least onesurprising variation surfaces: Americanabductees, in general, report the 'tradi-tional' little gray beings, whereas theBritish percipients describe, again ingeneral, entities more normally human inheight (six feet or so), with equally oddeyes, but commonly porcelain-white andblondish hair.

I expected Randies to make more ofthis discrepancy than she does, thoughshe certainly makes something of it,because it seems to me to be the onesingle, most potentially glaring clue in thewhole business. If we're going to hold fastto the extraterrestrial hypothesis, then weare obligated to explain why Americansare abducted by little aliens and theBritish by tall ones. Either some cultural,i.e., psychological, consideration has to bepostulated to account for the difference,or some characteristic inherent to the ab-ductors themselves has to be hypothesiz-ed. Have two alien races divided theworld into spheres of separate influence,in the same way that Hitler and Stalindivided up Poland and the Latvian lands?You abduct these and we'll abduct those?There must be some reason for the dif-ferences, after all.

Part of the problem is thatpsychoanalyzing alien behavior ispresently out of fashion, for objections Ineither fully fathom or agree with. Wepsychoanalyze everything else, howeverrudely and crudely, so why are alienmotivations off limits? The argumentusually invoked is that such exercises arefutile simply because they do involve atheoretical alien psychology, a rationalethat is ultimately as tautological or circularas the religious prohibition against inquir-ing into the mysterious ways and man-ners of the Creator. Are we to accept ab-ductions on evidence or faith?

If the aliens are physical, biological be-ings, then such prohibitions, under therubric of advanced age, science oralieness itself, are de facto absurd. In fact,they are probably impossible, witness thegenetic experimentat ion and/orhybridization hypothesis that seems to bethe logical outgrowth of the Hopkins-Jacobs' research. It may not be possible

19

to have our cake and eat it, too, but it'scertainly human nature to want to,especially when confronted with a pieceof cake as choice and moist as abductionswould seem to be!

More importantly, if 1 read my Valleeright, there is a fruitful way to investigateor examine "alien" motives, which is byexamining their effect on percipients,which is to say their intentions. We neednot necessarily confuse ourselves byassuming that they are so sophisticatedas to be beyond our limited, "primitive,"comprehension. They could just as con-ceivably be as crude and transparent asany of our own. They could, in fact, bea mere by-product of some other uniden-tified phenomenon which in itself hasnothing to do with extraterrestrial visitorsand kidnappers. But regardless, the ad-vantage of such an approach is that weneed not jump to conclusions about thenature of the phenomenon itself; if we doour homework well enough, that will fallinevitably into place. Admittedly, the ma-jor drawback is also ingrained. Whowants to study the sun by observing theshadows it casts? The latter approach isobviously less exciting and more time-consuming; the overlooked benefit, ofcourse, is that you don't go blind.

But I digress. Randies; Alien Abduc-tions is a worthwhile read and survey ofmuch of what we presently know andsuspect about abductions. Oddly,Randies comes to a conclusion (I hesitateto call it a solution, as the publisher does)which combines both the psychologicaland physical approach. I say oddly notto suggest that the phenomenon doesn'twarrant such an appellation, but that intrying , to resolve the two seeminglydistinct natures of abductions, Randiesultimately opts for an explanation thatraises more questions than it answers.She concludes that alien extraterrestrialbeings are indeed behind abductions, butin a purely psychic or psychologicalfashion. In other words, they are inter-acting with spatially remote humans viaa dimensionless field of consciousness.

I don't discount such a notion on theface of it. But it makes one wonder why,with all of consciousness itself to roam,the conversation is so limited and one-way? Is she suggesting that the distantdenizens of another planet are having usexamine our own bodies at their behestand report back the results? In whichcase, why not limit their contacts to physi-20

cians, who can at least be presumed toknow something about our physicalmake-up? For that matter, should we ad-vise our sons and daughters againstgrowing up to be gynecologists, therebydecreasing their odds of abduction?

Despite the fact that we inhabit one,most of us know about as much aboutthe inner workings of our bodies as wedo our minds, which is to say almostzilch. The same probably goes for cake.

Who's Counting?

Ordinarily, I don't like to give credence,without supporting evidence, to con-spiracy theories, of whatever stripe. Butsomething recently came to my attention,of which I had been completely unaware,and which I find intriguing. Whether ithas anything to do with UFOs, of course,is altogether another matter.

The source is a column called "TheStraight Dope," by "Cecil Adams," a•pseudonym, which is syndicated byvarious publications across the country.In this case it appeared in Current, SanAntonio's "alternative" news and enter-tainment biweekly for September 7-20,1989, page 5. A reader wrote in to in-quire about what are known as "numberstations." These are shortwave radiobroadcasts whose transmissions consistsolely of a voice, usually, but not always,Spanish, monotonously reciting three,four or five digit numbers.

Adams answers that "there are dozensof 'number stations,' some of which havebeen in business for decades, yet nogovernment or private agency has everacknowledged them. The stations broad-cast in a variety of formats ... in languagesranging from English and Spanish toCzech, Korean and Serbo-Croatian."Adams says the voice is often female andmay be computer-generated like manytelephone recordings.

"Explanations" range fromsophisticated drug-runners encodingmessages to espionage agents keeping intouch with the home office. The connec-tion may be completely non-existent, butit stirs up memories here of the SpanishUMMO Affair, an elaborately com-plicated series of supposedly UFO con-tacts involving all sorts of cryptic ex-changes of information, which arerumored to be ongoing.

Again, not to needlessly mongermystery, but does anyone else out there

know anything about the mysterious"number stations"? Have any ofMUFON's amateur radio net listened inon these things? We'd be happy to haveany opinions, or better yet, informationon the subject. Ten Four.

Running in Circles

Elsewhere this issue, or last or next, weshould have had Ralph Noyes' review ofthree recent English books on the so-called "corn-circle" phenomenon. Ofcourse I'm always a little leery of any peo-ple that can't tell the difference betweencorn and wheat and regularly drive onthe wrong side of the road. But be thatas it may, it's worth knowing that thephenomenon has now gained legitimacyin this country, by virtue of a front-pageappearance in the august leaves of TheWall Street Journal for August 28, 1989(clipping courtesy of James Crocker).

