MUFON UFO JOURNALNUMBER 249 JANUARY 1989

Founded 1967.OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF JtM/JFOJV/ MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC..

$2.50

Left to right: CWO Guy M. Spooner, Lt. Bob Jacobs (author), Mr. Paulson from AFETR, and Major FlorenzJ. Mansmann.

UFO FILMED AT BIG SUR

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 Editor

THOMAS P. DEULEYArt Director

MILDRED BIESELEContributing Editor

ANN DRUFFELContributing Editor

ROBERT H. BLETCHMANPublic Relations

PAUL CERNYPromotion/Publicity

MARGE CHRISTENSENPublic Education

REV. BARRY DOWNINGReligion and UFOs

LUCIUS PARISHBooks/Periodicals/History

T. SCOTT GRAINGREG LONG

MICHAEL D. SWORDSStaff Writers

TED PHILLIPSLanding Trace Cases

JOHN F. SCHUESSLERMedical Cases

LEONARD STRINGFIELDUFO Crash/Retrieval

WALTER N. WEBBAstronomy

NORMA E. SHORTDWIGHT CONNELLY

DENNIS HAUCKRICHARD H. HALLROBERT V.PRATT

Editor/Publishers Emeritus(Formerly SKYLOOK)

The MUFON UFO JOURNAL ispublished by the Mutua l UFONetwork , Inc., Seguin, Texas.Membership/Subscription 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 EDITORWe were not searching for a particular theme with which to

inaugurate the Journal's 21st year of publication. But as it turnedout one supplied itself, what with articles on the Big Sur photo-graphy case, MJ-12 and Leonard Stringfield's continuing collec-tion of crash-retrieval stories. That theme, of course, to paraph-rase past pundits in a different context, can be expressed as"What did the President know, and when did he know it?" Howinvolved is the government with alleged UFO data? And who

orchestrates the coverup, if there is one, anyway? Naturally, wedon't guarantee any firm answers to those questions; but we dofeel we supply the material that may eventually aid in making upyour mind about the matter. What we do guarantee is a contin-ually improving UFO journal.

In the meantime, we wish everyone the best for the NewYear.

In this issueDELIBERATE DECEPTION: BIG SUR UFO FILM Robert Jacobs 3MJ-12: AN OPEN LETTER Wffliam L Moore 8CRASH/RETRIEVALS: STATUS REPORT V Leonard Stringfield 10AN "ORDINARY" UFO Raymond Fowler 14OHIO FLAP Richard P. DeffAqufla 15HEALTH EFFECTS: A RESPONSE Dr. Michael A. Persinger 17BELIEF SYSTEM SURVEY Dr. Donald A. Johnson 18IN OTHERS'WORDS Lucius Parish 21LOOKING BACK BobGribble 21THE JANUARY NIGHT SKY WaherWebb 22DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE Walter Andrus 24

The Mutual UFO Network, Inc. is exempt from Federal Income Taxunder Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. MUFON is a pub-licly supported organization of the type described in Section 509(a)(2).Donors may deduct contributions from their Federal Income Tax. In addi-tion, bequests, legacies, devises, transfers, or gifts are deductible for Fed-eral estate and gift tax purposes if they meet the applicable provisions ofSections 2055,2106, and 2522 of the code.

The contents of the MUFON UFO JOURNAL are determined by the editor, anddo not necessarily represent the official position of MUFON. Opinions of con-tributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editor, thestaff, or MUFON. Articles may be forwarded directly to MUFON. Responses topublished articles may be in a Letter to the Editor (up to about 400 words) or ina short article (up to about 2,000 words). Thereafter, the "50% rule" is applied:the article author may reply but will be allowed half the wordage used in theresponse; the responder may answer the author but will be allowed half the wor-dage used in the author's reply, etc. All submissions are subject to editing forstyle, clarity, and conciseness. Permission is hereby granted to quote from thisissue provided not more than 200 words are quoted from any one article, theauthor of the article is given credit, and the statement "Copyright 1989 by theMutual UFO Network, 103 Oldtowne Rd., Seguin, Texas 78155" is included.

Deliberate Deception:The Big Sur UFO Filming

A Critical Analysis of the Curious Events atVandenberg Air Force Base in September, 1964

By Bob Jacobs, Ph.D.

This is an article about the filmingand subsequent U.S. Governmentcoverup of a UFO which interferedwith a dummy Atomic warhead oneAutumn day in 1964 high over thePacific Ocean off Vandenberg AirForce Base in California. It is a first-hand account of an event. Beforedealing with it and the subsequentrevelations which have come from avariety of sources since 1964, con-sider this brief discussion about UFOsand The Press.

It is a sad and curious fact thatmuch of the literature surroundingthe UFO phenomena appears in thehighly sensationalized "tabloids." Oncerelegated solely to pulp newsprint,this form of idiot-journalism has nowmoved into television with personali-ties like Geraldo Rivera, MortonDowney, Jr. and a growing numberof other slime merchants. Owing tothe prejudice toward this kind ofjournalism shared by intellectuals,academicians and the celebrities whofrequently decry being victimized bythe tabloids, such exposure has tendedto desensitize the American Public tothe 'potential seriousness of the UFOissue. Since tabloids seem to be writ-ten stylistically by and for the lunaticfringe, then UFOs are seen broadlyas the purview of lunatics exclusively.

If one wanted deliberately to deni-grate an issue, to relegate it to thetrash heap of pop culture, one couldnot do so more completely than toinsure that the issue falls into thehands of The Star or The NationalEnquirer or Geraldo Rivera! Perhapsa case could be made for the UFOevidence having been delivered overto garbage journalism by design as amethod of discrediting it.MUTUAL UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

We know, for example, that at thebeginning of his involvement with thesubject, the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek,later Chairman of the Department ofAstronomy at Northwestern Univer-sity, was employed by the UnitedStates Air Force with Project BlueBook to "debunk" all "flying saucer"sightings. His famous "Swamp Gas"conclusion has lived in the popularmythos long after the good Doctor'sformal recantation of it. And, in spiteof some of the general popularizing ofthe subject in films like Close Encount-ers of the Third Kind and E.T.,Johnny Carson, David Letterman andother television talk show heroes, stillget comic mileage out of poking funat UFO investigators, "swamp gas"and the frequent loonies who claim tobe incarnate space ships or to owncondos on Venus.If the tabloids werenot paid off to run as many mislead-ing, bizarre stories on UFOs andUFO Fringies as possible, alwaysmaking these tales appear to be fromor about some dimwit in the hinter-lands, then they may as well havebeen.

Deliberate deception, Machiavellianconspiracy, coincidence or just theluck of the draw ... whatever the rea-son, the resultant tabloid "sleaze fac-tor" is a handicap for any scholarwishing to engage in research intowhat is, in fact, a fascinating and deli-ciously intricate field worthy of seriousstudy.

I am a scholar, a card-carryingPh.D., and a university professor in adepartment of Journalism and Broad-casting. Some years ago I was anofficer in the United States Air Force,the first officer in the photographycareer f i e l d , by the way, to be

awarded the Air Force Guided Mis-sile Insignia; the "Missile Badge."

Those are facts. Another fact isthat I have been a participant in anofficial United States Government-ordered UFO coverup. I've been rid-iculed by some of my colleagues inacademia because in 1982 I wrote anarticle about this coverup and itappeared in The National Enquirer. Itwas not my intention to become atabloid writer then or now. TheEnquirer turned out to be the onlypublication I could find which wasinterested in printing the article at all.Both academic and mainstream jour-nals and periodicals turned it downcold over the period of nearly a yearduring which I submitted and resub-mitted it. I was told by editor aftereditor that UFO stories weren't "pubish-able." I thought the story was impor-tant then. That's why I let a tabloidpublish it. I still think it's important.That's why I responded to the invita-tion to write it for this journal.

So much for preamble about thepress.

Big Sur Background

Six years then, after it first broke,here is my report on what we photo-graphed at Big Sur along with someof what has happened since 1982 inplain, unheroic, non-sensational, unex-purgated and non-tabloidized English.

I earned the "Missile Badge" formaking a "significant contribution toAmerica's Missile and Space Pro-gram," so the citation read, while Iwas Officer-in-Charge of Photo-opticalInstrumentation in the 1369th Photo-graphic Squadron at Vandenberg AirForce Base, California from May,

3

1963 to May, 1966. My work in estab-lishing a long range tracking site atBig Sur, California in large part iswhat convinced the Air Force to giveme that cherished award. The cir-cumstances that took me to the"Missile Badge" ceremony as well asto that lovely and mysterious bulge ofCalifornia coastline known as the BigSur ended up changing my mindabout a number of things, includingthe nature of our government, thenature of my personal belief systemsand the nature of the universe.

It began with a man named King-ston A. George. "King" George hadthe title of Operations Analyst forHeadquarters, 1st Strategic AerospaceDivision. The engineers, civilian andmilitary, whose job it was to evaluatethe instrumentation photography whichwe provided on every missile launchdown the Western Test Range, wereunhappy, he said. Shooting trackingfootage from Vandenberg only pro-vided a look up the "tailpipe" of themissile. What George said they wantedwas a side look at all stages ofpowered flight. This side-look was notpossible from anyplace on the base.Because of the tortured Californiacoastline, such a view was possiblefrom one spot. Big Sur.

Topographically, Big Sur is bothnorth and west of Vandenberg. Wereasoned that we might get the shotthe engineers wanted if we could gethigh enough to provide both a line-of-sight to the base and to put us wellabove the offshore fog bank whichblankets the California shoreline muchof the year. Because of the 124 miledistance from Vandenberg to Big Sur,the final things needed were a lenswith a very long focal length, arecording device capable of enhanc-ing the image and a tracking systemon which to mount them.

According to George, such a devicewas built and ready to go. It was theBoston University telescope, ownedby the Air Force Eastern Test Range(AFETR) at Patrick Air Force Base,Florida and under the direction ofMr. Walter Manning in the AerospaceSciences Division at AFETR. Theoptical segment of the device was afolded Gregorian telescope with a 24-inch diameter objective mirror and a4

240-inch focal length. The lens appa-ratus was sealed from the air andinsulated against heat and cold. A setof Barlow extenders could yield effec-tive focal lengths of from 480 to 2,400inches. (The normal focal length lensfor a 35mm camera is about twoinches!)

The light sensing element of the instru-ment was an image orthicon (televi-sion) tube. The I.O. could enhancethe optical image, convert it to a ser-ies of electrical signals and display iton a Kinescope where it was photo-graphed with 35mm motion picturefilm. Because the I.O. had remarkablylow noise, the gain could be "cranked"quite high to record very low lightlevel objects. Such a device couldrecord sources of light emission orreflection which were tens of timestoo weak for detection by other pho-tographic methods.

The B.U., as it was called, wasideal for the purpose. One of theprimary goals of our mission, accord-ing to George, was to provide infor-mation on the "minute events follow-ing propellant depletion — at distancesof from 300 to 800 nautical miles."(italics mine)

If we could find a level place,accessible to the B.U. (not easy, con-sidering that the scope with itstracker was just a little smaller than aconventional moving van and had tobe hauled by a heavy duty, cross-country type diesel truck) and seethe missile through the haze wellenough to lock in on it with the track-ing mount, we still had one problemleft. Engineering sequential photographyis of little use to the viewer withoutthe addition of timing marks on thefilm. This time code received fromWheeling, West Virginia tagged eachindividual frame of film with a refer-ence point in real time to the momentof engine ignition and launch. Thecoded pips of light were recorded inthe sound track area of the film by anexciter lamp driven by the signalsfrom WWV. On the base, timing sig-nals were sent to the cameras byhardlines from the blockhouse. Run-ning a line to Big Sur with the neces-sary amplifiers would have been toocostly, particularly for what was onlya feasibility test. We had to try some-

thing else. The solution was reallyvery simple.

On June 10, 1964 I lead a group ofpeople to the aerie I had discoveredearlier near Anderson Peak at an ele-vation of 3,400 feet on a Forest Ser-vice fire trail, 9 miles into the woodsand uphill from Highway 1 in Big Sur.With me on that sunny summer daywere my NCOIC, Chief Master Ser-geant Ike N. Davis, Jr., NCOIC ofmy Tracking Section, Staff SergeantJules Devine, Kingston A. George,with a/ Technical Sergeant Porterfrom 1st STRATAD and a Mr. Paul-son from Patrick Air Force Base atCape Kennedy. All of us agreed thatthe truck could certainly pull the B.U.up to this site with no trouble. Couldwe now get timing pips to it?

We had with us that day a portableradio transceiver which we used atVandenberg to communicate frommy office to the mobile vehicles andour tracking sites on base. At Van-denberg I had Airman First ClassJoseph Williams standing by. He hadwired the output of one of the timingsignals to an identical transceiver to theto the one I had. At my command heactivated the radio and transmittedflawless timing signals to us at BigSur, just as we had in a test weeksearlier. All that was necessary withthe B.U. would be to patch-in ourreceiver to its timing signal input onthe 35mm motion picture camera.Timing was no problem. There washappiness on the site and my "MissileBadge" was assured that day.

