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strange that, when he finally did comehome, he was literally
pulled into thehouse by his daughter, even though wehad been
promised an opportunity tospeak with him upon his return. He
wasobviously not being allowed to talk tous. 2. I never in any way
tried to misrepresent myself as a professor from anyuniversity. It
is true that everyone on ourcommittee, except for me, is on the
faculty of the University of Pittsburgh.
3. I told Mrs. Janet Smurl that I wasnot Dr. Busch and had no
universityidentification. She clearly understood thisand refused my
offer to leave. In fact,she asked me to stay! I t is
thereforeincomprehensible that she later createdthis confusion over
our credentials.
4. Mr. Edward Warren, the demon-ologist in charge, admitted to
me that heknew "exactly" who I was, but tried topass me of f as a
curiosity seeker. Evenafter we told him we were there at thebehest
of CSICOP, he simply advised usto read the newspaper accounts.5.
Warren said that "at the propertime" he would release videotapes
thatactually showed demons. Now that the
danger is gone and the house on ChaseStreet is safe from
supernatural terror,where are the tapes?Similarly, I was recently
invited to beon KDKA-TV's "Pittsburgh 2-day" show.I have been a
guest on this programbefore, and they wanted me to ask HansHolzer,
the famous ghost-hunter, somequality questions from the audience.
Iagreed, with the understanding thatHolzer not be told of my
presence inadvance, because I thought his reactionwould be exactly
what it was. Someoneon the show's staff accidentally mentionedmy
name to Holzer just minutes beforeairtime. Holzer exploded and
threatenedto leave unless I was expelled from thebuilding. The
staff capitulated, although,actually, I watched the show from
thecontrol room and was promised an ap-pearance on the show in the
near future.
Perhaps it isn't the well-known "shyness effect" that inhibits
ghosts from ap-pearing to skeptics, bu t a far more mun-dane
characteristic of some researchersthat prevents science from
learning the
Summer 1987
secrets of these apparitions from theworld beyond.Richard Busch,
ChairmanParanormal InvestigatingCommittee of PittsburghPittsburgh,
Pa.
The writer is a magician and mentalist aswell as chairman of
PICP.-ED.
The Suffolk 'UFO' lightsWhile I have to endorse Ian
Ridpath'sconclusion that no UFO landed in Suffolk and agree that
there was no physicalevidence for such a landing, I must disagree
with his identification of some ofthe lights responsible for the
reports (seeSf, Fall I 986). I must also correct RobertSheaffer's
deficient and misleading account in his column in the Spring
1986issue.
Almost certainly the incident wasstimulated by the sight of the
fireball thatfell at 0250 GMT on December 26, 1980,but Thurkettle's
lighthouse hypothesis isnot convincing. Since when, for
instance,was a lighthouse beam triangular, andwhen did it ever show
red and blue lights?Orford Ness shows a white light. Thenwhy does
Ridpath assume that the "redlight" reported by Halt in his
paragraph3 was the same light as that reported inparagraph I?
Ridpath concluded that the tape-recording gave him no reason to
modifyhis conclusions, but in fact it containssome data that should
have caused himto do so. Halt recorded the azimuth ofthe "red
light" as II 0 to 120 magnetic(i.e., 105 to 115 true). Since the
OrfordNess lighthouse lies on a bearing of 95true, this light could
not be the lighthouse. Nor was the light always "red"; attimes it
seemed to be yellow (o r whitetinged with yellow). A "small' light
thatappeared to be "a quarter to a half mile"away is not consistent
with the 5-millioncandela beam of a lighthouse only 8.6km away.
What Halt saw was the half-millioncandela beam of the Shipwash
LightVessel 18.2 km away on a bearing of
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II 0 true. Its light has a characteristicpattern that is more
consistent with whatHalt reported than that of Orford Ness.
But in the tape, somewhere between0148 and 0244, Halt reported
seeing twoseparate lights side by side. How doesRidpath explain
that? My explanation isthat the second light was the bright
starSpica; at 0155 it lay only 1.75 (inc.refraction) above the
horizon exactly inline with Shipwash. A few minutes earlierit was
lower and to the left. Since it roseat 0140, the star was not seen
earlier thanthat, and by 0155 it was invisible againbehind
Shipwash's light.
I f Orford Ness was not responsiblefor the lights seen on
December 29, wasit yet the light seen in the forest onDecember 26?
Surely not! Here we haveno direction, but we do have a description.
This description, especially the redand blue lights, is consistent
with theappearance of a star, where the colorsare due to spectral
spread (caused byatmospheric refraction). Normally the redshould be
below the blue, and Halt mayhave the colors reversed. The
triangularshape could have been due to a mirage,which, apart from
enlarging the image,may also have inverted it, thus placingthe red
above the blue. At 0300 Spicalay 9 above the horizon in the ESE,
buttwo other first-magnitude stars were alsolow on the horizon.
Vega and Deneb bothlay at an altitude of 8, the former in theNNE
and the latter to the north. SinceVega is by far the brightest of
the three,it must be the prime suspect.
The relevant part of the tape transcript can be found in my
article "Throwing Light on Rendlesham" in MaKonia,2 1 - ( D e ~ e m
b e r 1985), pp. 15-18. -
Steuart CampbellEdinburgh ScotlandIan Ridpath
replies:Understandably, my identification of heOrford Ness
lighthouse as the flashinglight seen by Col. Halt and his men
fromRendlesham Forest has been questioned.Fortunately, Col. Halts
tape of the eventcontains information that allows us toidentify the
flashing light unambiguously.
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On the tape, we hear an airman call outthe flashes: "There it is
again . . . [pause]. . . there it is. " The interval between
thesetlVO calls is five seconds. The f7ash rateof the Orford Ness
lighthouse is also fiveseconds. My field notes describe the lightas
orange, although the perceived colorwould vary with atmospheric
conditions.My explanation for the second lightspotted later in the
night is that it wasthe Shipwash lighthouse. This is visiblefaintly
from the edge of the forest, but itis not visible from inside the
forest wherethe first and brightest flashing light wasseen. From my
own observations, theonly flashing light visible from the
allegedlanding site is the Orford Ness lighthouse.Col. Halts quoted
compass bearing isnot a precise reading. It is an estimatemade on
the move, at night, while weav-ing between the trees of
RendleshamForest, and so has a wide degree of error.
Fresh air on fringe dentistryI recently received my first, very
welcomecopy of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (Fall1986). As chance (or the
Fates) wouldhave it, I opened to the well-written article by John
Dodes concerning dentistry.Hallelujah, brother! I would like to
postthis erudite exposition of the many philosophical shortcomings
of our dental education in a prominent place in my reception room
for the enlightenment of mypatients.I, too, have been warning my
patientsfor years about the "busyness" problemin dentistry and of
the charlatans whowait fo r them out there if they shouldhave to
relocate. As armament againstabuse I provide them with a list of
members of the .A.cademy of General Dentistryfor their region.
These dentists are required to attend 75 hours of
continuingeducation every three years or be droppedfrom the
Academy. The discipline of theAGD, unlike other societies that
onlyrequire dues money, helps to ensure thata patient will come
into the loving handsof one who has actively engaged himselfin
meaningful educational courses (andmight even have passed a more
comprehensive Fellowship written examination)
THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. I I