The article is headed "Mysterious Circles in British Fields Spook the Populace,"and sub-headed "Locals Blame UFOs,Yanks and Mad Hedgehogs: the Queenis on the Case." We welcome Her Majestyto our own court, and hope she sooncomes up with a solution to satisfyeveryone, from farmers and ufologists toequally befuddled meteorologists. In themeantime, I propose that who orwhatever is responsible (or irresponsible)for the flattened circles of wheat, whichcontinue growing horizontally, be dub-bed "thatchers."

Velcro makes sheep rustling a breeze.

MUFONMUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

Abduction Research: The Challenge Ahead

Dr. Westrum is a MUFON consul-tant in sociology and associate direc-tor of the Center for ScientificAnomalies Research at EasternMichigan University.

Over the years I have watched UFOresearch develop toward an increasinglysophisticated activity. The developmentof MUFON has been an important ele-ment in this research, since MUFON hasconsistently served as a meeting place fortop investigators. The Center for UFOStudies has also, to a lesser extent, beenan important focus for UFO research.And there are a variety of smaller regionaland topical groups. All this is very good.But it is not anywhere near good enoughfor the problem that we face.

That problem has grown larger andlarger as abduction research has detail-ed a problem of truly monumental pro-portions. We once felt that abduction wasa questionable, or at least a rare, event.It is becoming painfully clear, however,that whatever the nature of UFO abduc-tions turns out to be, that it is a probleminvolving large numbers of people. Howlarge are those numbers? A conservativeestimate would put abductees at hun-dreds of thousands. Millions howevermay be closer to the mark. I say this asa sociologist who has studied a largenumber of socially "hidden events."1 Ac-cording to polls of students in his historyclasses, history professor David Jacobssuspects that one in ten may be ab-ductees. In any case, we need more ac-curate and comparative researchimmediately.

Yet if even a fraction of these numbersare involved, we have a huge and nearlyoverwhelming problem. As supportgroups for abductees sprout in all the ma-jor cities, where is the scientific researchof what is going on in the abductionphenomenon? Largely, it does not exist.This is not to denigrate the excellent workof Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs andothers; Where would we be without it?But in magnitude and in resources, it isa tiny candle when we need a searchlight.The kind of research that should be go-ing on would be on a much more massive

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

By Ron Westrum, Ph.D.

scale and would involve physiologists,psychologists, physicists, experts in ar-tificial intelligence, ecology, etc. ...Something about the size and funding ofthe National Science Foundation is theappropriate answer, if the reports of ab-ductees are real.

I will not argue the case for the realityof abduction reports here. Budd has donethis very persuasively, and Dave Jacobs'forthcoming book will do it in a moresystematic way. The key point is that nohypothesis other than alien visitation issupported by the research so far. The"fantasy prone personality" idea, sobeloved of skeptics, is a poor fit to the ob-vious hypervigilance of ostensible ab-ductees. Ditto for "mass hysteria," soonto be introduced by academic sociologistsas their explanation for what is going on.

The mixture of social patterning,medical effects, the evident post-traumatic stress syndrome, and theremarkable consistency of abductionreports all argue for a very complexphenomenon which cannot simply bereduced to perceptual contagion or in-dividual psychopathology. Abductees arenot insane, they do not seem to be par-ticularly prone to fantasy, and they ap-pear to be people to whom somethingvery bad has happened, and is still hap-pening. Until we catch the aliens in theact, of course, all this is necessarilyhypothetical. Certainty, however, is like-ly to come too late for my taste. Let's geton with this!

Alien Species

Remember that this is a species ques-tion. These aliens are not foreign people,they are a different species. They ob-viously regard us as an inferior one.Whether we are breeding stock, ex-perimental animals, or part of some ex-istential game they are playing, we don'tmatter to them. They are not trying toestablish communication, they are usingus. We deserve better.

Who knows what the governmentknows or doesn't know? It is hard to denythe reality of the Roswell crash, and ifthere is one, there are certainly likely to

be others. But what the government (orsome part of it) knows is likely to remainobscure for some time. Obviously certainindividuals and organizations are goingto considerable trouble to confuse us. Isuggest we ignore them. We can't trustthe information they give us, and untilthey start providing tangible proof —documents, photographs, alien carcassesor spaceship fragments — they are likelyto prove a waste of our energies.

While the government is throwing upa smokescreen, however, social effectsare beginning and will continue to in-crease in breadth and depth. While ab-duction support groups seem a relative-ly benign development, we should notdiscount the possible development ofother kinds of groups, whose attitudemay be frankly religious. A potential alien"invasion" is also exactly the sort of thinglikely to breed politically extremist groups,and I don't think the first appearances ofsuch groups are very far away.

Finally, real mass hysteria is a seriouspossibility. We have been very lucky sofar that most of the abductees on televi-sion have been relatively ordinary,somewhat drab people. Wait until a filmstar starts vividly describing these events,however, and then abductee supportgroups will be overwhelmed with poten-tial recruits.

And unlike the subject of many masshysterical outbreaks, there is reallysomething behind this one. You can beabducted. Your house cannot protect,nor can friends, guns, or in fact anythingthat you can do save staying in TimesSquare 24 hours a day. If you live a nor-mal life, you are at risk. This is anightmare for us. It returns us to the scarydays of childhood, when there were bearsbehind the dresser and bogeymen in thecloset. One sympathizes with the little girlin Aliens II who asks "why do parents tellchildren that there aren't monsters, whenthere are?"

And along with the mass movements,there is the constant subliminal propagan-da broadcast by intellectuals and artistswho are abductees, witting or unwitting.I wonder, for instance, about the lateRobert Heinlein, whose book The Pup-

21

pet Masters and whose story "TheStrange Profession of Johnathan Hoag"contain obvious abduction themes, as doothers of his stories as well. Did he simp-ly have a good imagination, or did hehave personal knowledge? How manyother Whitely Streibers are out there,churning out materials influenced by un-discussable (and perhaps unremem-bered) personal experiences?

