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MUFON UFO JOURNAL NUMBER 252 APRIL 1989 Founded 1967 I". OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF AfC/JFOJVV MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC. $3.00 Type 1 and type 2 objects photographed simultaneously with stereo cameras on May 1,1988. "The Scale Remains Unbalanced" SPECIAL GULF BREEZE ISSUE

MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

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Page 1: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

MUFON UFO JOURNALNUMBER 252 APRIL 1989

Founded 1967I". OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF AfC/JFOJVV MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC.

$3.00

Type 1 and type 2 objects photographed simultaneously with stereocameras on May 1,1988.

"The Scale Remains Unbalanced"

SPECIAL GULF BREEZE ISSUE

Page 2: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

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 CRAINGREG LONG

MICHAEL D. SWORDSSta« 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 ispub l i shed by the M u t u a l UFON e t w o r k , Inc . , Seguin , Texas.Membership/Subscr ipt ion 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 J O U R N A L , 103Oldtowne Rd., Seguin, Texas 78155-4099.

FROM THE EDITORHeft this 32-page issue of the Journal in your hands. The

additional weight, for the-most part, comes from Dr. Bruce Mac-cabee's thorough, thoughtful analysis of the controversy sur-rounding the Gulf Breeze case, particularly the charge that theprimary witness, "Mr. Ed," may have hoaxed the resulting Pola-roid, 35mm and video pictures that support his remarkable ser-ies of repeat sightings, including alleged abduction(s).

While we doubt Dr. Maccabee's article will dispel every lin-gering doubt in the minds of many, or heal all the rifts betweenindividual researchers (tempers, apparently, have flared toomuch for that), we do hope it will aid and allow our othermembers and subscribers to reach their own unbiased conclu-sions about this extremely intriguing episode in contemporaryufology.

In addition, we've managed to cram in our other regulardepartments, plus a few extras, like Dr. Richard Haines's sug-gested technique for the analysis of UFO-associated sounds. Wehope it doesn't get overlooked in the Gulf Breeze crunch.

In this issueTHE SCALE REMAINS UNBALANCED . . . . Bruce Maccabec, Ph.D. 3UFO SOUND

RECOGNITION TECHNIQUE Richard F. Haines, Ph.D. 25LOOKING BACK Bob Gribblc 27IN OTHERS' WORDS Lucius Parish 29APRILNIGHTSKY WaltcrWebb 30DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE Walt Andrus 32

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

ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDNo part of this document may be reproduced in any form by photostat,microfilm, xerograph, or any other means, without the written permissionof the Copyright Owners.

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.

Page 3: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

The Scale Remains UnbalancedBy Bruce Maccabee

A recent article by Richard Halland Willy Smith (H&S) concerningthe Gulf Breeze UFO sightings, Balanc-ing the Scale (reference 1), was writ-ten to "balance the picture by pres-enting a skeptical view, focusing onunanswered questions and investiga-tion that remains to be done before ahoax hypothesis can be ruled out."The article discusses a number ofspecific issues and makes severalgeneral points. The general points are(1) both favorable and unfavorableconclusions about the sightings report-ed by Mr. Ed were publicized prema-turely, i.e., before the analysis of thesightings was completed, (2) therehas been insufficient publication ofthe results of the various investiga-tions carried out, not only of Ed'ssightings and photographs, but alsoof the sightings of the other GulfBreeze" witnesses, (3) there is "nega-tive evidence" which reduces thecredibility of Ed's reports and sug-gests that Ed and his wife (and alsochildren and a friend and perhapsothers in Gulf Breeze) have contriveda UFO hoax and (4) "the 'positive'evidence has been reported in greatdetail," but legitimate skeptical ques-tions and issues have received farless attention. It is my consideredattempt to demonstrate.

The numerous incidents and pho-tos referred to in this paper havebeen described in considerable detailin reference 2, A History of the GulfBreeze, Florida Sightings which wasfirst published in the MUFON 1988International UFO Symposium Pro-ceedings. A corrected and updatedversion is available from the Fund forUFO Research. The updated versionincludes an analysis of the stereophotos of February 26 and May 1,and also copies of the viewgraphspresented at the Symposium. Manyof the incidents and photos referredto here nave been published inseveral issues of the MUFON UFOJournal, references 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

and 9 (March through September,1988).

Not Primarily APhotographic Case

Before beginning my responses tospecific questions I would like tomake general comments regardingthe numerous photographs whichcomprise a very important part of theGulf Breeze sightings. My initial impres-sion (and that of other investigators)was that Ed's sightings constituted aprimarily photographic case. In factmost investigators (myself included)initially felt that they could rely uponthe photographic evidence alone tomake or break the case. Therefore I,and others, diligently searched forirregularities and oddities which wouldclearly prove that hoax techniqueswere used in creating the pictures. Icould find no convincing proof. As Isearched, however, I recalled some-thing that I had learned years agowhile studying previous photographicUFO sightings (e.g., Trent, 1950;Mariana film, 1950; Gemini 11, 1966;New Zealand, 1978), namely, that thevalidity or invalidity of photographicreports cannot be based solely upona study of the photos because photo-graphic evidence is "unfairly biased"for the hoax hypothesis. This biascomes about because a single UFOphoto could contain evidence that, byitself, proues the sighting is phony.(For example, there might be a verti-cal linear image above the image of a"UFO" indicating that it was sus-pended by a string or thread; theremight be an image below the UFOimage suggesting that the UFO wassupported from below; there might bea discontinuous variation in bright-ness or color between the edge of theUFO image and the background indi-cating a photo montage; or there mightbe overlapping images indicating adouble exposure.) However, it is mypresent opinion that no single photo

could contain evidence which would,by itself, prove a sighting report to bevalid ("a photo does not a UFOmake") because the failure to findevidence of a hoax could mean thatthe hoaxing was done well enough tobe undetectable. A corollary of thisconclusion is that the truth or falsityof a photo which contains no clearevidence of a hoax must be provenusing some other information.

If by some other means the photois proven to be a hoax then the factthat the hoax was not detected in thephoto means that the hoaxer waseither very lucky or had access tosophisticated photographic equipmentand had developed an excellent photohoaxing technique.