On August 28, 1964, I lead a con-voy up the Pacific Coast Highwaythrough Pismo Beach, past HearstCastle at San Simeon and into whatwould be history. Technical SergeantThomas Dodd was my NCOIC forthe remote site. He would operateour standard M-45 tracking mountwith conventional 35mm Mitchell filmcameras to compare with the resultsof the B.U. Telescope. AIC JosephWilliams was along to handle com-munications and timing. AIC DarylWinters was also along. As a sadsideline. Winters would become thefirst and only Air Force photo man tobe killed in action in Vietnam a l i t t leover two years later. Our Air Forcetroop camped at the preselected fire-

MUTUAL UFO Journal. Number iM<». Jjnujrv 1"S9

Crew posed in front of the B.U. Telescope at the Big Sur, California site. Front Row, 1 to r: A1CJoseph Williams, T.Sgt. Thomas Dodd, Lt. Bob Jacobs (author). Second Row: A1C Daryl Winters, Mr.Paulson, Unidentified B.U. Operator, Major Florenz J. Mansmann, and CWO-4 Guy M. Spooner. ThirdRow: Unidentified B.U. operator, Kintston A. George and Top, Unidentified B.U. operator.

trail turnout near the summit of And-erson Peak, set up our M-45 andwaited.

On August 31, 1964 the B.U. Tele-scope arrived on site with its truckand its caravan of people for a 30-daytest period. Walt Manning was with italong with a crew of three operatorsand one supervisor. We were alsojoined by two people from Vanden-berg: Chief Warrant Officer Guy M.Spooner from the Operations Sectionof the 1369th and Major Florenz J.Mansmann from 1st STRATAD. Witha celebratory air, the B.U. was set inplace and made ready to perform.Mansmann and Spooner went backto Vandenberg. The rest of us settledin to prepare for the first of whatwould be a total of 11 launches fromthe base during the 30 day test. Nineof these would be photographedthrough a major portion of poweredMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

flight by both the B.U. Telescopeoperating with effective focal lengthsranging from 1200 inches to an aver-age of 720 inches, and with the con-ventional cameras and shorter lensesof the 1369th's M-45 mount.

The Incident

One of these launches would inspirean official government coverup andprovoke an investigation and searchfor the filmed record which goes onto this day. Here is what happened.

To the best of my recollection andbased on sketchy records, the date ofthe event was most probably eitherSeptember 2nd, 3rd, or 15th, 1964.The launch was of an Atlas missile. Itwas an Atlas-F as I recall strongly,but it may possibly have been anAtlas-D. The flight was in support ofthe Nike-Zeus objectives. Nike-Zeus

was one of the United States' pro-jects to develop an anti-missile mis-sile. This particular mission was part ofa test of an enemy radar-defeatingsystem. The whole program in hind-sight seems very primitive, possiblyfutile and even a bit silly. Nearly aquarter of a century ago in 1964 itwas deadly serious business.

At the Big Sur tracking site wewere ready to go as the countdownfrom Vandenberg progressed loudand clear on our radio. At the call of"ignition ... liftoff" all cameras rolledand scanned to the southeast forsomething to photograph. "There itis!", 1 shouted out as the Atlas leapedthrough the snow-white coastal fogblanket and both tracking mountshomed-in on the majestic "bird" inflight. The big Atlas could not havebeen more clean, clear and majestic.We were "Go" for the operation.

The magnification of the B.U. wastruly impressive. The exhaust nozzlesand lower third of the Atlas missileliterally filled the frame at this dis-tance of over 100 nautical miles. Withone tracking mount operator on azi-muth and one on elevation workingcompletely manually, it was not easyto keep the image centered in theearly stages of flight. As the noseconepackage approached T + 400 seconds,sufficient angle of view had beenestablished that we were literallylocked down with the whole inflightpackage centered in the frame. Noone on the site was watching thescreen by this point. Our mission toprovide the engineers with a side lookat three stages of powered flight hadbeen accomplished and we were avery happy bunch, congratulating eachother and letting the film run out inthe 35mm motion picture camerafocused on the Kinescope.

I took the cans of exposed film andheaded down the coast to Vanden-berg and our laboratory. Processingof the film would occur that night andthe results would be ready for view-ing the next day.

Men in Grey

I was back at my desk enjoying thefeeling of accomplishment from theBig Sur expedition when I was calledby Major Mansmann, who asked meto come right away to his office atthe Headquarters building. When Iarrived, I found a movie projector setup in the office and a group of peoplewaiting. Among these I recall twomen in plain grey suits who spoke lit-tle and watched me intently as thelights were dimmed and the filmplayed on a bright screen. (Mans-mann has since stated that therewere actually three men present.)

It was a surprise and a delight forme to be seeing the kinescope record-ing from Big Sur after all the monthsof planning and weeks of work. I wasquite amazed and very pleased withthe quality, especially at the distanceinvolved as we could make out quiteplainly the separated nosecone, theradar experiment and the dummywarhead all sailing along beautifullyabout 60 miles straight up from planet

Earth and some 300 to 500 nauticalmiles down range. As we neared theend of the camera run, Mansmannsaid, "Watch carefully now, Lieuten-ant Jacobs."

At that point the most remarkablevision of my life came on the screen.Another object flew into the framefrom left to right. It approached thewarhead package and - maneuveredaround it. That is, this ... "thing" ...flew a relative polar orbit around ourwarhead package which was itselfheading toward the South Pacific atsome 18 thousand miles an hour!

As the new object circumnavigatedour hardware, it emitted four distinct,bright flashes of light at approxi-mately the 4 cardinal compass pointsof its orbit. These flashes were sointense that each "strike" caused theI.O. tube to "bloom" or form a haloaround the spot. Following this remark-able aerial display, the object departedthe frame in the same direction fromwhich it had come. The shape of theobject was that of a classic "flyingsaucer." In the middle of the top halfof the object was a dome. From thatdome, or just beneath it, seemed toissue a beam of light which causedthe flashes described.

Subsequently the warhead malfunc-tioned and tumbled out of suborbithundreds of miles short of its target.This ... unidentified flying ... "thing" ...had apparently "shot down" an Amer-ican dummy atomic warhead!

The lights came on and MajorMansmann said, "Lieutenant Jacobs,were you or any of your people fool-ing around up there at Big Sur?"

"No sir," I answered honestly. Iwas shaking with excitement.

"Then tell me ... what the Hell wasthat?"

I looked Major Mansmann straightin the eye. "It looks to me like we gota UFO," I said.

There was a stifling silence amongthe men in grey, civilian suits whocontinued to stare at me. MajorMansmann gave them what I canonly describe as a "let me handlethis" look.

Cover-Up

"Well," he smiled cordially, "let's

just say it never happened. You areto say nothing about this footage toanyone. As far as you and I are con-cerned, 'this never took place, youunderstand?"

I looked at the men in the greysuits. They were not smiling. I felt hotand anxious. I was sweating badly. Ithink I just sat for a minute lookingblankly at Major Mansmann. I hadjust seen the most fantastic event ofmy life. It etched a path in mymemory as deep as the one put therealmost a year earlier when PresidentJohn F. Kennedy had been shot todeath in Dallas. I wanted more thananything to see it again, to study itunder a magnifier, to analyze the pic-tures frame by frame.

Major Mansmann did smile, nicely."I don't need to remind you of theseriousness of a security breach, do ILieutenant?", he asked.

"No, sir," I replied."Good," he said, motioning for me

to stand.I stood.He walked me to the door, speak-

ing confidentially. "What you just sawdid not take place," he repeated. "Itnever happened."

I looked at him once more. Some-thing flickered way back deep in hiseyes as he again looked at the men ingrey then back to me.

"But ... if at some time in thefuture," Florenz Mansmann said finally,"you are pressed by someone aboutthis and you can't get out of answer-ing, just tell them ... tell them it wasflashes from laser tracking, O.K.?"

And with that, I was ushered outthe door and into over a decade ofsilence on the subject. Never mindthat in 1964 we did not have lasertracking, nor did we or any otherpower on Earth have spacecraft cap-able of flying circles around a subor-bital capsule. I tried to sublimate thewhole incident out of loyalty andrespect for Florenz Mansmann whomI liked a great deal. While I did nottalk about the event with anyone. Idid begin a period of intense researchinto the UFO phenomena.

My research interest in the fieldcontinues to the present. Of particu-lar fascination is the relationship ofthe press to the UFO. This great.

Mutual UFO Journal. Number 249. January 19S9

Liberal bastion of free enquiry, thisbody of muckrakers which pridesitself so highly on prodding andupsetting political figures, has playedvery prettily into the hands of thosesame government minions who wishto obfuscate the whole field of dis-covery, discussion and debate aboutthe most perplexing and possiblymost important scientific conundrumin the history of our species. Whilechasing after Pulitzer Prizes for suchrelatively petty mischief as politicaldirty tricks at Watergate, or poor oldGary Hart and his happy harlots orthe hapless Dan Quayle and hiscolorless, but merely mediocre back-ground, The Press has persistentlymissed one of the really imperativestories of our time.

Goes Public

I told my small portion of it first,tentatively, on a late night talk showwhich I hosted in Eureka, Californiain 1973 on station KFMI-FM. Theresponse I got to my revelation wasalmost as astonishing as had been theevent itself. My program director,Richard Van Pelt, came forth to tellhis own tale of a CE3K which hap-pened to him while he was an AirForce Security NCO in Iceland 20years earlier. A university physicsprofessor at California State Univer-sity, Humboldt who had worked onthe H-bomb project came forth to tellabout his firm belief in the extrater-restrial nature of UFOs. Since then Ihave met a number of other peoplewhom I respect, whom I know not tobe "fringies" or cranks or crackpots,but who share common experienceswith UFO sightings and encounters.

And, finally, in 1982, I decided thatmy story needed to be aired to abroader audience. Eighteen years hadgone by. I could not get it out of mymind after all that time. Then, first inthe trade journals, later in the popu-lar press, there were hints of a newweapon system in the offing. It wassome kind of satellite-smasher wewere told. Soon we would hear Pres-ident Reagan himself disrobe therumors and give us Star Wars (SDI).There were the rumors of aircraftbeing bui l t which were invisible toMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

radar (some said to the human eye,as well!) "Stealth," they were called.It is significant to recall that until veryrecently, the Air Force denied thatthey existed, too! There were persist-ent stories of something called Pro-ject Snowbird where American pilotswere being shown how to operatecaptured (or donated) alien space-craft. Something about the Big Surfilm seemed to be part of the overallpattern. I held back writing my storybecause of the Security angle untilthe truth occurred to me. There wasno "security breach" in this story.The damn thing had never been"Classified SECRET" or anything else.I had been told simply that it "NEVERHAPPENED"! Therefore, I was freeto tell the story to whomever Ipleased since it was about a non-event officially.

I wrote my article. I shopped itaround. In the end The NationalEnquirer published it. And as nowretired Major Florenz J. Mansmannput it, "Jacobs opened Pandora'sBox."

I was contacted by a variety ofinvestigators, buffs, cranks, propo-nents and detractors alike. JamesOberg, a frequent "mouthpiece" forcertain NASA projects and self-styledUFO Debunker wrote to disparagemy story and to ask provocatively,"Since you obviously feel free to dis-cuss top secret UFO data, whatwould you be willing to say aboutother top secret aspects of the Atlaswarhead which you alluded to briefly...?" I told Mr. Oberg where to puthis misplaced cynicism.

Mansmann, now a Ph.D. researchconsultant at Stanford and a farmernear Fresno, California was besiegedwith requests for information, and forhis version of what happened. Myrespect and admiration for him wasvindicated as he categorically verifiedmy account.

Conclusions

Academicians first gather data, thenpostulate conclusions based on whatthey find. From what I have gatheredfirst hand, (primary evidence), piecedtogether from Mansmann, from a fineresearcher named Lee M. Graham,

from contemplation, discussion anddebate of the material, as well asfrom the Air Force position on thisand other related matters, I havecome to the following conclusions:

(1) What we photographed thatSeptember day in 1964 was a solid,three-dimensional, intelligently controlledflying device.

(2) It emitted a beam of energy,possibly a plasma beam, at ourdummy warhead and caused a malfunc-tion.

(3) This "craft" was not anything ofwhich our science and technology -in1964 was capable. The most probableexplanation of the device, therefore,is that it was of extraterrestrial origin.

(4) The flashing strikes of light werecorded on film were not from lasertracking devices. Such devices didnot exist then aside from small scale,laboratory models.

(5) Most probably the B.U. Tele-scope was brought out to Californiaspecifically to photograph this eventwhich had been prearranged. That is,we had been setup to record anevent which someone in our Govern-ment knew was going to happen in -advance.

(6) What we photographed thatday was the first terrestrial demon-stration of what has come to becalled S.D.I, or "Star Wars." Thedemonstration was put oh for ourbenefit for some reason by extrater-restrials. It is this aspect of the event,not merely the recording of another"flying saucer" which caused suchconsternation both on the part ofMajor Mansmann when he told me "itnever happened," and on behalf ofthe government in its two and one-half decade coverup of the event andthe record we made of it.