If David Jacobs' figures are correct, theimplication is that we are bathed in a seaof abduction-infected thoughts, emo-tions, messages. This is powerful stuff. Asmovies such as E.T. or Close Encountersof the Third Kind try to persuade, thealiens are ugly, but friendly. There is agreat deal of similar material with a dif-ferent message. All this is being foughtout, at a level largely unconscious, bothfor writer and reader, artist and viewer,singer and listener.

Social Emissaries

And that is why we need consciously,as a society, to address this problem, notto hide from it, not to pray that it will goaway, but to face it squarely and learnmore about what it is doing to us. Andthis means research - research of allkinds, using our best minds to pry thisthing open, get to its core, and find outwhat we are up against. I sometimes havea tendency to think, "Well, gee, if this isso powerful, I'm not going to be able todo anything about it, so I'll just put itaside." But we can't do that. Each of usneeds to become an emissary to society

at large, to stimulate inquiry, to get scien-tists interested in this problem.

And also government. Our politicalrepresentatives need to know that thereis public interest in this thing, that peo-ple are worried about it and that they arenot satisfied with the answers they havebeen getting from the bureaucracies, in-cluding the Air Force and N.A.S.A. Themore attention that is focused on this, thesooner there is going to be widespreadscientific research. Political contacts needto be cultivated, they need to be briefed,and they need to know that you care.Find some of their constituents who areabductees. Point out that this may wellbecome issue #1 for the 1990's. Sendthem an article, or send them a BuddHopkins book and suggest they read it.Suggest they ask more questions aboutwhy government isn't looking into thisthing.

This has moved beyond the stagewhere we can practice ufology as a part-time activity. We need the skills andresources of big science. We need an in-ternational effort, but the U.S. is a goodplace to start. This is not going to goaway. I kept hoping it would, but it hasn't.This has all the earmarks of somethingreal — and very dangerous. I am not anabductee, but it sure troubles me. Let's geton with it.1. Ron Westrum, "Social Intelligence About Hid-den Events: Implications for Scientific Research andSocial Policy," Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion,Utilization, Vol. 3 #3 (1982); Ron Westrum, "TheBlind Eye of Science," in The Fringes of Reason:A Whole Earth Catalogue, Ed. by Ted Schultz, (NewYork: Harmony House, 1989)

Calendar of UFO Conferences for 1989October? & 8 — UFOs: Past, Present and Future, New Modesto Centre Plaza, Modesto,California.

October 21 — The Show-Me UFO Conference, Harley Hotel, Earth City, Missouri (nearSt. Louis)

October 26, 27, 28 & 29 — International UFO Conference, Frankfurt's Airport Conven-tion Center, Frankfurt, West Germany

November 11 & 12 — The UFO Experience, Ramada Inn, North Haven, Connecticut

Calendar of UFO Conferences for 1990April 6, 7 & 8 — Ozark UFO Conference, Inn of the Ozarks, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

July 6,7 & 8 — MUFON 1990 International UFO Symposium, Pensacola Hilton, Pensacola,Florida

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In OthersVbrdsBy Lucius Parish

Space aliens in ancient Japan are thesubject of an article in the July 25 issueof NATIONAL ENQUIRER. Amphibiousbeings called "Kappas" figure in Japanesereligious texts, while the clay figures of"Dogus" have many points of similaritywith the suits worn by modern astronauts.

The "Anti-Matter/UFO Update" col-umn in the August issue of OMNI has asummary of the UFO activity which hastaken place in/around Elmwood,Wisconsin, as well as the plans for a"UFO Landing Site" in this area. Thecolumn in the September issue of themagazine details John Lear's controver-sial theories concerning UFOs, govern-ment/alien "interactions," etc.

Abductions researcher Budd Hopkinshas recently been instrumental in form-ing the Intruders Foundation, which willfocus on the task of properly investigatingthe ever-increasing number of UFO ab-duction claims. A quarterly IF BULLETINwill be published, containing articles byvarious UFO investigators, as well as con-tributions by abductees, scientists,psychologists and others. Membership inIF is $25.00 per year. The address is: P.O.Box 30233 - New York, NY 10011.

A new paperback title of possible in-terest is Kevin D. Randle's THE UFOCASEBOOK (Warner Books; $4.95).Randle examines a good many "classic"cases, as well as others which he has per-sonally investigated. Some of his conclu-sions are questionable, at best, butoverall, this is a worthwhile summary ofUFO events since 1947.

Brad Steiger's MONSTERS AMONGUS, recently reprinted in paperback byBerkley Books, contains a chapter onUFO occupants.

Publication of Ed Walters' UFOs -PROOF POSITIVE! is now set for lateMarch 1990, from William Morrow & Co.This, of course, is subject to change, asare all things which have to do withpublishing!

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

Looking BackBy Bob Gribble

FORTY YEARS AGO - October1949: About 1:15 p.m. on the 14th, amember of the Mount Palomar Obser-vatory staff, a Mr. Marshall, was drivingdown the mountain — northeast of SanDiego, California — when he sighted 16to 18 objects fly by in V formation, emit-ting a strange sound. Mr. Marshall felt hewas familiar enough with all types of air-craft, but for the life of him he couldn'tmake out any wings or tail structures onthe silver-colored objects as they zoom-ed by at 5000 feet altitude. At the sametime the recording pen for the Geigercounters and recording equipment at theObservatory jumped off-scale, somethingthat had never occurred before.

At 7:20 the morning of the 17th, amember of the staff of the Observatorywent to check the Geiger tubes in thepower house. When he was inside, his at-tention was drawn to the window. To thesouthwest a small black dot was visiblezipping along at high speed beneath acloud ceiling at 7000 feet. At the samemoment the Geiger counter recorder penjumped off-scale. On the 21st anotherhigh speed object was seen near theObservatory. In appearance the objectlooked to be elongated and slightlycurved like a banana. It was spotted at2:30 p.m. There was no reaction by theGeiger counters. The staff member'ssighting was given further support by theowner of the Palamar Gardens Cafe, nearthe Observatory, when he reported see-ing a "cigar-shaped object" passing overthe area at the same time.