It seems to me that, given enoughequipment and capability any photocould be hoaxed. Therefore it appearsa UFO photo which contains no clearevidence of hoaxing has no "value"other than to provide a reasonablyaccurate depiction of what the wit-ness(es) saw, assuming that the otherinformation obtained from the sight-ing investigation is sufficient to provethat the witness(es) actually did see aUFO.

There is another very importantcorollary to this argument: the "bet-ter" a photo is (the more convincingit is) the more difficult it is to fake.Therefore one can properly ask whetheror not the level of technical abilityand the quality of the equipmentneeded to produce the photo wouldbe available to the witness. In orderto answer this question the investiga-tor must (a) study methods by whichphotos can be hoaxed and determinewhether or not the witness was famil-iar with any of these methods and (b)determine whether or not the witnesswould have access to the necessaryequipment. It may be possible toshow that the witness does, indeed, un-derstand the methods of hoax photo-graphy and has access to the equip-ment necessary. If this is true then

3

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the hoax hypothesis is supported.Alternatively it may be impossible toshow that the witness has neither theknowledge of hoax photograph tech-niques nor the access to the requiredequipment. In this case the hoaxhypothesis is not supported. In thiscase one could state that the photowas probably not hoaxed. (Of course,if it were possible to prove that thewitness had neither knowledge northe necessary equipment, and if itcould be proven that no one hoaxedthe witness, then the hoax hypothesiswould be disproved.)

Proper Perspective

I have presented this general dis-cussion to set Ed's photos into theproper perspective. Ed has beenaccused of hoaxing the photos (orhaving an accomplice hoax them) andthis raises the question could he (oran accomplice) have done it? Adetailed study of his photos showsthat they could only be hoaxed usingrather complicated techniques, forexample, by using models in combi-nation with matted double exposures,in combination with reflections inglass or in combination with photom-ontages and rephotography (paste aphoto of a model on a much largerprint of the background scenery andphotograph the combination). I andother investigators have searched forany conclusive evidence that Ed hasany more than a rudimentary know-ledge of photography. We have foundno such conclusive evidence. Furth-ermore, there is no testimonial evi-dence or physical evidence that Edhas had a camera more complicatedthan his old Polaroid (until February,1988, when the MUFON investigatorsgave him a camera to use). This lackof even slightly sophisticated cameraequipment, such as a 35mm variablefocus, variable f/stop, variable shuttertime camera, "bodes ill" for the hoaxhypothesis since it would be likelythat he would have one or moresophisticated cameras if he werefamiliar with photographic techniques.

One of Ed's acquaintances ("PatrickHanks," who is also a witness to oneof Ed's sightings when a photo wasnot taken; Dec. 27, 1987) works in avideo rental store which also accepts4

film for developing. Some investiga-tors advanced the idea that perhapsEd's photos were created by this per-son using equipment at the store.However, it was subsequently deter-mined that the store sends out thefilm for processing and has no equip-ment of its own. Thus it appears thatEd had neither the knowledge nor theaccess to the equipment necessary tomake his supposed hoax photos. Ofcourse, the failure to find evidence ofphotographic knowledge and capabil-ity is not sufficient evidence to provethat the photos weren't hoaxed. Ifthey were, Ed would naturally attemptto conceal any information whichOcould suggest he was capable ofhoaxing them. But, on the otherhand, this line of investigation hasprovided no support for the hoaxhypothesis even though one wouldexpect it to provide some support forthat hypothesis if the photos were, infact, hoaxes by Ed or someone else.

Besides Ed's photos there are twoother sets of photos which show thesame type of UFO: "Believer Bill's"photos that were delivered to theGulf Breeze Sentinel office during theevening of Dec. 22, 1987 and "Jane's"photos that were delivered to thenewspaper in late November, 1987.These photos were made with differ-ent types of cameras (110 format and35mm format). The photographershave not revealed their completeidentities, and therefore have notbeen interviewed. It should be possi-ble to establish that these photo-graphers were in collusion with Ed(or that Ed actually took these pho-tos) if all of the Gulf Breeze photosare hoaxes.

I have studied Ed's photos andhave found no clear evidence ofhoaxing (no strings, no supports,etc.) Yet, there are odd features ofthe UFO images. The operative ques-tion is, do any of these odd featuresprove that the photos are hoaxes, ormight any of these oddities be inher-ent properties of the UFOs them-selves? Many of these features cer-tainly bear discussion (and will bediscussed), but none of these, in myopinion, proues that they are hoaxphotos.

Thus I feel that this is not primarilya photographic case because the

truth or falsity of Ed's reports mustbe based on non-photographic infor-mation.

No Lack of Skepticism

Hall and Smith have complainedthat there has not been enough skep-ticism about Ed's reports on the partof the "pro" investigators. However,to the contrary, the investigatorswere skeptical from the beginning(Walter Andrus' initial thought was"shades of Billy Meier," reference 3,page 15). My initial response in hear-ing about the case, in early January(1988), was similar. A few weeks laterI first saw (poor) copies of the firstfive photos and I wasn't impressed. Ipresumed that they were hoaxes andI wasn't interested in studying them.In late January I saw better copies(black and white, 8" * 10" printsmade by Robert Nathan) and I wasimpressed by the lack of image over-lap in the first photo (more on thislater). "Tough double exposure," Ithought. However, I still consideredthem to be hoaxes. It wasn't until Igot a call from Budd Hopkins, nearthe middle of February, 1988, that Ibecame more interested. Budd hadvisited Ed and had gained the impres-sion that neither Ed nor his wife werelying about their encounters (evi-dently the same impression that thelocal investigators had gained in Jan-uary) and he told me that Ed's sight-ings could be of considerable impor-tance and suggested that I study thephotographic evidence to see if therewas evidence of a hoax. I was stillskeptical and thought that the localinvestigators were probably being abit soft-headed in even thinking thatthese photos might be valid.