It is this defense-oriented aspect ofthe case which has caused investiga-tors to run into stone walls in tryingto track down my story. The AirForce has alternately denied that Iwas ever an officer, that I was everstationed at Vandenberg, that I wasOIC of Photo-optical Instrumentationin the 1369th Photographic Squadron,that there was a tracking site at ornear Big Sur, California, that anAtlas-F, or for that matter, any othermissile was launched on or about the

date or dates I reported.

Documentation

We have been able to verify throughFOIA requests and my military recordseverything except the specific launchand the fact of its having been filmed.We have been told first that therewere no launches, then that therewere launches but no malfunctions.Herewith, for the first time I presentthe documentation for a mission mal-function in an official unclassified AirForce document which has finallysurfaced in my collection of agingpapers and books.

It was prepared by Kingston A.George, dated 13 Oct. 1964 and isentitled,

OPERATIONS ANALYSISSTAFF STUDY

PRELIMINARY REPORT ONIMAGE ORTHICON PHOTOGRAPHY

FROM BIG SUR

In this document, "King" Georgegives us a quick sketch of the wholeBig Sur project, tells us that "Overthe period of 30 days, from 31 Augustto 30 September, during which theBoston University telescope was readyto film launches, eleven flights weremade from Vandenberg," that "a finalreport will be forthcoming in a fewweeks with a complete description ofthe system and the operations overthe past several weeks," that "a doc-umentary film of about 30 minutes

length containing several minutes ofselected film clips will be assembled"and that one powered-flight anomalywas observed (italics mine), and thecoverage of the flights has producedenough data to show that Big Surphotography could be an importantadjunct to other instrumentation."

It is not clear whether or not King-ston George was privy to the screen-ings of the Big Sur film whichrecorded the UFO. My suspicion isthat he was one of those to whomMansmann has admitted showing thefilm. His document, however, statesclearly that a missile malfunctionedduring the B.U. test period, now put-ting the final lie to the Air Forcedenials.

That is my story. It is from my ownexperiences, recollections, records,and hands. You are free to interpretit as you like. As a footnote I need tocomment, I suppose, on the coverup.I do not believe that anyone is goingto succeed in getting the film on anF.O.I.A. request. I have been askedto make such a request myself andrefuse to do so. Eric Mishara, LeeGraham, T. Scott Grain, Jr. and oth-ers have done so and have run intothe wall of futility. I don't believe thatanyone can succeed in getting thefilm because the fact of its existencewill have been completely expungedfrom the records by now.

Investigators who encounter nega-tive replies from the Air Force, fromrepresentatives who are at Vanden-berg now are not necessarily being

deceived deliberately. Nearly 25 yearshave passed and no one presently atthe base has any personal recollec-tion of the event, much less any offi-cial record of it. Consider the verylimited number of people who sawthe film in the first place and you willcomprehend how simple it was tomake it disappear.

Finally, if the government did offi-cially "classify" the film either backthen or subsequently, then perhapsthere were/are compelling reasons forit to have done so. As the B-2"Stealth" Bomber has now beenunveiled publicly at last, we can con-template the rationale for having keptit "classified" for so long. At somepoint, when no harm can come fromthe information, perhaps the film forwhich I was responsible that long agoSeptember day in the cool, clearmountains of Big Sur will be madepublic, along with the possibly awe-some technological power which theimages recorded on it represented.

One significant fact remains. Theexperimental tracking site which Iinstalled near Anderson Peak becamea permanent location for missile trackingon the Western Test Range. Movednearer the peak geographically andmagnitudes better technically, it isthere today. You see footage from itevery time a Space Shuttle reentersfor a landing at Edwards Air ForceBase. What else it records or hasrecorded and its ultimate purpose forbeing there is a matter for history,hopefully, to reveal.

MJ-12: An Open Letter

Mr. Moore, co-author of ThePhiladelphia Experiment and TheRoswell Incident recently publishedin paperback), can be reached at4219 West Olive Ave., Suite 247,Burbank, CA. 91505

I had hoped that it would never benecessary for me to write a letter likethis; however, in light of numerousallegations, rumors and accusationspresently being circulated about me8

By William L. Mooreand my work, and in direct responseto a vicious guilt-by-innuendo articleon the MJ-12 matter which I am reli-ably informed is currently being pre-pared by CSICOP spokesman Ken-drick Frazier in close concert withPhil Klass, it seems appropriate tomake some sort of statement whichwill clear the air.

First of all, let me begin by statingfor the record that I am not a"forger," a "hoaxer," a "fabricator" or

a "counterfeiter"; nor, to the best ofmy knowledge, have I ever partici-pated in any illegal or un-Americanactivity in connection with my morethan eight-year involvement with theMJ-12 controversy. Furthermore, tothe best of my knowledge and belief,none of my colleagues and associateshas participated in any such activitieseither.

Rumors circulating to the effectthat I am some sort of government

Mutual UFO Journal. Number 249. January 19S9

agent or "disinformation" expert aretotally false. In spite of pronounce-ments made principally by John Learand others associated with him, I amnot on the U.S. Government's (orany other government's) payroll. Nordid I enjoy any sort of "control posi-tion" with respect to the recent"UFO Cover-Up? ... Live!" televisiondocumentary.

MJ-12

Whether the MJ-12 and associateddocuments are authentic, and indeed,whether the entire MJ-12 story hasany truth to it at all remains anentirely open question. I and my col-leagues have conducted our investi-gation into this matter in our ownway and essentially outside of theUFO-community at large. The infor-mation which we have made availableconcerning this process has beenentirely in keeping with our ownmethods and objectives. What hasbeen withheld has been withheld forgood reason.

It is no secret that many of youwho read this letter have voicedstrong objections to the way thingshave been done. Some, having raisedvalid questions which remain unans-wered, have wrongly assumed thatthere are no answers and have seenfit to vent their frustrations by point-ing an accusing finger. Others, per-haps seeing the controversy surroundingMJ-12 as some sort of threat to theirown stature as self-styled "UFO ex-perts," or "skeptics," have chosenthe convienence of dismissing theentire matter out-of-hand rather thanthe prudence of withholding judge-ment until all of the facts are in.

To individuals in both of theserush-to-judgement groups, my adviceis simply be calm and be patient. Wehave every intention of getting to thebottom of this matter, and we haveevery intention of making a ful l andcomplete disclosure once this processis complete. Until that time, I and mycolleagues are going to continue tofollow our own counsel and to dothings in our own way — preferablywith the support of the UFO com-munity, but if necessary without it.Once the entire story comes out, it isour f i rm conviction that all of theMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

dark spots in this very strange pic-ture puzzle will become clear and wewill all have answers to many of thequestions which now exist about thetrue nature of our government'sinvolvement with the UFO pheno-menon.

SOURCES

Meanwhile, it seems completelyinappropriate at this time for membersof the UFO community and skepticsalike to continue to assail my methodsor to cast aspersions upon my integ-rity and honesty through grape-vinegossip and the typically half-baked,poorly researched journalism of theSkeptical Inquirer. Equally inapprop-riate is the continuing high level ofsheer speculation concerning the trueidentities of the two sources whoappeared on the "UFO,Cover-Up? ...Live!" show under the code names"Falcon" and "Condor." In the eightweeks since the airing of this show,the controversy has grown to suchoutrageous proportions that, to date,"Falcon" has been "reliably identified"as no less than three different peopleand "Condor" as five! For obviousreasons, my position continues to beone of "no comment" with respect towho ANY of my sources might be.

Indeed, the identity of any or all ofthe TEN "inside" contacts I and mycolleagues have developed is ulti-mately of FAR LESS IMPORTANCEthan the fact that, to date, FOUR ofthem have agreed to tell their storybefore members of Congress! As ofthis writing, committments are cur-rently being sought from the others,and negotiations are under way withtwo members of Congress who haveexpressed an interest in the matter. Ifwe are succesful in these efforts, thenthe entire matter of the credibility ofsources and the authenticity of doc-uments will have been placed in aforum entirely out of our hands, andthe question of Bill Moore's, or JaimeShandera's, or Stan Friedman's motives,methods and credibility will no longerbe an issue. It is toward such an endthat we actively seek the unity andsupport of the entire UFO community.

At the Washington, D.C. MUFONUFO Symposium in June of 1987,when we first brought the essence of

this matter to the attention of the UFOcommunity and the public, I asked forassistance and support from anyoneinterested in helping us get to the bot-tom of it. Some of you joined thateffort — most did not. Many of youremained properly skeptical, and in sodoing put the lie to oft repeatedcharges of a few hard-line UFO-bashersthat most UFOlogists are much too gul-lible or credulous for their own good.Others, who disagreed with our way ofdoing things and apparently saw us assome sort of threat to the well-being ofUFOlogy in general and themselves inparticular, saw fit to throw as manyrocks in our direction as they possiblycould.

It is now time to put those emotionsaside and pull together in an effort tobring this matter to a conclusion. AsJerry Clark noted in an InternationalUFO Reporter editorial over a yearago, the MJ-12 affair, unlike most otheraspects of UFOlogy, is one where it ispossible to obtain answers — one wayor the other. If this information is realand the sources providing it are bonafide, then we have a major story on ourhands. If, on the other hand, it turnsout to be some sort of eight-year-long,elaborate disinformation scheme, oreven an outright hoax, then we have anequally important story of another type.In either case, the truth will ultimatelybe made known and, once that happens,UFOlogy will go on. Petty bickeringand emotional tirades have no place inthis search for truth, and they areunbecoming to a field of study which iswell on its way to becoming a recog-nized area of scientific and journalisticendeavor. We have every intention ofseeing our work through to its conclu-sion. What your role will be in thatprocess is entirely up to you.

This letter, then, is intended as anolive branch from me and my asso-ciates to you — UFOlogist, skeptic andUFO-basher alike. Our goal, like yours,is to ultimately get to the bottom of thisvery important matter. It is our beliefthat progress towards this end will bebetter served by a united effort than bycontinued animosity. If you agree, pleaselet me hear from you in the near future.

Editor's Note: The Fund for UFO Researchlaunched a successful drive to raise $16,000 forfurther research into the MJ-12 controversyunder a contract with Stanton T. Friedman.

UFO Crash/Retrievals:Is The Coverup Lid Lifting?

Status Report VBy Leonard H. Stringfield

Prologue

At this writing, many issues of con-troversey hang over UFO research.Some have caused bitter differencesbetween team members; some canbackfire and smear the image ofobjective research itself. In the middlezone, trying to avoid the "people"problems, I feel the urgent need tocontinue my probes into one basicissue — UFO crash/retrievals.

In this endeavor, once we can seethrough the spectre of disinformationand find convincing evidence — orproof — that UFOs are nut-and-boltvehicles with an alien crew aboard, Ibelieve that serious researchers canthen go forward to disregard all theother wispy issues and maybe evenput a stop to the disruptive noisescoming out of the woodwork fromthe far-out fringe.

Ideally, with the media supportingthe demands for "bottom line" factsfrom a strong phalanx of the scientificcommunity, and perhaps some politi-cians, the UFO coverup lid mightmelt or at least change, allowing forsome admissions and disclosures.

Confirming any one case of analleged UFO crash and recovery —Roswell, Aztec, Kingman, El Yunqueor even Brown County, Ohio —could, in itself, alarm the world publicor even demolish some of its cher-ished traditions and philosophies. Itcould also lead to an eventual sharingof alien technologies — a new pro-pulsion system for inner and outerspace travel or new "metals" andmany other marvels — and certainlyit would bring public support forNASA, and a bigger budget for vitalspace probes. More importantly, wemight learn about the alien entitiesthemselves; their intent for being hereand an explanation for some of their10

incursive actions — to name one,abductions!

Even at this short-of-proof stage,the UFO crash/retrieval story, stillunfolding, I believe, should be publicinformation — unless it, and the fullUFO story, is too exotically grim totell. In that case I reserve judgment.

Feeling confident, I submit newdata, based on my research and thecooperative work of others, for openreview.

Part I: The Quiet of Dusk ...

As we close out the decade of the80's, new public interest in UFOs, itseems, is surging. Some of it proba-bly is the trickledown from newbooks on the market, but for themost part, new and old researchersalike, are being spurred by recentrevelations of official coverup amidsome sobering reports of humanencounters of the first, second, andthird kind.

Perhaps already an established factis the climactic close encounter of thefourth kind: contact with an alienrace. Based on rumors, contendingthat a covert human-alien relationshiphas been in effect, and of late, morerumors that tell of a ruptured "alliance,"we must not only pause and wonderabout the magnitude of a colossalcoverup but the implications of aneventual open contact — even if itwere on terms of peaceful co-existence.Any other alternative staggers theimagination! But, getting down toEarth, as we once knew it, we mustalso pause and ask in all seriousness,where's the proof that a spacecraftexists or, for that matter, a coverup?

A seemingly stupid question whenwe hear so many lurid tales aboutabductions, alien underground instal-lations, genetic manipulation, animal

and human mutilations, of Americanand Russian satellites exploding inspace, of alien artifacts on the Moonand Mars, of dire predictions of theworld's end and, yes, to a lesserdegree, UFO crash/retrievals. Once ablockbuster to research in the late70's and early 80's, a crash story in1988 is no longer big ufological news.