***

THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO - Oc-tober 1954: Mr. Duncan Fletcher, VicePresident of the Kenya, Africa,Astronomical Society, stated that he andfour of his associates sighted and closelyobserved one of the numerous UFOsreported over East Africa during October.He said that he is now convinced thatEarth is under systematic surveillance byintelligent beings from outer space.

On the seventh strange flying objects

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

were sighted by Mr. Peter Djorkovic,Assistant Director of the Belgrade,Yugoslavia, Astronomical Observatory.The astronomer was convinced that theseven objects seen from the Observatorywere some mechanical contrivance andnot parts of a meteor. He said four of thecraft were watched by the Observatorystaff flying a flat trajectory towardsBulgaria. Half an hour later they wereobserved moving over the area in the op-posite direction on the same course. Thevehicles were described as circular andcigar-shaped.

The National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration said it had picked upstrange signals from an unknown orbitingobject. Soon after this, a Frenchastronomer revealed that he also hadheard signals from an unknown sourceorbiting Earth. And the French peoplewere also seeing things. MM. HenriGallois and Louis Vigneron were drivingnear Clamecy (Nievre), about 4:30 a.m.on the llth when they had a startlingadventure. "We had not gone far fromClamecy," M. Gallois said, "when sud-denly I felt something like an electricshock all through my body, and so. didM. Vigneron. At the same time theengine stalled and the headlights wentout. Paralyzed, unable to move, we couldonly sit there wondering what had hap-pened, and watching. Then we saw thatabout 50 yards away from us, in themeadow next to the road, there was around object or machine, and alongsideit we could see very clearly three smallfigures, with quick, lively movements andgestures. But soon the figures seemed todisappear into the object, which then flewoff very rapidly. Almost at once ourheadlights went on again, and we couldstart the car."

At about 3:15 p.m. on the 22nd,youngsters on the playground of theMarysville, Ohio, Jerome School spotteda strange object directly overhead. Theynotified the principal, Rodney Warrick,who investigated. He said that a cigar-

shaped object hovered over the school;that it had no tail, no wings, appeared tohave windows and at times its lumino-sity was so brilliant he had to shield hiseyes. Suddenly the vehicle accelerateddirectly to the west at terrific speed,making no noise. Watching with Warrickwere Mrs. George Dittmar, teacher, andabout 60 pupils. In the wake of the craftwas a trail of webs, which fell in longstrands. Part of it came down in balls likecotton. Trees, bushes and utility wireswere covered. Both Warrick and Mrs.Dittmar said that when they were able tocatch two ends of a strand the stuff couldbe pulled out into a long thread, "sotough," said Warrick, "that it could hard-ly be broken." Within less than a minuteafter being touched, the substance woulddisappear. Warrick said that the strandsfelt like asbestos, but weren't sticky. Afterhandling it, his skin turned green and hishand sweated profusely. The stain disap-peared in about 30 minutes.

Between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on the 24th,many disc-shaped objects, dull silver incolor, maneuvered over Gravatai AirForce Base, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.The craft were observed by a number ofAir Force personnel. Two days later theBrazilian Air Force announced to the na-tion that the UFOs were real, "that theyare circular objects, silver in color indaylight and capable of speeds andmaneuvers far beyond any known air-craft."

***THIRTY YEARS AGO - October1959: A young hunter, surprised by astrange object hovering over a Virginiaswamp, fired his shotgun at it and heardthe shot strike a metallic surface. A com-panion nearby also saw the craft andheard the metallic sound. Mark Muza, 15,and Harold Moore, Jr., 14, both of Po-quoson, Virginia, were hunting in aswampy area known as the "Big Marsh"about 6:15 p.m. on the 19th when Muzaheard a sound "like a tornado." Lookingup, he saw a small dark object with a sur-rounding silver ring hovering at an alti-tude of about 80 feet, and dipping slightlyfrom side to side.

When the craft began to descend,Muza fired two "Maximum 4" shells at it.Then reloading, he fired a steel-bearingshell which struck the vehicle with an

23

audible metallic clang. The craft then shotstraight up into the clear sky and disap-peared from view. Standing about 100yards away, Moore heard Muza fire, sawthe craft, and heard the metallic noise.Then he saw the vehicle go straight upout of sight. The craft was visible forabout a minute and a half. At its lowestpoint, Muza estimated, it was only about55 feet off the ground and about four feetin diameter. •

** *TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO - Oc-tober 1964: In the last week of themonth Larry Rossi, an engineer with theNational Aeronautics and Space Ad-ministration test site on Wallop's Island,Virginia, with three other techniciansfrom NASA, saw a triangular-shapedcraft come out of the north and make a90-degree turn east. The vehicle wasmoving at a high rate of speed and disap-peared within a minute.

***FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - October1974: Jeannie, Beth, Linda and TonyOverfelt, and Pat Nelson, all of Ramona,California, had a frightening experienceon the evening of the 15th as theywatched a mysterious object maneuverover Santa Maria Valley. The object land-ed on a hillside, gradually turned rubyred, then intensely white, hovered a shorttime over the ground then streakedtoward Country Estates. The object wasperfectly round. According to the fiveyoung people, when the object flewoverhead the horses began excitedlywhinnying and bucking; one kicked offa fence rail. A dog grasped one of thegirls by the sleeve and tried to pull herinto the house. The other dog, which waschained, ran in and out of of thedoghouse, often smashing into the backof the doghouse with great force.

The goats were "jumping around," andthe chickens were scrambling and cack-ling in the dark. The cat ran with greatforce into the side of the garage, stunn-ing itself. No radio or TV station wouldwork, the TV had blue spots and verticalbands. Tony's compass alternated er-ratically from north to northeast in one-second periods when the object was onthe hillside, but when it flew overhead thecompass needle lodged itself against theglass cover. After the object flew over,some airplanes followed, which the24

young people believed to be Navy jets.The object appeared to be ruby red, witha blue halo around it, when movingrapidly at high elevation. Its sound wasdescribed as "a mix between a hum anda fog-horn."