Budd also told me that the GulfBreeze sightings (not just Ed's sight-ings) had received a lot of pressattention and that there was going tobe a TV documentary on Ed's sight-ings. This worried me a lot. I felt thatit was premature to be publicizing so"shaky" a case. I was afraid that afterall the publicity was over the casewould be proven to be a hoax andthen, once again, UFO investigatorswould be the butt of jokes from thepress and skeptics. Although I wasreluctant to get involved because IMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

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figured it would be a waste of timeinvestigating a photographic hoaxcase, I decided to go to Floridabefore the major publicity got started.I hoped to be able to resolve the con-troversy (by demonstrating that thephotos had been a hoax) before theTV documentary was completed sothat the expose would not occur afterthe media blitz.

My own investigation began onFeb. 19 when I flew to Florida andmet the local investigators and Ed. AsI carried out my investigation overthe next few days I felt the "weight"of the impending press attention andI didn't like it. The press is alwayspushing for answers or at least forquotable statements and this pres-sure hinders the investigation. As Iworked with the local investigatorsand with Ed I found more and morequestions were being raised and fewanswers of the type I sought (provinga hoax) were forthcoming. I wasn'table to find immediate proof of ahoax, but neither could I prove thatthe sightings were real. My responseto a press query about my opinion ofthe case was that it was "impressive."I knew that this was certainly true: itwas impressive whether real or ahoax. Because I could arrive at noconclusion I felt even more stronglythat publicity was premature. (Thedocumentary was shown on March4.)

Skeptical of the Skeptics

I remained skeptical through thespringtime as I worked on the MUFONsymposium paper (ref. 2) and as Icommunicated with Ed and the localinvestigators. However, my skepti-cism was "tempered by reality" as Edcontinually responded to my requestsfor technical information, some ofwhich could have damaged his caseby helping me prove a fraud. I care-fully listened to what Ed was sayingand I checked and cross-checked. Ofcourse, my investigation was not per-fect. "Loose ends" have cropped upsince my report at the MUFON sym-posium. Nevertheless, I could find no"smoking gun," although several skep-tics claimed that they had found sev-eral reasons, both photographic andnon-photographic, to doubt the case.MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

I felt that many of their argumentswere weak or just plain wrong and soI became skeptical of the skeptics.

Nevertheless I remained skepticalof Ed's case until the middle of May,after I had analyzed Ed's last photos.These were "SRS" camera stereophotos taken at about 1:15 AM, May1, 1988, just before Ed had a "missingtime" experience (which he reportedto me about twelve hours after itsoccurrence). These stereo photoscontain images of two UFOs of dif-ferent types and sizes and at differentdistances. The more distant UFO("Type 1", about 475 feet away) wascalculated to be quite large (e.g.estimated at over twenty feet acrossthe center section and 14 feet high).It was of the same general type as hehad photographed numerous times inDecember, 1987. The closer, smallerUFO ("Type 3," 132 feet away) wasdifferent: it strongly resembled theUFO he had photographed on Feb-ruary 26 with the Nimslo stereocamera. My calculations showed thatthe size of this type of UFO asdetermined from the SRS cameraphotographs of May 1 was about 2.5feet. Independent calculations for theNimslo camera photos yielded arange of possible sizes from 2.5 to 4feet (the Nimslo camera could notresolve distances as well as the SRScamera). In other words, the calcula-tions for the two cameras agreedupon a size of about 2.5 feet eventhough the distances were very dif-ferent (about 132 feet away on May1, about 40 to 70 feet on Feb. 26)and the cameras were totally differ-ent (the Nimslo uses 35mm film, theouter stereo lenses are separated byabout 2.5 inches and the focal lengthis about 31mm; the SRS camera ismade up of two Polaroid Model 600cameras separated by two feet andthe focal length of each camera isabout 110mm). I was struck by thisagreement in size as i realized the dif-ficulty anyone would have in creatinghoax photos with one type of stereocamera, to say nothing of two differ-ent types. I was also impressed withthe May 1 photos themselves becausethe sighting lines to the UFOs, as deter-mined by identifiable ground lights(lights on a bridge), placed themmore than a hundred feet from the

beach, over the water of Santa Rosasound.

This information was presented atthe MUFON symposium although itwas not published in the symposiumproceedings paper because the analy-sis of the May 1 photos and theNimslo photos occurred after thepaper was completed. However, thisinformation is included in ref. 2.

Limits of Disbelief

By May 1 my skepticism of Ed'sstory was reaching its limit for manyreasons including, but not limited to,the following: (a) Ed's previous SRScamera stereo photos of March 17and 20 (references 2 and 6) thatstretched the photographic hoax hy-pothesis to its limits, (b) the fact thathe passed two lie detector tests givenby a skeptical examiner (references 2and 5), (c) the failure of the localinvestigators to find any proof of ahoax despite having Ed "under a mic-roscope" for several months, (d) thediscovery of an unexplained circulararea of dead grass, about 14 feet indiameter, in the field behind hishouse (references 2, 5 and 6), (e) thetestimony of his wife (ref. 2), (f) theDecember 28 videotape which con-tains no evidence of a hanging model(ref. 2), (g) the reports of numeroussightings, including some with photo-graphs, by other people in the area;several of these occurred on some ofthe same days that Ed reported sight-ings (references 2, 3 and 4), (h) thesighting flap which occurred in Marchand April in Gulf Breeze (ref. 2), (i)Ed's obvious distress as he describedto me, only twelve hours after theevent, his May 1 sighting and missingtime experience of the night before,(j) my failure to find any reason inEd's background or present socialstatus for him to want to create aUFO hoax and (k) his continualcooperation in carrying out my re-quests for information, measurementsand camera tests, even though manyof these requests could have resultedin the discovery of discrepancies thatwould be indicative of a hoax.

Yet, in spite of all of these reasons Iremained skeptical until I completedthe calculations that established theidentity between the small ("Type 3")

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UFO in May 1 photos and the UFOin the Nimslo photos, as describedabove. The result of these calcula-tions surprised me. I spent some timetrying to figure out how this resultcould have been hoaxed. I did dis-cover how to hoax this result, butthen I realized that it would requiremuch more technical capability thaneven "normally sophisticated" hoaxtechniques require (because these arestereo pictures). I subsequently reject-ed the idea that Ed or an accomplicecould have done it.