As I weigh all the reports, orrumors, mindful of mis/disinforma-tion, I still maintain that it is in C/Rresearch that we may find our elusiveproof. Once the hardware and thecrews, cadaverous or alive, are forcedinto public view, then we may findcredibility for some of the other pos-tulates and be in a better position toespouse endless hypotheses. Sincepresenting my paper, The Fatal Encount-er at Ft. Dix-McGuire: A Case Studyat the Mutual UFO Network Sympo-sium, St. Louis, 1985, and pursuingsome leads in that case to little con-sequence, I have remained relativelyquiet on the literary front. New C/Rreports, from time to time, have sur-faced since 1985, but most weresecondhand or of the "Cheshire Cat"variety, providing scant information.What I had, with a few exceptionswere not up to Roswell caliber andthese could wait until ... August andSeptember of 1988.

Then, in the quiet of dusk, my researchsuddenly hit a peak. As Dick Hall,the author of Uninvited Guests, Auro-ra Press, 1988, commented, the "ther-mostat" (by official orchestrators)seems to be turned up. During thistime, ten new sources emerged, eachpromising that useful information aboutUFO crash/retrievals would soon fol-low. By the end of November mostpromises were filled, some were first-hand, some second. But, more impor-tantly, some provided new backupinformation for cases cited in my pre-

Mutual UFO Journal. Number J49. January

viously published status reports. Mostrewarding was the timely emergenceof persons serving in covert positionswith substantive information in keyareas of my work. Reflecting back, Isee in them parallels to the medicalsources in 1978 who surfaced andshared graphic descriptive anatomicaldetails of the alien body for release inStatus Report II, The UFO Crash/-Retrieval Syndrome. As a matter ofrecord, this prototype informationremains to this day analogous tomost reports of alien encounters andis much like the computerized rendi-tion shown in October 1988, on theTV documentary, The UFO Coverup.

Tabloids

Proof? Of course not. Getting closeto it? Perhaps. And, yes, I'm aware ofthe adroit arts of disinformation.While I see no evidence of deviousgame-playing in my current input, norin some of the material received inthe later 70's and early 80's, I amaware of another recent suspectannoyance where my name was inblatant public view by a tabloid, theWeekly World News. In its Sep-tember 20, 1988 issue I was headlinedas an "expert" having the insidescoop on an alleged alien under-ground facility in Dulce, New Mexico.Bunkum! Fact is, I have no suchscoopy news but, I have heard therumors about Dulce and the one inNevada and others.

Triggering the tabloid article was astory published in a county weeklynewspaper that had covered my talkon UFO crashes at the Milford PublicLibrary, near Cincinnati, in April1988. The Weekly World News, how-ever, in picking up the story and mybrief reference to Dulce, ignored mystatement that such reports could bemis/disinformation. Was I being setup, as some researchers wondered,as a target for ridicule? In this case,for the record, I doubt it, knowingthe unscrupulous behavior of thetabloids.

Alert to the risk of tabloid exploita-tion and official machinations that tryto maintain secrecy, one treating asensitive subject like C/R must alsoexpect the unexpected from evenMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

"friendly" quarters. And most often,unexpectedly, from out of the rank-and-file of research, comes the sud-den strike of a cobra or a "loop" ofsuch snakes-in-the-grass who try totake one's work and credibility totask and make a big stinking mess ofit. Reasons may be many. Is it simplyarrogance and a thirst for fame orpower, or is it the work of theorchestrators, who pick and choosetheir lackeys? Whatever the reasons Ihave felt their sting since I presentedmy first paper, Retrievals of the ThirdKind, at the MUFON Symposium inDayton, 1978. While most of theseearly adversaries have faded away, lit-tle loops persist who employ subtlerways to undermine my work.

Haunting me still, is a remark by aloop kingpin averring that all my casehistories, published in my series ofstatus reports, were "fairy tales," thusof no substance. Drawn into his loopis a pundit, a prominent writer inUFO media, who, having belittled mywork since 1978, has worked wellinto the scheme. In later years,through his editorial controls, whe-never C/R was an issue, my workwas simply snubbed. More recently,still another in the loop told a mutualcorrespondent that my investigationshave no depth and that I'm a goodsubject for disinformation.

Obviously, sad to say, these loop-ers have not done much "investiga-tion in depth" about my modus oper-andi, or have not taken into considera-tion the lack of funds at my disposalto follow up hundreds of leads, coast-to-coast. Also, it is beyond my com-prehension how some of my contem-poraries can entertain the notion thatI have gullibly accepted as valid, orbona fide, every item of C/R materialpublished in my papers. Once again,for the record, the purpose of mystatus reports is to draw in newsources with new information thatcould either strengthen a case or givereason to drop it in the circular file.

True, that some of the best madeplans go awry, and true, that someentries in my monographs have obviousweaknesses and some, based on newinformation, have become questiona-ble. An example is Case A-2, StatusReport III. However, the mainstream

material from early sources remainssolid and one, I thought, that deserveda full investigation was the Ft. Dix-McGuire case which has becomestronger from new information fromnew sources. Someday, perhaps, forthe record, I may write a specialpaper updating the status quo of mypublished case histories.

While the mid to late 80's did notproduce any substantial Crash/Re-trieval case histories worthy of amonograph, except the Ft. Dix-McGuireaffair, it was not devoid of highpoints.

CASE I) While attending the MU-FON Symposium in St. Louis, 1985,Raymond Jordan, a MUFON investi-gator, gave me a confidential lead tofollow up involving a lady who hadworked at the Pentagon in 1952, who,he said, had seen an alien body"pickled" in a glass tank in an "OffLimits" room. By mistake, she hadentered the room, was promptlynabbed and forced to sign papersswearing her to secrecy. When Ireached the lady, who was stillemployed by a government office, shesaid, "I know what you're talkingabout," then added, "but I can't talk."I suggested she communicate byother means to which she replied,"No. I don't want to talk about it atall."

CASE 2) Thanks to Michael Johns-tone, a California researcher, who didsome good research spadework, itwas arranged for me to talk with aformer marine who claimed, in 1963,he stood guard at an undisclosed mil-itary base which housed a "disc-shaped vehicle with ovoid cross sec-tion, 40 ft. across and 13 ft. thick atthe center." A more detailed descrip-tion of the craft appeared in my arti-cle, The Chase for Proof in a Squir-rel's Cage, published in the Britishbook, UFO's, 1947-1987. The marine,who signed a security oath, said thathe guarded the secret premises fortwo weeks while a technical crew,speaking in code, tried every knownmeans to gain entry into the craft,including a laser device. Once, hesaid he observed that it deflected offthe curved side of the craft into therafters causing some damage. "Thepublic should know the truth aboutUFOs," the ex-marine told me, but I

11

Something unidentified crashed into a heavilywooded mountain in the township of St. Geniez,France, March 18, 1972. According to witnesses itcaused brush fires over a forty acre area.

felt he knew more than he had cau-tiously related, and would not budgein disclosing the name of the base.

CASE 3) Former military sourceswith information about witnessing aspecial movie showing deceased alienbodies surfaced in the late 70's.These were published in my StatusReport II (See Cases A-4 and A-9).The viewing of the film was alwaysbehind doors and the viewers werefew. Then in 1985, Chris Coffey, ofCincinnati, who was a close friend ofastronaut Ellison Onizuka, revealedto me that she had asked him whenthey met after one of his visits toWright-Patterson AFB, about his in-terest in UFOs. He admitted he keptan open mind on the subject andadded that his curiosity was arousedwhen he and a select group of AirForce pilots, at McClelland AFB in1973 were shown a black-and-whitemovie film featuring "alien bodies ona slab." In his state of shock, he saidhe remembered saying aloud, "Oh,my God!" Chris, knowing my work inC/R, had arranged for me to meetOnizuka to discuss UFOs after hisscheduled flight on the space shuttleChallenger. As it turned out, fateintervened when the shuttle exploded.

Texas-Mexico

CASE 4) With the confusion amongresearchers over the number, loca-tions and dates for several allegedUFO crashes on the Texas borderwith Mexico — and in Mexico —Tom Deuley, who heads the MUFONteam in Texas, wrote to me in Feb-ruary, 1988, excerpts, as follows:

"Shortly after returning from Wash-ington (MUFON Symposium) my groupwas challenged to look into the ElIndio-Guerrero case that is brieflymentioned in the MJ-12 document ...I'm writing to ask if you can give usany details, or rumors, beyond whatis printed in your papers ... I have12

gone through your works and madecopies of everything that may berelated to the El Indio case."

My response by letter, February12, 1988, follows: "... A few weeksago, I was sorting out some old cor-respondence and found a letter datedMarch 1985 on which I had noted,Follow Up. I noted also that I hadtried to reach the sender, seekingmore information, but got no reply.So, I tried again in January of thisyear. Fortunately, this time, I wasable to reach the son-in-law of thesource. Cooperatively, he gave mehis phone number, Mr. JA, in Cali-fornia. Having a friendly chat with JA,I find no reason to question hissincerity. He was no UFO buff, hav-ing no knowledge of current affairs.

"... According to JA, he wasaboard the USS McKinley, cargoclass, the command ship for smphib-ious operations, docket at San Diego.Many admirals aboard. His job: mes-senger. The time, he said, was late1948 or early 1949. It was winter andhe remembers a quick cruise toAlaska in between those years.

"JA was on deck when he learnedfrom the top brass that a small taskforce was assembled and ordered togo to a certain location (unknown tohim) into Mexico to retrieve a crashedflying saucer. They departed by vehi-cle, but he was not certain if theydrove to the site or used other meansto reach what was described as aremote region of Mexican desert. Thetask force was gone for several daysand when they returned, he saideverything was hushed up. He did,however, hear one of the officers onthe mission say that they got somedead bodies and some managed toget away. They were able to move atgreat speed," he recalls the officersaying. JA never heard more aboutthe saucer or the bodies, but he didremember reading a brief item in aSan Diego newspaper about the

crash in Mexico."CASE 5) Something unidentified

crashed into a heavily wooded moun-tain in the township of St. Geniez,France, March 18, 1972. According towitnesses it caused brush fires over aforty acre area. Significant was thatthe incident occurred during a flap ofUFO reports in that southeasternpart of France.

The story was originally obtainedby researcher Olivier Rieffel, in 1986,during a meeting with Leon Visse, theperson identified in Dr. Jean Gille'spapers published in Status Report III(see Case B-8). With Visse's disclo-sure that the crash occurred near theDurance River, Rieffel informed hiscolleague, Jean Sider, who found inhis records that the time and placecoincided with a reported crash of a"space object" into a mountain nearthe town of Sisteron in St. Geniez,through which the river Durancepasses. According to most witnesses,the UFO was described as a "redball" of fire and one informed source,who prefers anonymity, stated it was"red-orange, shaped like a disc."

While the investigations continue,through the well-coordinated team-work of Sider and Rieffel, extensiverecords of their findings were sent tome for appraisal in April 1988. Includedwas a fragment from the site of aceramic-like substance apparently bakedby intense heat; three pages of first-hand reports from witnesses who sawthe descending red object, amongthem farmers in the region, the sonof the mayor, a newspaper reporteron the scene and members of thepolice and fire departments. Of note,was an astronomer whose investiga-tions ruled out a meteorite and othermeteorological and atmospheric pheno-mena. Said Sider, "The facts of thecase remain classified in the files ofthe military and the Nationale Gen-darmerie Archives," adding, "Con-firming all the main details was amember of an intelligence agencywho stated that 'something' wasreceived by the Gendarmerie andshipped in a truck to a location nearParis."

Sider emphasized that his reportwas not conclusive and investigationswere still in progress. Listed were

Mutual UFO Journal. Number 249. January 1"»S9

many more names of people, directlyinvolved, he hoped to trace andinterview.

Humanoid Remains

CASE 6) Far more spectacular,but affording far less supportive evi-dence than the St. Geniez incident, isthe firsthand report from a retiredmedical doctor who alleges he accid-entally found the skeletal remains oftwo humanoids, possibly of alienorigin, on his farm in western Ken-tucky in March 1987.

When informed of the story, I waseventually able to reach the doctorthrough his friend, Bill Boshears, whofirst aired it on his radio talk show inCincinnati. Since the show, havingbeen warned to "shut up" in nouncertain terms, the doctor, nonethe-less, entrusted me with his name, butwould not reveal the location of hisfarm nor give me, or anyone else, hisunlisted phone number. He also advisedthat some of the details he sharedwith me about the investigation bythe Air Force should be kept confiden-tial.

The doctor, when he talked withme on his friend's phone, was cordial,but brief. He said that it was during aroutine evening stroll on his farmproperty of 400 acres that he disco-vered the extraordinary evidence.Next to a burned-out circle, about 4ft. in diameter, in an open grassyfield, he found the skeletons of twohumanoid entities about 4 ft. apart.Without a trace of clothing, some ofthe bones, he said, showed residualligament, with evidence that preda-tors had been at work. As a doctor,he was certain that the bones werenot of animal origin and on closerexamination, -he was shocked, hesaid, to find that the structure wasbipedal, about 4 ft. tall, with a largeskull and cat-like jaw, a barrel-like ribcage with long arms and three fin-gers. For sure, they were not human.The doctor's next move was to callthe sheriff, who, without hesitation,called the Air Force.