Shortly before 3 a.m. on the 21st,Deputy William Brown, 25, of theWyoming County, New York Sheriff'sDepartment, was driving down adeserted highway about 40 miles east ofBuffalo. "Suddenly this blinding flash oflight swept over me going in the samedirection," Brown said. "I couldn't makeout what it was even though the nightwas clear. Before I had a chance to thinkabout it, the dispatcher told me to goback to Perry Center and check out acomplaint. I turned around and hadreached about 50 miles an hour when thelight swept past again. This time I got abetter look. It was less than 500 feetabove my head — but it was so bright Icouldn't make out the shape. It was justa brilliant, yellowish light that lit up thecountryside.

"Then seconds later, a weird noise fill-ed the car. It was a high-pitched, scream-ing wail that lasted for several seconds.It startled me. It was ear-piercing. My firstthought was that my microphone wasn'tswitched off and was causing feedback,but I made a quick check and it definite-ly wasn't transmitting. I have to admit Iwas scared. I pulled off the road and justsat there for a few minutes..." Momentsafter Brown's encounter with the UFO, afew miles to the east in Livingston Coun-ty, several other officers were stunned asthey got a better look at the strange ob-ject. Brown, still badly shaken by the wail-ing sound that had invaded his car, didn'tlearn until he got back to Warsaw thatdispatcher Dennis Quackenbush hadheard the screaming over the radio.

"It didn't sound anything like distortionor interference," Quackenbush said. Thenoise starts on a low note, rises sharplyin pitch until it can barely be heard andthen drops down to the original low note.It is a perfectly clear tone and very loud.Merle Demerly, an electronics expertwhose company installs and maintainspolice radio equipment, spent manyhours with two other engineers trying toidentify the mysterious sound. "We havecompletely ruled out the possibility thatDeputy Brown created the sound," De-

merly said. "It would be impossible'without using sophisticated electronicequipment . And tests with anoscilloscope prove that it was not theresult of any kind of technical fault..I can'teven explain how the signal latched on-to the police radio, which is speciallydesigned to reject unwanted signals. I'mcompletely baffled."

* * *TEN YEARS AGO - October 1979:Richard Breault and his wife were driv-ing near Apple River, Wisconsin about6:30 p.m. on the 25th when they sighteda bright light in the sky. Suddenly, thelight descended on the Breault's car. "Mywife thought we were going to smash in-to it and screamed at me to hit thebrakes," Breault said. The object came atthe car about 80 feet above the groundand then came straight down until ithovered about 20 feet above the road.He described the craft as about 40 feetin length with a hump in the middle. Thevehicle then shot across Half Moon Lakeat 4000 to 5000 miles an hour, accordingto Breault. "I've never seen such speedin all my life." Sitting next to Breault onthe pickup seat was a loaded camera.

A silver, bullet-shaped craft with two in-tensely brilliant beams of light was ob-served hovering over the SacramentoRiver north of Colusa, California, byCarlos Genera and his brother Ruben onthe 26th. "At about 12:15 a.m., it cameout of nowhere and stayed at one pointfor about two or three minutes, and thencame over our heads," Carlos said. "Itemitted a nice steady hum like a big elec-tric generator." Ruben said the vehiclecreated a considerable stir among theanimals along the river and nearby farms."Everything started getting excited all atonce. There was a big commotion rightaway ... roosters crowing, ducks quack-ing and geese honking, even though itwas just after midnight. Also, the bullfrogswere provoked into croaking loudly,evidently in protest at being disturbed."

SUPPORTUFO

RESEARCHMUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

Letter to the Editor...Dear Editor,

Some rather extraordinary claims,to say the least, were presented at the"alternate lectures" held in the samehotel concurrent with the MUFON1989 International UFO Symposium.I attended and listened carefully asone conspiracy theory after anotherwas presented in an atmosphere ofexpectation and high drama.Throughout I was searching for anyevidence; films, documents, namedsources, anything apart from thepresenter's own word, that would lendcredence to the yarns that were reel-ing out before us. That the cupboardis practically bare in this regard is, Ibelieve, an understatement. Theaudio-visual exhibits were particular-ly revealing as to the thought pro-cesses of these conspiracists, and thelevel of personal credibiliity we shouldassign to them (a conspiracist, not aconspirator, I define as one who isforever looking for, and invariablyfinding, dark conspiracies lurking inall facets of human activity).

Among the video tapes presentedas the "hard evidence," we wereshown a heavily edited and enlargedversion of the Abraham Zapruderfilming of the President Kennedymurder, voiced-over with dramaticmonologue explaining why the viewershould see that the President's driverwas the main assasin, something thefilm does not show at all. Evidence of-fered of UFO - U.S. Government col-lusion included video tape of an un-named, shadowy "whistle-blower"who said nothing either unique,checkable, or particularly interesting,but for whom we have John Lear'svouch; and a video tape of JohnLear's face lit by flashlight in an out-door setting, saying that he was ob-serving disk-shaped flying craft. Wedidn't see any disk-shaped craft on thetape, just Mr. Lear telling us he wasseeing them.

Is John Lear credible? Do we ac-cept his observation and recognitionof truly anomalous objects, as distinctfrom exotic, high-performance ex-perimental aircraft? These questionswere answered for me by one othervideo tape Mr. Lear presented in hisMUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

lecture: a segment of several minutestaken from a commercial motion pic-ture, UFOs: It Has Begun. This 1979film, an Allan F. Sandier production,written by Robert Emenegger (authorof UFOs: Past, Present, Future is arespectable documentary featuringwell-known faces and voices of bothHollywood and Ufology presenting aconcise history of the UFO/animal-mutilation mystery. John Lear claimedto his audience that within this moviesegment, depicting a "what if ..."scenario of UFOs landing atHolloman AFB (New Mexico), aseven-second (or so) strip of film ofan actual interplanetary craftsomehow slipped past governmentcensors and wound up in the finalfilm. He even ran the bit twice, so thatthe audience could "ooh" and "aah"and strain in their seats to try and seethe blurry projected image from thetaped motion picture, which made theobject in question look mysteriouslyindistinct.