This was the "last straw." The lim-its of my skepticism had now beensurpassed. To be honest with myself Ihad to admit that I had not been ableto find proof of a hoax and, instead,had found evidence that would beextremely difficult to hoax, assumingthat a hypothetical hoaxer wouldeven think of trying to hoax stereophotos. To be honest with myself Ihad to accept the idea that Ed wastelling the truth (along with his wife,family and other members of the GulfBreeze community). In other words, Iconcluded that his sightings werereal.

At the MUFON symposium I pres-ented arguments which tended tosupport Ed's claims so that, as Istated in the symposium proceedings,his sightings would not be rejectedprematurely (i.e., before conclusiveproof of a hoax was discovered).However, I did not state my conclu-sion because / mas still allowing forthe possibility that someone mightturn up conclusive proof that would"break" the case. (However, no onedid come forward with conclusiveproof of a hoax.)

Subsequent to the MUFON sym-posium I learned of the results ofpersonality tests administered by aclinical psychologist, Dr. Dan C.Over lade, who has publicly statedthat Ed is normal by conventionalstandards (see the article followingref. 1 in the December MUFONJournal). I also learned that, aftermany hours of hypnotic regression byDr. Overlade, Ed had described theabduction of May 1 and five previousabduction experiences (including oneon Dec. 17, 1987). Thus Ed hasturned out to be a "classic" abductee.Dr. Overlade told me that, in his6

opinion, Ed believes what he is say-ing is true.

I also had a long discussion withHarvey McLaughlin, the polygraphist.He told me that, in his opinion, Edwas not a sociopath (a type of personwho is capable of passing a polygraph[lie detector] test even though lying)and that Ed was not on drugs whenhe took the tests. McLaughlin secondedOverlade's opinion that Ed thoroughlybelieves that he is telling the truth. Inorder to get an independent opinionof the polygraph results I asked alawyer friend of mine who is familiarwith the use of the polygraph to tryto determine whether or not McLaugh-lin's test was conclusive. After heinterviewed Mr. McLaughlin he toldme that the test was probably asconclusive as any such test could beconsidering that Mr. McLaughlin hadno previous experience in dealingwith UFO matters. (Mr. McLaughlinhad contacted Don Ware and Cha-rles Flannigan to ask them for ques-tions to use during the examination.)The lawyer agreed with McLaughlin'sconclusion that the test results showthat Ed believes he is telling the truth.

I also learned that Ed has passed apsychological stress evaluator test(PSE) carried out by Michael Kradzof Dektor Counterintelligence andSecurity, Inc. The test was carriedout on several taped conversations inwhich Ed was discussing his expe-riences. The PSE machine picked upsome stress when Ed discussed hisinitial story about being an interme-diary for a "Mr. X" who, Ed originallyclaimed, took the photos. Since thisstory was, in fact, a lie (Ed took thephotos, not "Mr. X") it is not surpris-ing that some stress should bedetected here. The rest of the inter-view produced no reactions thatcaused the examiner to doubt Ed'sanswers.

The same PSE examiner studiedthe taped interview of "Patrick Hanks."He found noticeable stress at onlytwo points: when Patrick discussedhis feeling that the reason that theUFO disappeared when Ed saw him(Patrick) is that the craft can sensethings through Ed (see ref. 2), andwhen Patrick discussed the withhold-ing of his real name and signed hispseudonym. In the first instance any

communication by the craft wouldhave to be pure speculation onPatrick's part, and such speculationmight well produce some stress in hisvoice. In the second instance he wasintentionally "lying" by signing anunreal name to the sighting form. Therest of the interview, including Mr.Hanks' discussion of the sighting andof the UFO, produced no evidentstress, indicating that Patrick believedwhat he was saying.

Now, over a year after the sight-ings began, what appears to be themost important evidence against thesightings has been compiled and pub-lished by H&S. The rest of this paperwill discuss in detail the questionsraised by H&S. I will show why, inmy opinion, this "evidence" is insuffi-cient to contradict the mass of evi-dence which supports Ed's claims. Iwill show why "the scale remainsunbalanced" in Ed's favor.

Premature Publicity

I agree with the criticism by Halland Smith that there was a "rush tojudgement" by both sides. I havealready recounted my distress atlearning in February, 1988, that a TVdocumentary had been planned onEd's sightings even before the photoswere analyzed. This "pro" publicitywas clearly premature.

Also premature was the publicrelease, in the latter half of April, of astatement that Ed's reports were"most probably" a hoax. This .state-ment was made while I was still com-piling my report for the MUFONsymposium. The investigators whomade the statement (e.g., RobertBoyd, Ray Stanford) had not read myanalyses of the stereo photos, whichtended to rule out a hoax, nor didthey have any of the other volume oftestimonial evidence that I had com-piled and, of most importance, theyhad no good photographic analysis tosupport their statements. Neverthe-less they announced to the local Pen-sacola press and TV that Ed's sight-ings constituted a hoax ("News Release"dated April 18, 1988, ref. 10). Rayeven wrote two long papers, basedon his analysis of weather conditionsand upon his analysis of the directionof motion of the clouds in Ed's firstthree photos, that purported to prove

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

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that the first five photos could nothave been taken in the order Edreported (A Strange Breeze in GulfBreeze and A Strange Breeze in GulfBreeze, Part Two, ret. 11). On April20, WEAR, the Pensacola TV station,ran a short news story in which Stan-ford's paper and the CUFOS pressrelease were discussed. A phoneconversation with Ray was shown onTV in which he explained how theweather reports and the images ofclouds contradicted Ed's report. Alsoin that news story the Mayor, EdGrey, stated his opinion that Ed'ssightings were hoaxes. The fact thatthe mayor was given the opportunityto state his opinion on TV was adirect result of the CUFOS pressrelease and Stanford's paper. Mr.Grey indicated that he was dismayedthat Gulf Breeze was being made thebutt of jokes and getting a "badimage" because of the UFO sightings.He further stated "I believe (that)with us going on record that webelieve it is a hoax that image will beturned around and we will get backto the image of it (Gulf Breeze) beinga good quality place to live." Evi-dently Mr. Grey attached more impor-tance to the "image" of Gulf Breezethan to the necessity of establishingthe truth or falsehood of the manyUFO sightings in his fair city.