The next morning at sunrise, saidthe doctor, he was surprised to seethree helicopters land in a clearingand many people, some in uniform,Mutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

As a doctor, he was certain that the bones werenot of animal origin. The structure was bipedal,about 4 ft. tall, with a large skull and cat-like jaw,a barrel-like rib cage with long arms and threefingers.

some not, being deployed over a widearea. Greeting him was a Colonel(name known to me) who cordiallyintroduced himself and stated hismission: remove the bones and under-soil, test and remove the burned cir-cular soil and comb the area for anyother evidence. Later in the day,fresh soil was filled in the excavatedareas, and the doctor was told thatthe soil in the circle had been bakedat 3,000 degrees.

When asked about the time factorof body decomposition (allowing forpredators) he estimated, according tocursory examination, that the alienshad been exposed for less than ahundred days.

Reminding me that "they put thefear of God in me" after his trip to amilitary base for further interrogationand where he was shown photos ofother alien corpses, he expressedinterest in my research and I sug-gested that we lunch together soon.He agreed, but never called.

Brown County

CASE 7) News of a UFO crashon a farm in Brown County (Southw-estern Ohio) in the Spring of 1987,looked promising at the outset and asI tried to put the pieces of raw infor-mation into some order to make thenext move, mainly to reach the prin-ciple source, I ran into every con-ceivable roadblock. A year after "giv-ing up," information surfaced from anew source to give credence thatsomething did crash at the farm site.Whatever happened, I could now seethrough some of the screwiest diver-sions that blocked me from contact-ing the farmer who claimed he sawthe crashed disc, three small femalenon-human bodies strewn in the fieldand, above all else, had some unusualmetallic fragments from the debris toprove it.

My initial informant was JD, agemologist and a persevering UFObuff, who, in getting many packagesby United Parcel Service, learnedfrom the driver on her rural routethat the farmer "down the road" hadpieces of metal from a UFO thatcrashed on his property. When JDtried to learn the farmer's name andlocation, the driver got scared, and Iwas later told to avoid the issue, evenchanged his route. Undaunted, JDthen opted to go to the local policeoffice near the site, hoping to locatethe farmer. There, she got the runa-round and was advised by one officerto forget the matter. But, accordingto JD, the officer with the friendlyadvice, later visited her home and forsome unexplained reason gave her aphoto of the farm property.

At this point, JD suddenly showedsigns of confusion and fear, claimingthat her house had been entered,that the photograph of the propertyhad been taken which she had usedas a bookmark in a library book (byMajor Keyhoe) and that the bookwas found on the hood of her car inthe garage. Next came word that shehad been injured in a fall into a sewerhole between her house and garage.The lid had been loosened, she said.Investigating, my son-in-law and Icould find nothing else abnormal inher manner of keeping house but,indeed, we began to wonder abouther going off the deep-end and if shehad become obsessed to a degree offantasy. Or, was it all a hoax, or aploy of disinformation?

Time went by without further con-tact. But I felt that something wasstrange, something amiss about thecase. Concerned, I got in touch witha former Air Force intelligence officerwho had the "right" connections, andasked if he could help throw light onthe affair. Two days later, he calledback to relate that he had been in

13

touch with the "right" person andwas told that there had been "no sig-nificant UFO sightings in that area forthe past year." He added that myinformant would soon be visited bytwo investigators in an official capacity.

Several weeks later, I got a sur-prise call from JD who said simply,"I'm not supposed to talk with you,but here I am." She went on toexplain that she had two visitorswho, in learning she had no hiddenmetal artifacts, debunked the crashand also my work in crash/retrievalresearch, and advised in so manywords, that she should not contactme in the future.

Not long after that, JD called meagain, admitting that she had met thefarmer, had visited the farm, saw thenewly added soil over the crash site,and moreover, gave me the farmer'sname, and had made plans for him tovisit me the following week. He nevercame, as expected, and a few dayslater when she called she regretted totell me that he had been moved,expenses paid, to Virginia. This, iftrue, I suppose, was his reward forbeing a good citizen, a real patriot.

In April of 1988, a researcher,joined by a person knowledgeable ofmilitary intelligence operations, visitedmy home to discuss an abductioncase. Inevitably, the conversation drift-

ed to crash/retrievals and I menti-oned the alleged crash in BrownCounty. "Oh yes," said my knowl-edgeable guest, "I heard that a jetcrashed on a farmer's property,"adding "It was in an inaccessible areaand they had a hard time getting thewreckage out."

A jet? Certainly there had beennothing in the news about a jet crash-ing the previous Spring in that localityand, as we all know, airplane crashes,of any kind, always make news. Ofsignificance, my guest also stated, "Iheard from a good source that thegovernment came in and bought thefarm and moved the owner out oftown." Amen!

Much can be said about this case,pro and con. And, I'm also omittingsome details that might compromisethe positions and activities of certainpeople involved.

CASE 8) I have many other itemsof C/R interest, or trivia, somedeserving at least a brief reference.One, concerns the disclosure of a firedepartment inspector, who, while fil-ing his report at my home in Sep-tember 1987, said that he was also afireman stationed at Wright-PattersonAFB in 1967-68. Aware of all buildingson the base and access to same incase of emergency, he and crew wereinstructed that if a fire were reported

An Ordinary" CJFOBy Raymond Fowler

Mr. Fowler is MUFON Directorof Investigations.

On September 3, 1988, I received aphone call from Marion Reedy ofIpswich, MA at 2255 EOT. She toldme that her neighbors, the Henrys,had sighted a strange lighted objectduring the early morning hours. Iphoned the Henrys on the followingday and interviewed them on thatafternoon, September 4, 1988.

Shortly after 0100 on the morningof September 3, 1988, Debbie Henrywas preparing to retire. She heard asqueaking sound which she attributedto her cat catching a mouse outside.14

She went to an upstairs window tolook out and saw what appeared tobe the bottom of a dark object withblinking yellow lights that reflected offa rectangular dark gray panel. Think-ing it might be a reflection, she wentto another upstairs window to look.

The object was still there, but fromthis vantage point she saw red, greenand yellow blinking lights. The greenand yellow lights seemed to bearranged in straight lines along thelength of the rectangular panel's inte-rior, whereas the red lights seemed tobe located around its perimeter. Shethen went downstairs and looked outa large living room window. To her,

in a building in a certain section thatthey were to "let it burn." A signread, "No Fire Trucks Allowed." Hehad heard "rumors" that the buildinghoused UFO material.

The year was 1953, the state Ariz-ona. Both are important in C/R activ-ity. One new source, whose informa-tion is not included in this article forreasons of his own security, wasinvolved in a retrieval operation inthat year and state; and, still anothersource, also not publishable for thesame reason, backs up the Kingmancrash, same year, same state. SeeAbstract 6 Retrievals of the ThirdKind and Postscript On Two KeyCases, Page 43 of Status Report III,regarding Kingman crash. Also seeCase A-l, Sfafus Report II, regardingthree small humanoids retrieved inthe state and received at Wright-Patterson AFB. The above referencesare anonymous sources, and, asalways, despite critics, I find it man-datory to maintain their trusts andkeep their names confidential.

Part II: To The Burst Of Dawn willbe published in the February 1989Journal.

Copyright J989 by Leonard H. Stringfield.All rights reserved. Reproduction of material inthis report is prohibited unless written permis-sion is granted.

the object seemed to be the size of aVolkswagen Beetle and just above 35-40 foot high trees that separated heryard from a huge field. She felt thatthe object was only 70 feet away.

Realizing now that she was observ-ing something that was really unus-ual, she ran and woke her husbandTim up. Tim took a look and toldDebbie not to go out until he gotdressed to go with her. Debbie cameback to the bedroom with him andwhen they got dressed and went out-side, the object was gone. Tim'simpression was that the object was500 yards away and about 200-300feet in the air. He admitted that itcould have been closer but sincethere was no reference point, it washard to know its real size and dis-tance. It was close enough to bealarming.

There was no noise coming throughMutual UFO Journal. Number 249, Januan. 1W

an open window from the object.When Tim saw the object, the por-tion of its bottom covered with lightslooked round like the bottom of adish. It is possible that by the timeTim got out of bed to see the objectthat it had moved further away.

The Henrys noticed a light on inthe Reedy residence across the streetfrom their house. They phoned theReedys who came over and joinedthem in searching for the object.However, only the stars and Marsand Jupiter and the moon could beseen. The Henrys phoned the policeat 0130 to enquire if anyone hadreported the object. The police saidthere was nothing on the log.

Interview

I arrived at the Henry residencearound 1400 and was met by Debbie.It was raining but she graciouslyaccompanied me to the edge of thefield over which the object hadhovered. I then took compass andelevation readings.

We went into the house and I wasintroduced to Tim. We sat down atthe living room table where I questi-oned them and had them fill outMUFON Form 1 and help me to pin-point their house on a town andtopographical map. Both were verycooperative and tried very hard notto embellish their experience. Bothnow wish that they had gone outsideimmed ia t e ly r a the r than ge t t ingdressed. Debbie wished that she hadinformed her husband sooner, buthad gone through several steps in anattempt to make sure that she wasn'tseeing a reflection or something nor-mal. She just could not believe whatshe was seeing and wanted to makesure it was unusual before getting herhusband out of bed at such a latehour. Both have college degrees.

I phoned the families living in thehouses bordering the field over whichthe object hovered. Everyone wasasleep during the sighting date/timeframe. I left my name and phonenumber for them to call me in theevent they heard of other witnesses. Ialso phoned the Ipswich police.Nothing was recorded on their log.Mutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

Witness Background Check

A neighbor described the Henrysas sincere, level-headed people whowere very puzzled about what theyhad seen. Both are college graduatesand are very articulate. Debbie teachesin the Ipswich Elementary School sys-tem. I found nothing in their charac-ters that warranted further inquiry.

The shape/colors and behavior ofthe lights and the long-duration hov-ing capability of the apparently noise-less object seem to rule out anaircraft.

The sighting was near railroadtracks and over a large open fieldbordered by trees, bushes and aplayground. Perhaps of significance isthe fact that a high-quality series of

UFO sightings on Apri l 4, 1976occurred in Ipswich. One of the areasin which the object was sighted wasover this same field. The witnesses tothis current sighting were not awareof this fact; it was not seen from theirneighborhood but from a vantagepoint at the opposite end of the field.

Unfortunately, the object was alwaysviewed through windows and notfrom outdoors. However, each win-dow gives a good view of the sightingarea and the weather provided excel-lent visibility.

I am placing this UFO report in the"Ordinary" category. It is obvious tome that two reliable witnesses observedan unusual aerial object which doesnot correspond to natural or conven-tional explanations.

Ohio FlapBy Richard P. Dell'Aquila

I and Dale B. Wedge, MUFONState Section Directors for Cuya-hoga, Lake, Geauga and AshtabulaCounties (Ohio) have been investigat-ing a series of sightings, beginningabout March 4, 1988 and seeminglycentered around the Perry NuclearPlant, and the CEI coal burning plantat Eastlake, both on the shore ofLake Erie, east of Cleveland, Ohio.

March 4th was a clear, crisp nightand the stars were clearly visible,especially to the north over the lakewhere there are no city lights. Venusand Jupiter were bright and in closeproximity to each other in the west-ern sky. At about 6:30 p.m., S.B.(name and address provided to MUFON)and her children were driving hometo Eastlake along the lake shorewhen they observed a large, blimp-like object with bright white lights ateach end, hovering over the lake androcking end to end like a "teeter-totter." One light was brighter thanthe other and was strobing. On arriv-ing home, she asked her husband toaccompany her to the beach about200 yards north for a closer view ofthe object which they later describedas "larger than a football held at

arm's length."She and her husband walked onto

the beach. The noiseless object wasgun-metal gray and seemed to causethe ice on the lake to rumble andcrack loudly in an unusual way whichfrightened her. The witnesses had toshout to be heard by each other, andwere surprised that no dogs were outbarking as would have been expected.

After observing the object for awhile, the couple became concernedfor the safety of their children in thecar when the object revolved slowlyabout 90 degrees, coming almostoverhead (about !4 mile high) andpointing its "front" end down towardthem. They drove the children homeand continued watching the objectfrom their living room window whichfaces the lake. A neighbor wasphoned and she and her son went tothe beach, reporting the same thing.They took photographs which did notturn out.

CESSNA-SIZE

The object began to descend andthe witnesses returned to the beach,where it was now observed to have

15

red and blue blinking lights along itsbottom edge. It emitted 5 to 6 noise-less, intensly bright yellow triangularlights from its side. They intermit-tently hovered around the largerobject, darted and zig-zagged into thenight sky at velocities far in excess ofknown aircraft. Mr. B. stated the tri-angular objects were smaller than aone-seat Cessna and "crossed 50 milestretches low over the ice in the snapof a finger." They were said to be ableto approach the shore, turn abrupt,right angles due east toward thePerry Nuclear Plant about 12 milesaway, climbing rapidly and returnagain, all within several seconds. Bythis time, a Coast Guard patrol vehi-cle had arrived on the beach inresponse to S.B.'s several phonecalls.