This claim astounded me. Sevenseconds of 35mm, professionally-shotmotion picture film of a UFO indaylight with mountains in thebackground defining a maximumrange, within the controlled airspaceof a U.S. military base, unknown andun-studied by UFO researchers,would be simply an amazing piece ofUFO evidence ... if it existed. Unfor-tunately it does not.

Some weeks following the sym-posium and its "rump session," I ob-tained Emenegger's UFOs: It HasBegun (as you, yourself, can) andviewed it without the projection-screen video difficulties that frustratedthe Las Vegas audience (as you,yourself, may) and I found Mr. Lear'ssignificant seven-second segment. Ac-tually, it runs more like elevenseconds, and in any clear print of thefilm you can see that the descending"object" has two wings, a tail, a darknose, bright landing lights turned on,and wheels hanging down ready forlanding. I not only saw the objectclearly as an aircraft, but I recognizedits appearance well enough to iden-tify it as an F-4, an older Air Forceplane known by the name "Phan-tom," which you can observe on finalapproach to landing (with their lightson just as in the film) almost any day

at my nearby Bergstrom AFB (Texas).This eleven-second segment is also

clearly a part of the whole sequenceof film "simulating" a UFO "alert" atan airbase; including views around thecontrol tower windows, close-ups ofcommunication panels, telephones,clipboards, typewriters, coffee mugsand whatnot; an obviously not an ex-cerpt from some different (supposedlyfifteen years older, according to Lear)piece of film. Don't take my word forit; rent the film and evaluate ityourself! If the military does have afilm record of UFOs at HollomanAFB, there is no fragment of it inUFOs: It Has Begun.

If extraordinary claims require ex-traordinary evidence in support ofsuch claims, then I submit that thebest evidence of John Lear and com-pany does not inspire confidence, andMUFON was well-counseled to dis-associate itself therefrom.

— Jerold JohnsonAustin, TX

Dear Editor,I have read with a strong interest

Robert Hastings' paper in the June issueof the Journal. It is a serious challengeto which Moore ought to reply.

Although I personally have the feelingthat the MJ-12 affair is a modern hoax,I think it fair to present an argument infavour of Moore's honesty, even if it istotal ly uncorrelated to Hastings'contribution.

When Moore and Berlitz wrote TheRoswell Incident, their scenario involveda two-place incident (Brazel's ranch nearRoswell and the San Agustin Plains).Later investigations by Moore and his col-laborators did not, however, confirm thesecond site, and today Moore says wise-ly that he does not know if it has or hasnot a role in the story. But the two-sitestory is apparently not compatible withthe very brief account of the Roswellcrash in the Hillenkoetter memorandum.My argument is that if this document hadbeen forged by (or with the collaborationof) Moore, he would have arranged it sothat it apparently confirms what he hadpreviously said in the book.

There are several ways to explain thisdiscrepancy. For instance, Moore madea mistake in forging the memorandum.Or the "error" is voluntary and is a red

25

herring. Or Moore is innocent. I amunable to say what hypothesis is true, butthe latter is the simplest.

— Claude MaugeFrance

Dear Editor,What a relief to read Dennis Stacy's

essay in the July issue. After sufferingthrough yet another solipsistic, Ph.D-generated tract that trundled soponderously across the page and pastthese weary eyes of mine, to encounter:clarity, brevity — wit! Delightful.

As the new Scholastics speculateamongst themselves upon how many ab-duction reports they can fit on the headof a theoretical pin, why is it that they re-mind me of a bunch of virgins discussingbirth control? (But we read all theliterature!) No doubt there's nothing likedismissing 40-odd years of hard sought,hard won data at the drop of a survey,but someone please tell me why theresults always have to be delivered in amythoprosaic, psychopompous prosestyle that makes my head hurt trying todecipher it.

It seems to me that a healthy sense ofproportion (let's call it humor, for lack ofa more "noetic" word), is in order here.I mean, isn't it possible that maybe, justmaybe, (oh, apostasy!) those people —or beings or whatever we insist on label-ing them — might themselves have one?Hell, if they are monitoring our TV broad-casts they'd better have, otherwise we'rereally in some deep trouble.

In any case, I look forward with grimanticipation to the next installment of thenew, improved explanation of the mean-ing of meanings of ... what-have-you,whilst the rapidly depleting stockyard ofthe English language is mutilated aboutin. Mr. Stacy, may you once again saveus from such deep shallowness, andsoon.

— Mark PackoStratford, CT

Talk about pressure!— Editor

The Night SkyBy Walter N. Webb

MUFON26

OCTOBER 1989

Bright Planets (Evening Sky):

Venus (magnitude -4.3) is gradually improving its position and brightness in theSW evening twilight. It now sets about 2 hours after sunset in mid-October. Ourbrilliant neighbor may be seen above the crescent Moon on the 3rd and only1.8° above the red star Antares on the 16th.

Jupiter (magnitude -2.4), in Gemini, now rises in the ENE shortly after 10 p.m.daylight time in mid-month. It begins retrograde motion on the 28th. The long-awaited Galileo launch' to Jupiter is expected this month. After traveling throughspace for over 6 years, the probe finally reaches its destination in December 1995.There a capsule enters the giant planet's dense clouds and transmits data foran hour; the main craft orbits and observes the gas world and its moons forthe next 22 months.

Saturn (magnitude 0.5), in Sagittarius, remains low in the southern sky at dusk,setting in the WSW about the time Jupiter rises.

Bright Planets (Morning Sky):

A rare opportunity to spot Mercury, nearest planet to the Sun, is affordedduring the first three weeks of October. The little planet is at greatest westernelongation, 18° west of the Sun, on October 10. With the aid of binoculars,look for a faint orange dot with the naked eye during midtwilight about 8° abovethe east horizon (at 40° north latitude). This is Mercury's best morning ap-pearance of the year.

Jupiter stands high in the south at dawn.