It is "amusing" (actually depressingto one who believes that, to have anyvalue in UFO investigation, UFOskepticism should be credible) tonote that, on the very same TV showwhich presented Ray's claims hisargument was refuted by Don Warewho showed that Ray had used thewrong sighting direction in his analy-sis. In the April 21 issue of the Pen-sacola News Journal an article basedon an interview with Ray on April 20quoted Ray as saying "If I'm wrong, Iwill completely resign from the field."However, Ray did not resign. Insteadhe admitted on WEAR TV that hisanalysis was wrong because it wasbased on incorrect sighting directioninformation and upon partially incor-rect weather information. (Ray repeatedhis opinion that the sightings were ahoax, however. Ray's retraction wasa result of investigation and analysis ofof weather data by Ware and RobertOechsler. Subsequent analyses byMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

Boyd and myself confirmed the Ware-Oechsler conclusion that the cloudmotion is not inconsistent with whatis shown in the photos.)

General Basis For Skepticism

H&S have pointed out that theanswers to certain fundamental ques-tions have never been published. Thefirst question they raise is what didEd know about UFOs before Nov.1987? What books had he read? Hadhe read Communion?

Ed says that he has read no UFObooks and has had no more than apassing interest in the subject such asone might get from seeing CloseEncounters of the Third Kind, ET,and such movies. The investigatorsasked him this during the initial inter-views. When I visited his house inFebruary, 1988, I looked at the booksin his library. I saw nothing thatremotely resembled a UFO book. Eddid attend the MUFON symposium inJune 1988 and has taken more of aninterest in the subject, as might beexpected. However, the local investi-gators asked Ed, in January, 1988, tonot read any UFO books and Ed hascomplied with this request. He statesthat he has not read Communion(nor Intruders) nor any of the otherbooks presently on the market. Hehas never given to me any indicationthat he has any background in thefield of UFO studies and instead hasrepeatedly asked questions whichalmost any UFO researcher couldanswer "at the drop of a hat" (Iwould hope).

What is Ed's background andcharacter, including his reputation asrevealed by investigations? The sim-ple answer to this is, highly favorable.It is unfortunate from the point viewof the investigators that Ed hasrequested anonymity for himself andhis family. This means that theMUFON investigators have had towithhold his name from publication,although Ed is known to all the inves-tigators who have been involved,including Smith and Hall. Because Edis a well known personality in hiscommunity his request for anonymityhas also prevented the MUFONinvestigators from discussing his bus-iness. (Although Dr. Smith broke thisconfidence and publicized Ed's name

and business at a late summer UFOconference, MUFON continues tohonor this confidence.) In order tomaintain this confidence, despite thedifficulty this places me in, I willsimply say that Ed's business consistsof performing a certain type of per-sonal service for his customers. Thisservice is quite expensive and suc-cess in his business depends uponhim being able to gain the completeconfidence of his customers and toconvince them of his capability toperform the service to the customer'ssatisfaction for the price agreed upon.Any suggestion that he might beunreliable or incompetent to performthe service would be sufficient tocause a potential customer to requestthe service from one of Ed's competi-tors. This is one reason that Ed hasrequested anonymity. The main rea-son, however, is to avoid the impactof publicity on his family.) Ed's cus-tomers have been appreciative of hisservices. That is, he has been verysuccessful because he has done hisjob well. Because his services havebeen in demand he has becomewealthy, by normal standards, fromhis work. His success in this businessattests to his truthful personality (hewould not get far in his business bymaking grandiose promises and thenfailing to meet those promises). Fromthe point of view of UFO investiga-tion his business success provides aprime reason why Ed would not wantto be in any way involved with UFOs.

Although Dr. Smith has suggestedotherwise, the fact is that Ed is aprominent personality in his commun-ity. He is active in city affairs and infund raising for worthy projects, mostnotably projects oriented toward theyouth of his community. He has per-sonally donated thousands of dollarsor time and money to the communityand has been personally thanked bythe Mayor several times for hisgenerosity.

H&S state that "Little indicationhas been given of a rigorous study ofEd ... from a skeptical viewpoint."Whereas it is true that not much hasbeen published which is skeptical ofEd, the fact is that the investigatorsdid investigate Ed. Furthermore, al-though the "negative evidence" referredto by H&S was not published, it was

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known to the investigators and it wasanalyzed.

Ed refused to participate in a back-ground check, but he made no effortto prevent one. Furthermore, he didprovide background information whichwas checkable. Intensive characterchecking was done by Donald Ware,Charles Flannigan, Robert Reid andGary Watson in the early spring of1988. Don Ware even had a "spy" atEd's house numerous times startingin late November, 1987, because hesuspected as early as late Novemberthat the first five photos were takenby Ed and not "Mr. X." This "spy"was a friend of Ed's son. He attendedmany of the parties for teenagerswhich Ed has on a monthly basis. Atvarious times he was in every roomof Ed's house and was a witness tomany party activities. He reportedback to Dan Ware that he foundnothing unusual in the house and nounusual activities at the parties, andcertainly nothing remotely related toa UFO hoax. Robert Boyd and WillySmith were informed of the failure ofthe "spy" to find any evidence ofUFO hoaxing on the same day thatthey visited their "secret witness"(Mr. NM, a teenager). However, theychose to ignore the findings of the"spy."

Another intensive character checkwas done in late December, 1988, byRobert Oechsler on behalf of theFund for UFO Research. Bob talkedto several people who had employedEd. They were fully satisfied. He alsotalked to others in the communitywho knew Ed, as have I. Everyonehas given Ed a positive characterreference.

Ed's character has been severelytested four times by skeptical profes-sionals: twice by Mr. McLaughlinusing the polygraph, once by Mr.Kradz using a PSE device and onceby Dr. Overlade using a battery ofpsychological tests. He has beenfound to be entirely normal. Thesetests have found no evidence thatwould suggest that Ed had perpe-trated a UFO hoax, or any hoax,either for profit or for fun.