The triangular objects came closerto the shore, causing the witnesses tobecome concerned that the lights onthe Coast Guard vehicle would attractthe objects and the lights were turnedoff. The triangles continued to fly offat high speed northward over thelake and eastward toward the PerryNuclear Plant. About an hour laterthey returned one at a time into thelarge ship, which then landed on theice. Several multi-colored lights nowcame on for about five minutes onthe bottom of the object "in a wavelike a movie theater sign" and thebrighter white light on the end beganstrobing red and white. When thesewent off, the ice stopped makingnoise and everything became "deadsilent." The object could no longer beseen after about a half an hour and itwas assumed to have gone below thesurface. The next day, unusuallyhuge pieces of broken ice wereobserved in the area of the landing.

COASTGUARD

The Coast Guard informed Mr. andMrs. B. the following day that theArmy and NASA, whom S.B. hadalso phoned, instructed them not toinvestigate the matter further or goout on the lake in their cutter toexamine the ice in the area of thelanding, since the matter was "out oftheir league and out of their hands."They informed the couple that all16

information was being forwarded toWright-Patterson Air Force Base anda facility in Detroit, Michigan. Inresponse to a Coast Guard inquiry,Wright-Patterson refused to confirmor deny any interest in these activities.

On the next night, the same wit-nesses observed several triangularobjects over the lake for about 45minutes. By the time Coast Guardpersonnel arrived on the scene, theobjects were gone.

On March 7, 1988, the ClevelandPlain Dealer and Lake County News-Herald carried articles which attrib-uted a series of reports of largebrightly-lit objects over Lake Erie onthe prior weekend to several wit-nesses' misidentification of the planetsVenus and Jupiter. The newspaperaccounts indicated that the FairportHarbor Coast Guard went to thearea and saw a large bright objectthat seemed to disperse smaller,bright multi-colored objects. But whenthey called the local air traffic con-trollers, they were "informed" thatJupiter and Venus were in alignmentand that the colors were the result of"spontaneous gas emissions from thetwo planets." One article even attrib-uted this amazing explanation to aprofessor of astronomy at a localuniversity.

On reading the articles, I felt it wasunlikely that U.S. Coast Guard per-sonnel, trained in navigation andidentification of basic celestial objectssuch as the planets, could have madesuch a gross misidentification. Like-wise, the statement attributed to theprofessor of astronomy was equallyunacceptable, in that no other similar"spontaneous gas emission" from theplanets cited, of the necessary magni-tude, had ever been noted, particu-larly on this weekend.

In the course of a follow-up investi-gation by me and Wedge, a CoastGuard incident report was found(presently in MUFON's possession)which states that Coast Guard per-sonnel responded to several callsreporting UFOs over Lake Erie onthe night of March 4, 1988. When theCoast Guard arrived, the report con-firms that a large object "dispersed 3-5 smaller flying objects that were zip-ping around rather quickly. These

objects had red, green, white and yel-low lights on them that strobedintermittently. They also had the abil-ity to stop and hover in mid-flight."

The incident report confirms Mr.and Mrs. B's reports, including theabnormal cracking of the ice as theobject came closer to it and appar-ently landed. "The smaller objectsbegan'hovering in the area where thelarge object landed (about ]/4 mile eastof the CEI power plant) and after afew minutes they began flying aroundagain." The report adds that, "One ofthe small objects turned on a spot-light where the large object had been,but [the Coast Guard personnel]could not see anything, and then theobject seemed to disappear. Anoth-er object approached us approxi-mately 500 yards offshore about 20feet above the ice, and it began mov-ing closer as [the Coast Guard]began flashing its headlights, then itmoved off to the west."

A subsequent Coast Guard report(also in possession of MUFON) pre-pared after the sightings of the follow-ing night attributes the sightings tomisidentifications of the planets Venusand Jupiter and says, "the flashinglights are gases in the atmosphere ...Request incident closed this unit." Inresponse to a classified advertisementplaced by the investigators, otherwitnesses contacted us and havebeen interviewed as the investigationcontinues.

On the same night (March 4th) atabout 10:00 p.m., and continuing untilapproximately 10:30 p.m., C.H. (nameand address provided to MUFON)also reported a UFO near her home,which is a few miles south of the lakeshore and just east of the PerryNuclear Plant. C.H. was walking apuppy when she noticed the station-ary triangular object in the southeast-erly sky. It was much brighter thanthe moon, and seemed to upset thepuppy which she took back indoors.Returning outdoors, she reported thatthe object began sequentially flashingmulti-colored lights, suspended in rowsbelow the base of the triangle. Thewitness responded by flashing hercigarette lighter and the UFO's lightpattern became more erratic. At on*?point, the triangle revolved clockwise,

Mutual UFO Journal. Number 249, January 19S9

turning its apex about 90 degrees toa horizontal position, but still flashingthe rows of light. After several min-utes, it turned back counter-clockwiseas it simultaneously accelerated awayto the south at a high rate of speed,disappearing behind some trees. Nonoise or odor was reported.

SIMILAR SIGHTINGS

At about 10:30 p.m. that night T.K.(name and address provided toMUFON), took a photograph in hisback yard, within a few miles of thePerry Nuclear Plant, showing a por-tion of a brightly lit triangular objecttravelling across the sky (photographin possession of MUFON). This objectwas later confirmed by Mr. and Mrs.B and C.H. to be identical to the tri-angular objects they were also observ-ing about the same time a few milesaway, and is also similar to one

reported to Phil Imbrogno as havingbeen near the Indian Point NuclearPower Plant in New York State onthe same night.

T.K. and his friend were outdoorson the night of March 4th, observingthe stars through his telescope. Venusand Jupiter were reported to be inthe western sky behind a stand oftrees. While looking southward throughthe telescope, out of the corner of hisleft eye, T.K. noticed a bright, movingobject in the sky. He and his friendwere awe-struck by the triangularobject, but he did have the presenceof mind to take three photographswith a small "snapshot" type cameraloaded with Kodak 110 color film,with which they had intended to pho-tograph stars through the telescope.

Only one photograph turned out. Itis the last in the series, taken whilepanning ahead of the object, andshows the front portion of the trian-

gle. The object was described asabout 3-4 inches tall at arm's lengthand glowing an intense yellow/orangeto white, with a bright orange/redglow behind it. It seemed to pulsebrighter and dimmer, moving in aroughly southwesterly direction untilit was obscured by trees. As itmoved, it accelerated, slowed andaccelerated again. No sound or smellwas noted, although his dog had astrong reaction, running in circles andtugging on T.K.'s sleeve, apparentlyin an attempt to urge him away fromthe object. Total time of observationwas a few minutes.

We continue to receive reports ofadditional UFOs over the sameperiod, some supported by photo-graphs and the sightings continue tothe date of this writing. Supplemen-tary reports will be provided as theinvestigation of the flap progresses.

Health Effects: A ResponseBy Dr. Michael A. Persinger

The comments by Grant Cameronin the November, 1988 issue concern-ing my article entitled "Possible in-creased cancer and depression riskamong UFO field researchers andpopulations near flap areas" are repletewith misconceptions. Because Mr.Cameron presents himself as a rela-tively normal person, with the possi-ble exception of a low gelastic thresh-old, perhaps his comments reflect myfailure to clearly present the ideas.Let me clarify two of the most impor-tant conceptual errors committed byMr. Cameron.

First, the tectonic strain hypothesisdoes not state that UFO-like luminos-ities are generated by earthquakes.The hypothesis predicts that regionaltectonic strain, as reflected by regionalearthquake activity, are the causalfactors in the generation of theseluminosities. Earthquakes and lumin-osities are correlated because theyare generated by the same process:variations in regional stresses. Asthey slowly accumulate, dependingMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

upon local geology and the history ofstress release, luminosities may beobserved weeks to months (a typicalgeophysical time frame) before an actu-al fracture or seismic event occurswithin the region. The display ofanomalous lights immediately in thevicinity and within a few hours of anearthquake is simply a more obvioussubset of this condition.

According to the hypothesis (seePersinger and Derr, Perceptual andMotor Skills, 1985, 61, 807-813), themost likely earthquake that followedand accompanied the strain condi-tions that generated the 1975 Carmanlights was the unprecedented, largemagnitude earthquake in the south-ern extent of the Red River near itsorigin along the Minnesota-North Dako-ta border during July of that year.The secondary series of displays, thatlasted until September, 1976 waspunctuated by the second largestrelease of seismic energy for thatregion during this period. If morelights have occurred very recently

near Carman and they were sub-jected to the same careful collectioncriteria that was employed by ChrisRutkowski, then the recent occurren-ces might be: 1) predictors of anotherquake within this region, and 2) ameans to test the predictive validityof the hypothesis within this area.

The second conceptual error report-ed by Mr. Cameron involves hisreflexive rejection of potential healtheffects. If luminosities are generatedby the forces that have been postu-lated, then a public risk factor mustbe considered (its determination isalso an ethical responsibility of thescientist if the tectonic strain hypothe-sis is valid). For every single case thatMr. Cameron contends there are nolong term sequelae, I can state a casewhere there has been such changes;one example is the occurrence of abrain tumor within one of the closeobservers of the initial Medjugorjiphenomenon. However, anecdotal rea-soning does not support or refutehypotheses that involve heterogene-

17

ous or multivariate phenomena, suchas the UFO problem.

As stated in the August 1988MUFON Journal article, the magni-tude of any effect would be withinepidemiological ranges, such as greaterthan 10 to 20 cases per 100,000 peo-ple for brain tumors and greater than1 to 4 cases per 100 people for psy-chological depression; the specificrisk ratio would be modulated byproximity to and duration of expo-sure to these luminosities. Manifesta-tions of the effect would be specificand include primarily disorders (psy-chological depression and brain tumorsin adults) that are promoted by main-tained ACTH (adrenocorticotrophichormone) elevations in conjunctionwith low level current induction withinthe body. In the Carman, Manitobaregion, depression cases should have

increased during the years 1975 through1978; elevated, cumulative incidenceof brain tumors (since 1976), whichwould require access to the cancerregistry, would be more difficult todetermine because of the small popu-lation size. Only a carefully con-ducted study, not nonchalant tele-phone interviews, would answer thequestion. Special emphasis might begiven to people who lived within thespatial focus of the 1975-76 observa-tions (even if they did not reportUFOs), compared to a referencepopulation. Perhaps Mr. Cameronmight obtain the help of a residentepidemiologist at the University ofManitoba.

Many of us who have experience inmedical geography and geochemicalepidemiology clearly recall the flip-pant mentality that preceded the

demonstration that low level radiationdownwind from the White SandsTesting Grounds caused thyroidalcancer (due to the unexpected, selec-tive accumulation of radioactive iodinewithin this organ during its fetaldevelopment) or the tragic conse-quences of Love Canal in New Yorkstate. Sometimes the environmentalbasis of even blatant pathology hasbeen difficult to establish, especially ifthe agent is variable in time andspace; Minamata's disease in Japan,is a classic example. Even though therisk factors from repeated, closeproximity to luminosities appear to bemuch smaller at this time, clear andcareful study is required. Concern forthe public health, Mr. Cameron,should evoke consideration, not indis-criminant laughter.

Survey of Ufologistsand Beliefs in Unexplained Phenomena

By Donald A. Johnson, Ph.D.

MUFON Consultant in Research Psychology

In order to learn what beliefsUFOlogists hold about paranormalphenomena — particularly parapsy-chological phenomena — and todetermine whether a relationship existsbetween witnessing UFO events andbelief in psychic abilities, I conducteda small survey of attendees of the1983 MUFON Symposium, held inPasadena, California. This report pre-sents the results from that survey.

There were three things I hoped toaccomplish by conducting this sur-vey. The first goal was mainly des-criptive: to determine what pattern ofbeliefs exists among UFOlogists inthe various paranormal phenomenalisted in the questionnaire. I thoughtit would be interesting to find out towhat degree these beliefs differ fromthose held by the general public. Thecomparison data was supplied by asurvey of 1553 adults conducted bythe Gallup Poll in February 1978. Theresults were reported by Jeff Sobal18

Table 1Age and Education

of MUFON Respondents

Age Category18-29 Years30-49 Years40-49 Years50-64 Years65 Years and Over

Educational Level11 Years or Less12 Years13-15 Years16 Years17 Years or More

Percent3

243028

100%

08

2528

100%

and Charles Emmons in the ZeteticScholar (1).

The second purpose of the surveywas to discover if UFO witnessesdiffer significantly from non-witnesses

in their beliefs in unexplained pheno-mena, and especially to determinewhether UFO witnesses have higherrates of belief in unexplained pheno-mena. Such a finding, if replicated,might lead to the conclusion thatUFO witnesses, as a group, have alower threshold of acceptance forphenomena not recognized or explain-ed by current scientific paradigms. Itcould suggest that they are less skep-tical and more credulous than non-witnesses. Evidence of this kind wouldtend to cast doubt on the validity ofat least some UFO eyewitness tes-timony, because the ability of theseobservers to distinguish inexplicablephenomena from everyday eventswould be called into question.