Meteor Showers:

The last-quarter Moon will hamper viewing of this year's Orionid meteorsduring its morning peak on the 21st. And a dark sky is especially required forthis shower of mostly faint swift meteors. However, some Orionids are bright,train-leaving fireballs. Late in the month the much slower, redder South Tauridsbegin to increase; many of these are spectacular fireballs.

Moon Phases:

First quarter — October 7

Full moon — October 14 (Hunter's Moon;nearest Moon of the year)

Last quarter — October 21

New moon — October 29 ^J

The Stars:

During midevening hours the nose of Pegasus, the upside-down Flying Horse,touches the celestial meridian. The horse's body, the Great Square, can be seenhigh in the SE. And attached to the NE corner of the square is the constellationAndromeda the Princess, composed of a double row of stars curving outwardfrom the star Alpheratz in the square.

The Big Dipper skims along the horizon at this season; late autumn is the popularasterism's poorest evening viewing position of the year.

UFO investigators must be aware of several stellar IFO candidates near the horizonin the midevening October sky. The refracting or bending of light through tur-bulent layers of air and haze near the horizon may cause celestial objects to ap-pear to move and change color, brightness and shape. The horizon objects tolook out for this month are Capella (NE), Aldebaran (ENE), Fomalhaut (SSE),Saturn (SW) and Arcturus (WNW).

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

Fifth London InternationalUFO Congress

The Fifth London International UFOCongress was held July 14, 15 and 16,1989 at the London Business School,Sussex Place, Regents Park, LondonNWI, England, sponsored by ICUR,BUFORA and MUFON. Robert S. Digby,Congress Director, welcomed the par-ticipants to this prestigious congress. Theopening address was delivered by SirPatrick Wall, MC, VRD, RM (Ret.), Presi-dent of the British UFO ResearchAssociation (BUFORA).

The speakers on Friday and their sub-jects were Hilary Evans (England), "Ballsof Light"; Claude Mauge (France), "AnAttempt to Define the UFO"; Philip Man-tle (England), "Barnsley PhotographicHoax"; An Abduction Debate by sixspeakers; and an after dinner slide-illustrated humorous talk by Lionel Beer(England) titled "UFOs Portrayed in Car-toons."

The Saturday speaking program in-cluded Ken Phill ips (Eng land) ,"Anamnesis Research/Report on U.K.Cases"; Bertil Kuhlemann (Sweden),"Taking a Stand on the UFO Subject";Paul Fuller (England), "Corn Circles";Cynthia Hind (Zimbabwe), "Close En-

counter Effects on People in Africa," andWalt Andrus (U.S.A.), "Gulf BreezePhotographic Case."

Sunday's program was composed ofMilosKrmelj (Yugoslavia), "UFO Updatein Yugoslavia"; Maurizio Verga and GianPaolo Grassino (Italy), "Italian UFOResearch in the 80's"; John L. Spencer(England), "Witness-Driven Investiga-tions"; Walt Andrus (U.S.A.), "Rebuttalto Claims Made by Willy Smith on theGulf Breeze Case"; and Jenny Randies(England), "Abduction Feedback andReport from the Abduction Panel."

Led by Jenny Randies, the ICUR Ab-duction Committee met independentlyseveral times during the Congress to for-mulate a systematic series of questionsand identifiable characteristics related topotential abductees so as to provideguidelines to investigators whenregressive hypnosis should be recom-mended. This'was one of the most signifi-cant accomplishments of the Congress.These guidelines will be published in asubsequent issue of the Journal.

— Walt Andrus

MOMENT, Continued

I do not hide the fact that I am anagnostic about the very existence ofUFOs (magnetic moments of 1012 havenot helped in this regard). Nevertheless,I firmly believe that the root of theburgeoning mythology that surroundsthem will never be found without hardphysical evidence. In an age whenlegitimate ufology has almost stoppedstudying UFOs themselves, it is reassur-ing that someone still is. Mr. Ackermanis doing that, and I commend him for it.

REFERENCES

1. Joe Kirk Thomas, "An Alternative tothe Microwave Theory of the Hot RingSyndrome," MUFON UFO Journal No.194 (Seguin, Texas: The Mutual UFONetwork, April 1984) pp. 9-11.

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989

2. Joe Kirk Thomas, "The Vehicle In-terference Effect," MUFON UFO JournalNo. 233 (Seguin, Texas: The Mutual UFONetwork, September 1987) pp. 3-11.

3. Joe Kirk Thomas, "Ruppelt Rings: TheEffects of Low Frequency MagneticFields," MUFON UFO Journal No. 197(Seguin, Texas: The Mutual UFO Net-work, September 1984) pp. 5-10.

4. Donald A. Johnson, "The Effects ofPosition and Distance in UFO Ignition-Interference Cases," The Journal of UFOStudies, Vol. Ill (Evanston, Illinois: TheCenter for UFO Studies, 1982) p. 5.

5. Robert G. Fleagle and Joost A. Bus-inger, An Introduction of AtmosphericPhysics, (New York: Academic Press,1963), p. 307.

MESSAGE, Continued

Other News

On September 20th, the NBC-TV pro-gram Unsolved Mysteries featured theRoswell Crash in a 25-minute segment,opening their Fall season. Stanton T.Friedman and Kevin Randle were thescientific advisors for the documentaryfilmed in Roswell, New Mexico. We regretthat we were unable to publicize the seg-ment's airing date in the last issue of theJournal, as it was being filmed as we werecomposing the September issue inAugust. Leslie Varnicle and DavidDobbs broadcast the airing date on theMUFON Amateur Radio Net on Satur-day, September 16th to the hams check-ing in on the weekly net on 7237 KHZ.

Announcments of UFO Conferencesmust be received in Seguin at least twomonths before the date of the event toallow time for the logistics of editing andpublishing the Journal, plus the postaldelivery time. The same lead time is re-quired for TV programs, which is very dif-ficult under the circumstances. Pleasehelp me with timely items, since theMUFON UFO Journal is the only month-ly UFO magazine that can effectivelypublish current events.