Ed attended college where he learnedthe basics required to perform the ser-vice he provides. He has stated thathe did not complete the course work8

(leaving after three years) because ofa "joyriding incident." That was twentyyears ago. Since then he has been asuccessful business man who has awife and two children.

Ed will eventually come forwardpublicly and then each person canmake up his own mind as to Ed'scharacter and credibility.

MUFON Investigation

How thorough and objective hasthe MUFON investigation been? H&Ssuggest that the MUFON investiga-tion was not sufficiently thorough,although ref. 2 (based on the investi-gations by the local investigators andmyself) was "admirable." (I agree!)They point out that in a complexcase like this with its potentially greatsignificance, "additional analysis andreplication is essential." I agree com-pletely. It is certainly true that not allof the questions were answered bythe initial MUFON investigations.

Yet, things are not as "bad" asH&S portray them. The investigationby the local MUFON members andby myself has been supplemented bythe investigations of numerous otherswho are residents of the area or whohave traveled to Gulf Breeze to try todiscover "the truth." Most notable ofthe latter are Walter Andrus (whohas visited Gulf Breeze three times),Budd Hopkins (who has visited threetimes), James Falvo, George Filer,James Moseley and Robert Oechsler.Mr. Andrus' reports on the case havebeen published in the MUFON Jour-nal (references 3-9). Budd Hopkinshas communicated his findings pri-vately. Mr. Falvo talked to a numberof people in the area and foundnothing to contradict the results ofthe MUFON investigation. His find-ings were reported in a letter (ref.12). Mr. Filer, an ex-Army intelligenceofficer and a State Section Directorfor MUFON in New Jersey, traveledto Gulf Breeze where he talked tonumerous "people on the street" aswell as to Ed. Not only did he find noreason to disbelieve Ed's claims, hefurther found out that virtually eve-ryone in Gulf Breeze either has seena UFO such as Ed reported or knowssomeone who has (ref. 13). Mr.Mose'.ey spent 16 hours interviewing

Ed on Dec. 16 and 17, 1988. Althoughhe had been very skeptical of Ed'sreports (and had publicly called thesightings a probable hoax), he foundno proof that Ed had perpetrated ahoax and he even began to questionthe accuracy of Ed's critics (ref. 14).The results of Mr. Oechsler's investi-gation were similar to those of Andrus,Hopkins, Falvo, Filer and Moseley.He found strong evidence of Ed'sgood character and good standing inthe community (ref. 14).

The local TV and Pensacola news-paper reporters were on the scenecontinually. Mark Curtis of WEARTV conducted numerous interviewswith the witnesses, including Ed, withthe local investigators and with RayStanford and Robert Boyd. Curtisinvestigated various aspects of thesightings and did a rather extensivephotographic evaluation which includedseveral attempts, using several pho-tographers, to duplicate Ed's photos.(He failed.) Reporters David Richard-son and Mike Burke investigated thesightings for the Pensacola NewsJournal. They confronted Ed withone of Dr. Smith's calculations whichpurportedly showed that Ed had been"lying" about the distances to theUFOs in one photo. When Ed pro-tested that Smith's calculated dis-tance was wrong the reporters mea-sured it and found that it was,indeed, wrong. (This made themskeptical of Dr. Smith's calculations.)They, too, found no evidence thatproved that Ed's sightings were ahoax.

Several "documentarians" have travel-ed to Gulf Breeze. Most notable ofthese are the "Unsolved Mysteries"TV crew (Kris Palmer and Asso-ciates), and the "UFO Cover-UpLive" TV crew (headed by TracyTorme). These people interviewed Edand numerous other witnesses. Theywere impressed with Ed and disco-vered, as had many investigatorsbefore them, that Ed is far from alonein reporting sightings. Consistentwith what I reported in ref. 2 (thatthere were many witnesses in thearea), the Unsolved Mysteries filmedabout 30 people who admitted to hav-ing seen a UFO. They featured two ofthe most priminent Gulf Breeze civili-ans, Dr. Fenner McConnell (the dis-

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trict coroner) and his wife as theydescribed their sighting of July, 1988.They found no evidence that Ed'ssightings were a hoax.

Tracy Torme talked with manywitnesses, including Ed. He becamethoroughly convinced of the realty ofthe sightings. During the UFO Cover-Up Live TV show there were severaldozen witnesses present in the audit-orium where the Gulf Breeze seg-ment was filmed.

A TV station from Miami alsoinvestigated Ed's reports in the fall of1988. This TV station presented ashow that was completely from theskeptical viewpoint. Featured on theshow was a photo which, it wasclaimed, indicated that Ed knew howto make double exposure photos withhis Polaroid camera. I will discuss thisphoto later on. However, for thepresent suffice it to say that the pic-ture does not prove that Ed knewhow to make a double exposure. Thereporters who put this show togetherwere not able to find any convincingproof that any of the Gulf Breezesightings were a hoax.

The point of this discussion is that,although the local MUFON investiga-tion was definitely weak (because of alack of manpower in the face of anextremely large number of reports), itwas supplemented by many otherinvestigators from various professionalbackgrounds. In a sense Ed, and thewhole of Gulf Breeze, has been undera "microscope" for over a year now.One would suspect that if a hoaxwere involved someone would havefound some conclusive proof some-where. The fact is that, after a yearof investigation by numerous people,no one (and this includes the skepti-cal investigators) has yet steppedforward to say "I can prove that thephotos and sightings are a hoax."

How do the Gulf Breeze incidentsfit in with' UFO history? Here H&Sargue that "basically they don't fitvery well," i.e., the incidents reportedin Gulf Breeze fall outside the normof the historical phenomenon. In par-ticular they suggest that Ed's sight-ings and photos are so inconsistentwith UFO history that they probablyconstitute a hoax.

Actually this argument is a doubleedged sword: it "curs both ways."MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

One could just as well argue that ahoaxer would attempt to make hisreports consistent with UFO historyin order to be believed. Thereforeone could argue with equal force thatbecause Ed's sighting reports are sounusual they are probably real.