The third objective was to test thehypothesis that a relationship existsbetween belief in one's own psychicabilities and the witnessing of UFOphenomena. A correspondence betweenbelief in psychic ability and witnessing

Mutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

UFO events has been hypothesizedby a number of authors, and sometentative evidence to support such arelationship was presented by BentonJamison (2) at the 1976 C.U.F.O.S.Conference. This relationship, shouldit exist, could have a variety ofcauses. It could be that greater open-mindedness and perceptiveness onthe part of psychic UFO witnessesallows them to witness possibly paranor-mal aspects of the UFO phenomena;it might be that psychic individualsare selected to witness UFO events;or it could be that so-called "psy-chics" are simply more gullible andmore easily fooled by misperceivedstimuli.

The survey was designed to elicitbeliefs about UFOs and other unex-plained phenomena. Two hundredquestionnaires were distributed at theconference, and 70 completed questi-onnaires were returned, representinga 35% response rate. However, someof the participants were allowed totake and keep an extra copy of thequestionnaire, so the actual participa-tion rate may be higher. Since this isa "convenience" sample and not atrue probability sample of UFO research-ers, inferences about the generaliza-bility of the results are generally notwarranted. However, it is my opinionthat the answers provided by thesample probably reflect the views of asub-population of those individualsidentified as "UFOlogists". This groupconsists of those people with enoughinterest in the UFO phenomenon toattend a conference, and with suffi-cient interest in the general purposesof this survey to participate.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire consisted of twobrief paragraphs describing the study,three questions on respondent's beliefsregarding the UFO phenomenon, twelvequestions on other unexplained pheno-mena drawn from the Gallup Pollsurvey, four questions on belief inone's own psychic abilities, and twoquestions on how often the respond-ent had witnessed a UFO. All questi-onnaires were completed anonym-ously. In addition to completing theabove mentioned items, participantsMutual UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

Table 2

Belief in UFOs and Other Unexplained Phenomenaby MUFON Sample

Percent of RespondentsNo ? Yes

UFOs are real rather than imaginaryUFOs are intelligently controlled devicesUFOs are extraterrestrial visitors

Do you believe in:AngelsDevilsLife After DeathLoch Ness MonsterBigfoot (Sasquatch)WitchesGhostsAstrologyESPPrecognitionDeja vuClairvoyance

164

48591813106238639111416

3826

242819465223312123254125

968670

261363413815311668644558

100%100%100%

100%100%100%100%100%100%.100%100%100%100%100%100%

were asked- to supply informationabout their age, sex, race, education,and marital status.

A few survey participants objectedto using the term "belief" to definetheir opinions about the existence ofparanormal phenomena. While I read-ily concede that the word is not the

best choice of terms because of thereligious connotation associated withits use, it was necessary to retain theterminology used by the Gallup Pollto insure comparability with theirresults. I don't believe that it infe-rered with anyone's interpretation ofthe meaning of the questions.

Table 3

Comparison of the beliefs of UFO witnesses and non-witnesses

Witnesses

UFOs are real rather than imaginaryUFOs are intelligently controlled devicesUFOs are extraterrestrial visitors

Do you believe in:AngelsDevilsLife After DeathLoch Ness MonsterBigfootWitchesGhostsAstrologyESPPrecognitionDeja vuClairvoyance

%Yes1009477

432176485024452173695468

Ave.3.002.902.77

2.171.752.662.412.431.762.171.662.632.582.392.54

Non-Witnesses%Yes

927861

1785136318221464634053

Ave.2.892.692.52

1.561.422.292.192.191.361.811.472.562.542.292.39

19

Results

Nearly two-thirds of the respond-ents were male, and the sample wasnearly equally split between married(49%) and unmarried (51%) individu-als. Ninety-one percent listed theirracial or ethnic group as White, while3% were Hispanic, 3% Black, and 3%Asian. Two of the Black respondentsalso indicated they were part Ameri-can Indian. Only two of the respond-ents were younger than thirty. Ingeneral, survey participants tended tobe middle-aged and very well edu-cated, as Table 1 shows. Almost half(46%) of the respondents had wit-nessed at least one UFO, and one-third reported having seen UFOs onmore than one occasion.

If we assume that the sample ofUFOlogists is truely representative ofa larger population, then we can dis-regard for the moment the inappro-priateness of applying statistical teststo the results of a "convenience"sample. Concerning the first goal ofthe survey, it turns out that UFOlo-gists can be categorized as similar tothe general public in their beliefs inparanormal activity, except that theyare significantly less likely to believein angels, devils, and astrology, andsignificantly more likely to believe inevidence for psychic phenomena andthe existence of valid cryptqzoologicclaims. Table 2 presents the results ofthe beliefs question.

In general, the Gallup Poll resultsreveal that the more education onehas the more likely one is to believein psychic abilities. When comparedto only those with college training,the differences in belief in psychicphenomena become less noticeable.Belief in precognition and clairvoy-ance are still significantly more com-mon among UFOlogists than amongthe college trained general public, butno significant differences remain for"ESP" or "deja vu".

The results on whether UFOlogistswho report having seen a UFO differin their beliefs from UFOlogists whohave never had a UFO sighting arenot definitive. On the one hand, therewas a trend among some who havewitnessed the UFO phenomenon tobe less critical of other unexplained20

Table 4

Comparison of the psychic ability beliefs ofUFO witnesses and non-witnesses

Believe have some ability to gainextra-sensory perceptions (ESP) ofthoughts and feelings of otherpeople (telepathy)?

Believe have some ability to gainimpressions of events or objectswhich are outside usual environ-ment (clairvoyance)?

Believe have some ability to gainimpressions of future events(pre-cognition)?

Believe have some ability toinfluence the physical environmentaround you (psychokinesis of "mindover matter")?

Witnesses Non-witnesses% Yes Ave. % Yes Ave.

48 2.32 53 2.25

45 2.10 36 1.92

42 2.16 33 1.86

27 1.76 19 1.64

phenomenon. However, the samplesize is not sufficient to make anyconclusions about that trend. Thedata are reported in Table 3. Thedata are presented in two ways: withthe percentage who had responded"yes" to each of the "do you believein" statements; and as an average ofthe numeric values of the responses,with "no" coded 1, "?" coded 2, and"yes" coded 3. There were 31 whoreported having had at least one UFOsighting and 36 who reported not hav-ing had any sightings.

The differences between the twogroups were greatest for beliefs inreligious phenomena such as angelsand life after death, and for the "Hal-loween" associated phenomena ofghosts and witches. While these dif-ferences prove nothing, they do sug-gest that the non-witnesses showmore skepticism in general, whichmight lead one to infer that they alsohave a higher threshold for rejectingunusual phenomena they personallyobserve as lacking a mundane expla-nation. Conversely, it may also beseen as evidence suggesting that atleast some UFO witnesses are lessskeptical and more credulous thannon-witnesses. In one respect, "see-

ing" does seem to equate with "believ-ing": respondents who had witnessedUFOs more than once were signifi-cantly more likely to say that UFOsare extraterrestrial visitors (87°o) thanthose who had never witnessed theUFO phenomenon or had witnessedit only once (59%).

There were no significant differen-ces between a belief in one's ownpsychic abilities and whether or notone has personally witnessed theUFO phenomenon. Table 4 displaysthese results for both witnesses andnon-witnesses. However, there ireresignificant differences for the numberof UFO encounters for both belief inpre-cognition ability and psychokine-sis ability. Those who responded yesto the pre-cognition question reportedan average of 2.9 UFO sightingscompared to an average of one UFOsighting for the remainder of thesample. Those who felt they had anability with psychokinesis reportedlyhad seen UFOs an average of 3.33times, compared to 1.1 times forthose who said they did not have :h<?ability or weren't sure.

This last finding is interesting, but itis certainly preliminary and open to awide variety of interpretations. As I

MUTUAL UFO Journal. Number 249. January I***

mentioned previously, "psychics" maysimply be more gullible and more aptto misinterpret ambiguous stimuli, orit might be that they are actuallymore perceptive and that this percep-tiveness has some relation to theUFO phenomenon. Before we lendfurther credence to this latter inter-pretation it would behoove us to testthese individuals under controlled,laboratory conditions to determinewhether these abilities can indeed beproven to exist.

References

(1) Sobal, Jeff and Charles F.Emmons (1982). Patterns of belief inreligious, psychic and other paranor-mal phenomena, Zetetic Scholar, no.9 (March 1982), pp. 7-17.

(2) Jamison, Benton (1976). Someproposals: Modest, immodest, andmaybe fundable. In Nancy Dourbos(ed), Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOSConference. Evanston, IL: Center forUFO Studies, pp. 119-132.

In Others' WordsBy Lucius Parish

UFO sightings by Cheyenne, Wyom-ing police officers and others are detailedin an article in the November 1 issueof National Enquirer. A University of Colo-rado Fiske Planetarium official statedthat the reported object could nothave been a planet or optical illusioncaused by astronomical or atmos-pheric conditions.

Journal editor Dennis Stacy, a fre-quent contributor to OMM's "Anti-Matter/UFO Update" column, discuss-es UFO-related videotapes and wherethey may be obtained in the maga-zine's November issue. "Video Dave"Aaron's UFO Audio/Video Clearing-house (Box 342 - Yucaipa, CA 92399-4660) has a list of tapes (VHS orBeta) available for $2.00 and a stamp-ed, self-addressed envelope. Decem-ber OMM has Patrick Huyghe'sreport on NASA's role in UFO inves-tigation and their offer to analyze anyalleged physical evidence of UFOs.

Since October 1987, the people inWythe County, Virginia have beenseeing all manner of strange lightsand craft in their skies. Danny Gor-don, news editor of WYVE Radio inWytheville, has been in the middle of

the uproar over the sightings and hasnow put his experiences in bookform. Gordon's co-author, Paul Del-linger, is senior bureau chief for thesouthwest bureau of The RoanokeTimes And World News. If you wantan interesting look at what happenswhen UFOs start appearing in a local-ized area (Corydon, Indiana andAshdown, Arkansas are two other goodexamples), you will want to readDon't Look Up! The book is soft-cover, priced at $13.00 postpaid, fromEmpire Publishing, Inc. — Route 3,Box 83 - Madison, NC 27025.

A new book dealing with all mannerof "Fortean" phenomena (which nat-urally includes UFOs) has just beenpublished by Berkley Books. BizarreAmerica by Gerry Hunt has storiesof Bigfoot, sea/lake monsters, fallsfrom the sky, poltergeists, and a var-iety of other phenomena, in additionto reports of UFOs and abductions.It is available in paperback for $3.50.Berkley is publishing/reprinting sev-eral books of interest, such as Miss-ing Time, Intruders, The RoswellIncident, a revised edition of TujungaCanyon Contacts and others.

Looking BackBy Bob Gribble

FORTY YEARS AGO - January1949: A huge, mysterious ball of lightsuddenly appeared from the night skyMUTUAL UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

and slowly circled the control towerat the greater Cincinnati, Ohio Air-port (date unknown). One of the two

tower controllers tried to contact theUFO by radio but got no response.As the object came closer, "undercontrol," both controllers fled thetower in panic.

***THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO -

January 1954: An experienced pilot,Captain D. Barker of the A.N.A. air-line, observed a UFO above theYarra Valley, Victoria, Australia, at10:15 a.m. on the first. "It was huge,was shaped like a metallic mushroom,at least four times as big as a DC-3and ten times as fast," Barker said.Other observers said the object "seem-ed to have a transparent glass-likedome." The craft was in sight forabout 12 seconds.

On the 14th, a large fiery objectwas seen dropping from the sky nearIdyllwild, (Now John F. KennedyInternational Airport) New York Cityat about 5:30 p.m. Immediately after-ward, a B-47 pilot flying in the areanotified the tower that "an unknownobject just hit our wing." The dam-aged wing did not crumple, and thepilot nursed the plane to a safe land-ing.

***THIRTY YEARS AGO - Janu-

ary 1959: Kenneth Leland was flyingas a radar observer (date unknown),in a two-man jet based at Duluth AirForce Base, Minnesota, when hisplane was scrambled after a UFO."At that time there were quite a fewUFO spottings," he said. "In this par-ticular case, the UFO we wereinvolved with was definitely on theradar in our plane. The object wasactually over a radar station in Fin-land, Minnesota, northeast of Duluth.We heard on the radio that some ofthe fellows at the radar site had goneoutside and looked at it, hoveringover the station. But by the time wegot there it was gone. The people onthe ground there said the UFO wentfrom about 1000 feet to 200 mileshigh and left the area completely in avery brief period of time."

On the 17th the U.S. Air Forceadmitted that the pursuit, study, andinvestigation of UFOs had cost thegovernment $200 million to date.