VIDEO and AUDIOTAPES OF

1989 SYMPOSIUMOrders for tapes taken at the Las

Vegas Symposium and those mailedto Hal Starr in Phoenix, Arizona havebeen delayed due to unforeseen pro-duction problems and editing of the 12hour video and audio tapes. Please bepatient as we solve these problems.

For further information on orderingtapes, please refer to the order formon page 27 of the August issue of theMUFON UFO Journal. Please refrainfrom cutting out the order form sinceit destroys your Journal, but make acopy of the page if your order is diver-sified. All orders are to be mailed toHal Starr, 312 West Frier Drive,Phoenix, AZ 85021. (Telephone:602 / 944-4211.)

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Director's MessageBy Walt Andrus

Conference Calendar

The monthly listing or calendar of UFOConferences is published in the Journalas a service to our readers and advanceinformation to others planning futureUFO conferences, so as to avoid conflic-ting dates that could be embarrassing.The listing of a UFO conference does notin any way constitute an endorsement ofthe event by the Mutual UFO Network.An article detailing a conference will bepublished in the ;: -jrnal as a recommen-dation and one tnat MUFON supports.Private UFO meetings, that is, by invita-tion only, will not appear in the calendar.Examples noted are the MUFON-CESConference to be held in Stuttgart, WestGermany on October 20-22, 1989,hosted by Illobrand von Ludwiger andTREAT II (Second Conference of Treat-ment and Research on ExperiencedAnomalous Trauma) in Blacksburg,Virginia, planned by Rima E. Laibow,M.D.

Three upcoming UFO Conferenceswere featured in the September 1989issue of the Journal: (1) The CentralCalifornia UFO Conference in Modesto,California on October 7 and 8; (2) TheShow-me UFO Conference in EarthCity Missouri (near St. Louis) on October21; and (3) the UFO Experience onNovember 11 and 12 in North Haven,Connecticut.

The October issue introduces the 1990calendar. The theme for the MUFON1990 International UFO Symposium inPensacola, Florida is "UFOs: The Impactof E.T. Contact Upon Society." Speakersalready scheduled are John L. Spencerof Harpenden, England, EdwardWalters, residing in Gulf Breeze, Floridaand the Reverend Barry H. Downing,Ph.D., author of the book The Bible andFlying Saucers. Dr. Downing's popularbook was updated and rereleased inpaperback by Berkley in January 1989.Additional speakers will be announced infuture issues of the Journal as they areconfirmed.

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And speaking of new books, The GulfBreeze Sightings — The Most Astoun-ding Multiple Sightings of UFOs in U.S.History by Edward and FrancesWalters, with foreword by BuddHopkins and photo analysis by Dr.Bruce S. Maccabee, will be released inhardback by William Morrow Co. early in1990. The spectacular photographs willbe published in full color.

During the month of September, Jen-ny Randies toured the U.S.A. promotingher new book Alien Abductions - TheMystery Solved, published by Inner LightPublications, Box 753, New Brunswick,NJ 08903. Ms. Randies has compiled anamazing dossier of over 200 documentedUFO abductions. You may obtain a copyby mailing $13 plus $1 for postage andhandling to the above address.

New Officers

Due to his employment as a NationalPark Ranger in the western states that ex-tends from Spring to Fall, Richard D.Seifried has resigned as Co-State Direc-tor for Ohio. Fred W. Hays, Co-StateDirector living in Kettering, OH, has beenappointed State Director for Ohio. Ourbest wishes are extended to both Dickand Fred in their new endeavors. DanielR. Berker, M.S. of Carson City, NV,formerly a State Section Director, hasbeen promoted to State Director ofNevada, replacing John Lear who re-signed. Thomas E. Russ, a professionaljournalist for 16 years, residing inNewport News, VA, has volunteered toserve as State Section Director for York,James City, Isle of Wight, Surry Coun-ties and the adjacent major cities.

Thomas P. Deuley, State Director ofTexas has approved the following revi-sions in county assignments for the StateSection Directors: Ellen R. Partridge, alegal secretary in Austin, was selected tobe the new State Section Director forTravis and Williamson Counties; FloydN. Petri, Jr., residing in Red Rock, hasbeen reassigned the responsibilities for

Bastrop, Caldwell and Fayette Counties;and Anthony A. Neugebauer, a retiredminister living in Cibolo, now supervisesGuadalupe and Wilson Counties inTexas.

George D. Fawcett, State Director forNorth Carolina, has made some newassignments and appointments of StateSection Directors. George E. Lund III,and Angclo Pete Politis, both residentsof Charlotte, NC, have been appointedCo-State Section Directors for Mecklen-burg and Cabarrus Counties. P. WayneLaporte, residing in Indian Trail and aState Section Director since 1976, is nowin charge of Gaston, Union and LincolnCounties.

Gary Levine, Ph.D., State Director forNew York, has appointed William E.Knell of Flushing, NY to be his AssistantState Director. Bill Knell is the editor ofa newsletter titled The. New York UFOReport. It is conceivable that the NewYork MUFON State Newsletter could beincorporated into Mr. Knell's publication,now in it's fourth monthly edition. John"Vic" Brown, former State Director forNew Mexico, has volunteered to serve inthe unique position of Scientific Advisorto the New Mexico - MUFON organiza-tion, headed by Teresa Brito-Asenap,State Director. John Komar, TennesseeState Director, appointed David G.Tackett of Memphis as State SectionDirector for Shelby, Fayette and TiptonCounties in Western Tennessee.

H. Harper Kerr, M.D., a retiredsurgeon in Shalimar, FL, has volunteeredhis expertise as a consultant in Thoracicand Cardiovascular surgery. NewResearch Specialists appointed this pastmonth are James "Gus" Shelton, M.S.(Sacramento, CA) for counseling; Mon-ty E. Cantsin, M.S. (North Merrick, NY)in Psychology, who is also apsychotherapist , and Joseph G.DiGregorio, M.A. (Oswego, NY) inPhilosophy.

Continued on page 27

MUFON UFO Journal 258, October 1989