There is no doubt that H&S arepartially right: certain aspects of thesightings do fall outside the norm,particularly the number of photostaken by one person. However, cer-tain major aspects of the Gulf Breezesightings are consistent with UFOhistory even though they are unusual:

• The occurrence of a large numberof sightings in a short period of timein a small region is called a concen-tration. Excluding Ed's sightings, thesightings of the other Gulf Breezeresidents are unusual only in regardto the duration of this concentrationwhich ran basically from November(1987) through the middle of April(1988).

• It is true that the number ofsightings by Ed himself (and his fam-ily) is anomalous from the historicalpoint of view and, in fact, would havebeen considered grounds for dismiss-ing them ten or more years ago.(Repeaters are not "welcome" inUFO history.) However, in recentyears we have learned from abduc-tion experience reports that repeti-tion is the rule rather than the excep-tion. Historically, i.e., ten, twenty,thirty, etc. years ago such an ideawould have been considered heresy.However, the work of Budd Hopkinsand Dave Jacobs, as well as ofnumerous other abduction researchers(and abductees such as Whitley Streiber)has shown that, not only might a per-son have an abduction experienceseveral times in a lifetime, but evenseveral times in a year. As I havealready pointed out, Dr. Overlade'swork with Ed has shown that he hashad several abduction experiences inhis lifetime, including the experienceon May 1, and a (recently revealed)experience on December 17, 1987.Thus, as an abductee, Ed's multiplesightings are less "outside the norm."• Where the Gulf Breeze sightingsclearly fall outside the norm of acceptedsightings is in the number of photo-graphs. Previously, investigations ofpeople who have taken a large

number of UFO photos have turnedup highly suspicious photographicand non-photographic evidence thatstrongly points toward a hoax. ThusEd's case immediately came undersuspicion. However, Ed's reports act-ually fall outside the norm for hoax-ing. Previously large numbers of pho-tos have been produced by UFO"contactees" who have had somepseudo-religious message to give tomankind (from the "Space Brothers,"of course). If Ed had made any effortto promote his sightings, to reveal"new and important information fromthe Space Brothers" or if he haddone any of the other things thathave been done by "contactees" inthe past (report on trips to otherplanets or accept donations from "fol-lowers," for example) the local inves-tigators would have dismissed Ed'ssightings early in the spring of 1988.However, there are no contacteeaspects to Ed's reports. Since Ed'sreports are not consistent with thehistory of UFO photo hoaxes onecannot argue that his sightings mustbe a hoax because he took lots ofpictures. (Ed is clearly not a contactee.)

Besides the fact of the unusuallylarge number of photos by one per-son, there is also the fact that thedepicted UFOs are highly unusualand do not "fit in with UFO history."As H&S have pointed out, thedepicted UFOs have even been called"hokey," but this description couldapply to many UFOs which are con-ventionally accepted (e.g., the Trentphotos — McMinnville, Oregon, 1950— in which the UFO has a "pole" onthe top which is off center and tilted).But is this a reason to reject theirreality in favor of a hoax? I think not.A hoaxer, it would seem to me (as Istated above) would be more likely tomake his UFOs fit in with main-stream ufohgy rather than be unique.Certainly many "acceptable designs"would be available in the literature.

I conclude that the fact that Ed'ssightings fall outside the norms ofUFO history is not convincing proofthat they constitute a hoax.

The Photographs

Besides referring to "hokiness" as areason for questioning Ed's photos, H&S

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have also pointed out that severalseem "stagey," as if constructed forthe benefit of the viewers. However,these photos are consistent with theverbal reports which accompany themand the verbal reports do not suggest"staginess."

At any rate, although, as H&Shave said, experience certainly "doescount for something," "hokiness" and"staginess" are subjective impressions.As H&S point out, "intuitive impres-sions of UFO photographs do not,alone, constitute science; objectiveanalysis must be done." The firstphotos which they discuss analyticallyare #22 and #23 which were, accord-ing to Ed, his wife and his daughter,taken by Ed's wife. Number 23, inparticular could not have been takenby Ed inasmuch as Ed appears in thephoto (in a towel). The story behindthese photos is summarized in refer:

ences 2 and 5. H&S quote ZanOverall as claiming that "the picturecontains convincing evidence to himthat the object was flashlit and modelsized." Mr. Overall and I have had arunning discussion of these picturessince he first asked me about them atthe MUFON symposium. I had, indeed,considered the possibility that a modelhad been used to make these photos,just as I had considered the possibil-ity for all of the photos. In these pho-tos, as in the others, I also had con-sidered the possibility, favorable toEd, that the illumination was fromthe object itself. If one could provethat the main body of the UFO inphotos 22 and 23 (and in the others)was not luminous (i.e., not a sourceof light) then it must have been illum-inated by an external source. (Note:no one questions the idea that thebrightest parts of the depicted UFOs,i.e., the "top light" and the "bottomring" must be sources of light; thisargument only applies to the dimmercentral body parts.) The most likelyexternal source for photos 22 and 23would be the camera flash itselfwhich illuminated foreground featuresthat appear in the pictures. I askedEd to carry out a series of tests todetermine just what the range of theflash was. Experiments with his oldPolaroid showed that it was about 40feet at the most. (I carried out similartests and found results consistent10

with what Ed reported.) Based onthese experiments it appears that, toget an image of the main body of theUFO as bright as it appears on thephotos using flash illumination only, itwould require that the UFO be within20 feet or so of the camera. In thiscase the UFO would be small, i.e.model-sized.

The preceding discussion says thatif the main body of the UFO werenot luminous then it was probably anearby model. Therefore the keyquestion is could the main body havebeen luminous and therefore beyondthe range of the flash? H&S pointedout in a footnote that I have disco-vered evidence that the UFOs whichEd photographed are self-luminous.This evidence comes from two sour-ces: first, the December 28 videotape,and second, the March 17 stereophotographs (references 2, 3 and 6).The videotape clearly proves that thecentral body of the "Type 1" craftthat Ed photographed could be butdid not have to be luminous. In thefirst half of the videotape the centralbody is easily seen between the "toplight" and the very bright "bottomring" lights. In the second half of thevideotape the central body is invisibleeven though the top light,and bottomring are clearly visible.