21

Most of this money was spent by theAir Force, although the Army, Navy,Coast Guard, Civil Aeronautics Admin-istration and Central Intelligence Agen-cy also figured in running up thetotal. The $200 million outlay includesan estimated $25 to $30 million foraircraft lost or destroyed while chas-ing UFOs. (Note: as early as 1954General Benjamin Chidlow — whilecommanding an Air Force Base inColorado — admitted "we have lostmany men and planes trying to inter-cept them (the UFOs)" and added hewas seriously concerned about theselosses, as were others.)

***FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - Janu-

ary 1974: Captain Lars Berglund waspiloting a Boeing 727 on the 26th andit had just passed over Lisbon, Por-tugal at 2:59 a.m. when he spotted aformation of 10 or 15 discs. Theentire group of discs were in sight foronly one minute. The co-pilot andmechanic also viewed the formation.Soon after the discs passed by, aPortuguese aircraft called ground con-trol at Lisbon reporting that they hadobserved the formation, giving thesame description as that of Bergu-land. A Norwegian and British aircraftcrew also reported the formation ofdiscs.

***TEN YEARS AGO - January

1979: A Transvaal woman and herson claimed that they had encoun-tered a UFO and five or six strangebeings on a lonely road. Mrs. MeaganQuezet and her son Andre, 12, of Min-dalore, near Krugersdorp, South Afri-ca, said they encountered a brightly-colored craft shortly after midnighton the fourth — and claimed "strangecreatures" tried to communicate withthem. They said it started whenAndre found himself unable to sleep,and all the dogs in the neighborhoodbegan barking. Their dog ran offdown the road, and mother and sonfollowed. They said they saw a brightpink light just over a rise and thenencountered the craft and dark skinnedbeings wearing "white or pink suits."

The Night SkyBy Walter N. Webb

MUFON Astronomy Consultant

January 1989

Bright Planets (Evening Sky):

Mars, moving from Pisces into Aries, stands high in the south at dusk.Fading past zero magnitude, the red planet now sets in the west about12:30 AM in midmonth. It gradually is closing on Jupiter and passes thegiant world in March. This month the Moon passes first Mars on the 14thand then Jupiter two nights later.

Jupiter, in Taurus, is visible high in the SE at dusk. Shining at magnitude-2.6 in mid-January, this planet resumes eastward motion on the 20th.

Bright Planets (Morning Sky):

Venus (magnitude -3.9) slides by Saturn (+0.5) on the morning of January16. Our neighbor world can be seen then only 0.6° below the muchdimmer ringed giant. Use binoculars or a telescope. Both planets are verylow in the SE at dawn. After the 16th, Venus moves nearer the horizoneach morning, while Saturn ascends higher in the sky. The crescent Moonis near Venus on the 5th.

Jupiter sets in the NW about 3 AM in midmonth.

Meteor Shower:

The Quadrantid meteors peak during the predawn hours of the 3rd. Theshower is composed mostly of slow, faint, bluish meteors which radiatefrom Bootes in the NE. This year North America is favored by the showerwhich has a rather sharply defined short peak. The rate can range any-where from perhaps 40 to more than 100 per hour. The crescent Moonmay interfere slightly.

Moon Phases:

New moori — January 7First quarter — January 14Full moon — January 21Last quarter — January 29

The Stars:

C o

22Continued next page

The night sky of January features some of the brightest stars in the heav-ens. Orion the Hunter now dominates the southern sky and with its char-acteristic hourglass figure is perhaps the easiest of all constellations tospot. Because of its position above the equator, Orion is visible frommany places on Earth. The pattern played an important role in themythology of cultures throughout the world.

The great warrier serves as a guidepost to almost all of the interestingstars of the season. A line through the three "belt" stars toward the SEpoints to the brightest luminary in the night sky, Sirius the Dog Star. The

MUTUAL UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

same line extended in the opposite direction to the fiery eye of the BullTaurus, Aldebaran. The tiny star cluster called the Pleiades is supposed tobe a spear-wound in the bull's shoulder. Aldebaran and Sirius are two ofthe first-magnitude stars which form the Winter Circle surrounding Orion.

Don't forget to look at the fuzzy middle "star" in the hunter's sword —the great Orion Nebula, a glowing cloud of gas and dust and a seasonalfavorite of amateur astronomers.

Finally, on January 23 the Moon two days past full rises near Regulus inthe ENE and later in the evening occults the star from the eastern half ofthe country. Use a telescope to watch the Moon's approach towardRegulus.

Calendar of UFO Conferences for 1989April 14, 15 & 16 — Ozark UFO Conference, Inn of the Ozarks, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

April 29, 30 & May 1 — The Third European "Rencontres de Lyon - 1989" Congress,Lyon Conference Center, Lyon, France

June 30, July 1 & 2 — MUFON International UFO Symposium, Aladdin Hotel andCasino, Las Vegas, Nevada

July 14, 15 & 16 — Fifth London International UFO Congress, London BusinessSchool, Regents Park, London, England

September 15, 16 & 17 - 26th Annual National UFO Conference, Phoenix Arizona(location to be announced)

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

LOOKING BACK, Continued

The Quezets said the bearded "leader"bowed and tried to speak to them ina high-pitched voice. But the beingsjumped back into the craft when Mrs.Quezet told Andre to get his father,and it took off with a humming noiseand disappeared into the sky. (Inves-tigated by Cynthia Hind, ContinentalCoordinator for Africa.)

MESSAGE, Continued

above project, MUFON has con-sented to supply a confidential com-puterized list of all our members whoare classified as Consultants (only).This list does not include our officerswho serve in dual roles such as StateDirectors and Consultants, etc. HowardHoffman, J.D., a UFO researcher inthe Washington, DC area, has agreedto do the leg-work on this project,compiling the list of scientists andmailing out the statement for them tosign. Howard is an associate ofCUFQS and a Consultant in Law toMUFON. May I advise each MUFONConsultant that this is a voluntaryMUTUAL UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989

program, however, we invite yourparticipation.

News Around the Network

The theme for the MUFON 1989International UFO Symposium in LasVegas, Nevada at the Aladdin Hoteland Casino on June 30, July 1 and 2,will be "The UFO Cover-Up." Speak-ers presently committed are WilliamL. "Bill" Moore and Donald A.Johnson, Ph.D. Letters of invitationto other speakers are pending theiracceptance with more to be mailed.

With the presidential election behindher, Marge Christensen has rein-stated her active involvement asMUFON's Director of Public Educa-tion, a role in which she is highlyqualified based upon several years ofoutstanding achievements. (She ispresently working on another signifi-cant UFO public education projectthat will be announced when it hasbeen confirmed.) Robert H. Bletch-man, Director of Public Relations, isconstantly on the alert for significantUFO related news that could bedeveloped in to a MUFON News

Release, potentially impacting the gen-eral public and government agencies.Please contact Mr. Bletchman by tel-ephone at his office (203) 643-2433 orhis home (203) 646-5237 with yourideas.

Three candidates have been nomi-nated for Eastern Regional Directorto fill the vacancy created when JoeSantangelo's term expires on theBoard of Directors this year. Listedalphabetically they are Stephen J.Firmani, State Director for Massa-chusetts; Robert L. Oechsler, StateSection Director for Anne Arundel,Howard and Calvert Counties inMaryland; and Donald M. Ware,State Director for Florida. Nomina-tions will be closed on January 31,1989, therefore this will be the lastopportunity to nominate a candidatefor this important position. A ballotwill be enclosed in a future issue ofthe Journal to all members in theEastern Region of states so they maycast their vote for Regional Director.

"Interviewing the UFO Witness," a45-minute VHS videotape producedby Michigan MUFON, Inc. is nowavailable for $15.00 U.S. (includingpostage and handling). Narrated byDan Wright, MUFON Deputy Direc-tor of Investigations, the programdepicts a field investigator in a varietyof circumstances. This is an idealmeans for training field investigatorsin a classroom environment or betterstill for the field investigator traineethat is somewhat isolated geographi-cally and does not have the benefit ofgroup instruction. Send orders to:Shirley Coyne, 73 Borman, Flush-ing, MI 48433. The MUFON FieldInvestigator's Manual (161 pages) isstill available from MUFON for $6.00for current members and $10.00 forall others, plus $1.50 for postage andhandling. The MUFON 1988 Interna-tional UFO Symposium Proceedings(241 pages) may be purchased fromMUFON for $15.00 plus $1.50 pos-tage and handling. The theme of the1988 symposium was "Abductionsand the E.T. Hypothesis."

MUFON23

Director's MessageBy Walt Andrus

As we enter the new year, 1989marks the twentieth anniversary ofMUFON in Ufology. The monthlymagazine SKYLOOK, official publica-tion of the Mutual UFO Network,was founded in September 1967. InJune 1976 the name was changed tothe MUFON UFO JOURNAL tomore accurately describe its purpose,since SKYLOOK may have soundedlike an astronomy organization. MUFONhas grown since its founding on May31, 1969 from a central states regionalorganization, appropriately called theMidwest UFO Network, to its pres-ent worldwide international scope.The name was changed to the MutualUFO Network in late 1973 to betterreflect the goals and purposes of theorganization and to eliminate thegeographical connotation which hadbecome obsolete. Membership willexceed 2000 early in 1989.

New Officers

New officers appointed during Novem-ber to stay abreast of the continuedgrowth of MUFON are the following:O. Faruk Imamoglu, M.A. of Balgat,Ankara, Representative for Turkey.William I. McNcff, State Directorfor Minnesota, reassigned and appoint-ed these State Section Directors,Richard C. "Buddy" Bauerlein forHennepin, Carver and Scott counties;Robert E. Engberg for Ramsey andDakota counties (Bob is a formerState Director for both MN and ND);and John D. Dingley for Washing-ton and Anoka counties. Donald A.Curtis, State Director for Iowa selectedMichael E. Brunner of Cedar Rap-ids for Linn and Jones counties. Wal-ter N. Hnot, Jr., J.D. (AmateurRadio Operator KB2FMZ) of Phillips-burg, NJ was appointed State SectionDirector for Warren and Hunterdoncounties by Tom Benson.

David R. Hillendahl of Houston,TX is replacing Richard Holt as

State Section Director for HarrisCounty. David was instrumental inhelping Max Washburn and RichardHolt with their recent UFO Confer-ence in Houston, featuring John F.Schuessler and Budd Hopkins.

New Consultants volunteering theirexpertise are Michel Granger, Ph.D.of Chalon/Saone, France for Chemis-try; Jeffrey H. Utter, Ph.D., living inPasadena, California in Sociology ofReligion; Henry Azadehdel, Ph.D.,residing in Nottingham, England forPhysics and a Research Specialist inAbduction Cases; and John C. Kasher,Ph.D., of Omaha, Nebraska for Phys-ics. The following new Research Spe-cialists have been appointed: Luis A.Caso, M.A, of Jamaica Queens, NYfor Criminal Justice; Donald A.Haines, M.S., living in East Lansing,Michigan in Atmospheric Sciences;Severn L. Schaeffer, M.A. of Paris,France for Medical Epistemology; andJohn W. Herrick, Jr. M.A., in Corpus Christi, TX in Clinical Psychologyand Hypnotherapy.

Fund For UFO Research Projects

The Mutual UFO Network is sup-porting two major projects initiatedby the Fund for UFO Research(FUFOR) under the direction of Dr.Bruce S. Maccabee, Chairman. Inorder to continue the research intothe validity and possible perpetuationof the MJ-12 committee, establishedby President Harry S. Truman,Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear phys-icist, has been contracted to exploreand research MJ-12 to an ultimateconclusion for $16,000 on a full timebasis. As of December 15, 1988,Frederick Whiting advised that $11,000of this goal has been reached. Dona-tions and gifts are still being acceptedby making a check payable to Fundfor UFO Research, P.O. Box 277,Mount Rainier, Maryland 20822. (MUFONhas contributed $500 to this project.)

In a letter addressed to MarkRodeghier and Walter Andrus, Dr.Maccabee outlined the following propo-sal as the second project and I quote:"The Fund for UFO Research hasbegun a project7 to get as manyscientists as possible — hopefully,several hundred — to sign a state-ment that UFO reports merit scien-tific study. We think a project likethis is long overdue, and that the listof scientists could be very useful formany purposes. We would like to askyour organizations to join us in thisproject, so that CUFOS, the Fund,and MUFON would be equal sponsors.

"The project is straight-forward.We recommend setting a goal of col-lecting the signatures of 200-300 scien-tists around the world. The list ofscientists could be used for the pur-poses agreed on by CUFOS, theFund, and MUFON. We recommendthat these purposes include: (1) facili-tating "networking" among scientists,(2) informing the media, (3) publica-tion in the MUFON UFO Journaland IUR, (4) informing congressionaloffices and (5) soliciting contributionsfrom wealthy individuals and founda-tions.

"We recommend that 'scientist'include any person with a Ph.D. orM.D. degree, and any person profes-sionally engaged in scientific activities.(Stan Friedman and Walter Webbare good examples of this last cate-gory.) We would then draft a state-ment for the scientists to sign. Itwould also give the scientists anopportunity to make additional com-ments. The Fund would also solicitbrief biographic information from thescientists."

MUFON has always maintained itsmembership list confidential in spiteof the numerous requests from organ-izations, businesses, publications, andindividuals. In order to facilitate the

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