The second element of proof thatthe central body of the UFO can beluminous is contained in the March17 stereo photos. The distance to theobject, as calculated from the stereoeffect, is estimated to be well over130 feet and probably even greaterthan 180 feet. Yet, in spite of thisgreat distance, which is far beyondthe distance at which the flash couldhave any observable effect on thefilm image, the central portion is(barely) visible.

Admittedly this second element ofproof assumes that the March 17photos were not, themselves, some-how hoaxed. However, I have inves-tigated the circumstances under whichthey were taken and have concludedthat under the conditions pertainingat the time, ro fake stereo photos ofa hoax object almost in the presenceof several people and to have thesephotos develop as these people watchedwould require photographic capabili-ties far beyond those of most profes-

sional photographers and certainly farbeyond any capability that Ed hasdemonstrated.

The "discovery" that the UFOsphotographed by Ed can have lumi-nous bodies is not a major discoveryabout UFOs themselves. For yearsluminous shapes have been reportedduring nighttime sightings. Thus "Ed'sUFOs," although shaped differentlyfrom previous UFOs, have this asone of several characteristics incommon with other UFOs, withsilence, maneuverability and highspeed travel being other commoncharacteristics.

H&S have pointed out that the firstnine photos deserve particular atten-tion because they "established" thephotographic context of Ed's sight-ings. Several of these photographshave been subjected to computer-aided analysis, as H&S have sug-gested (the computer analysis wasdone late last spring, long before theH&S suggestion). They have alsobeen analyzed extensively using con-ventional photo enhancement tech-niques. H&S have claimed to find"several problems with the early pho-tographs." In particular, they say that"Nos. 1 and 7 show UFO imagesclosely adjacent to and possibly ouer-lapping a foreground tree. An over-lapping image would suggest a doubleexposure." (my emphasis) Computeranalysis done by Dr. Mark Carlattoof The Analytical Sciences Corpora-tion (Boston) failed to find any indica-tion that the images of the UFOsoverlapped the tree images in eitherof these photos. This finding is con-sistent with what I determined fromconventional analysis and it was con-firmed again by Robert Oechsler whohas done an extensive photo analysisusing conventional techniques. Dr.Robert Nathan at JPL also failed tofind evidence of image overlap (seeAppendix 1).

The fact that the UFO images donof overlap the tree images does notrule out a hoax, but it does make thehoax much more difficult. To use adouble exposure technique to createone image "behind" another wouldrequire a matted double exposure inwhich an opaque object of the sameoutline shape as the UFO (a "cutout")is used to block the portion of the

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background where the UFO wouldappear while the exposure of thebackground scene is made. This isquite difficult to do well even under"laboratory" conditions such as in aprofessional studio.

The "double exposure" was onephotographic technique investigatedexperimentally by Mark Curtis ofWEAR in Pensacola and by severalother photographers who helped him.They found that to produce a doubleexposure hoax of a UFO silhouettedagainst the clear sky was quite easy.But to make the UFO appear to bebehind the tree using the doubleexposure method was beyond theircapability. (Curtis also investigatedthe "reflection on a windowpane"technique and found that even moredifficult.)

H&S have stated that "Photos 1-3show a surprisingly invariant back-ground for allegedly having beentaken hurridly with a Polaroid cameraby someone who had to lower andraise the camera between exposures.Contrary to the witness's story, thissuggests the use of a tripod or otherstabilizing surface." This is a not-well-thought-out criticism because it iseasily explained. Furthermore, thestatement is wrong in its basic claimthat the background is "invariant." Byexamining the parallax effect (positionshift) between the image of the leftedge of the nearby (ca. 4 feet) treeand the image of the distant (ca. 70feet) light pole one can easily see thatthe second picture was taken from aposition that was a few inches (atleast) ahead (i.e., west) of the firstpicture, and that the third picturewas taken from a location slightlybehind the second. Thus the horizon-tal position was not invariant. Thevertical position was, however, quiteconstant. But this does not mean thatthe camera was on a tripod. Since Edsighted through the camera beforeeach shot he obviously placed theviewfinder to his eye. He did notreport bending over or stretchingupward to take a picture. It is there-fore reasonable to theorize that hiseye, and thus the camera, was alwaysthe same height to within a fractionof an inch, even if he did raise andlower the camera. The obvious corol-lary of this is that the camera wasMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

always at the same height when thepicture was taken. Consequently theclaim that the camera must havebeen mounted on a tripod is not sup-ported by the pictures nor by the"theory" that Ed's eyeball would havebeen at the same height for the firstthree pictures.

(When I suggested this theory asan explanation for the constancy ofthe position of the camera to RobertOechsler he was skeptical. He testedthis "constant eyeball height" theoryduring his December investigation.He asked Ed to take three picturesfrom the same location on his frontdoorstep from a point very close towhere his UFO pictures had beentaken. Ed did not move between thepictures. One can see from the paral-lax between the nearby tree and thedistant light pole and wires that thealtitude and position of the camerawere constant to within an inch eventhough Ed raised and lowered thecamera between pictures.)

H&S have claimed that there are"vertical line markings suggestive ofsupports for a UFO model" thatappear in some early photos (in par-ticular, photo #5). These lines havebeen analyzed extensively using con-ventional and computer-aided tech-niques and have been found to beflaws in the development mechanismand chemical process. They arefound in non-UFO pictures as well asat various locations in some of Ed'sUFO pictures. The lines usually donot intersect the UFO images, but insome pictures they do. The line inphoto #5 in particular runs from thetop of the picture to the bottom andpasses right through the image of theUFO. As H&S pointed out in a foot-note, computer aided analysis hasmade it clear that this is a film flawand not a supporting thread for theUFO (see Appendix 1). (Robert Nathanat JPL told me that he, too, wasunable to find evidence of supportsfor the UFOs.)

H&S have claimed that non-symme-tries in the images of the first UFOs,in particular the irregularly spaced"windows," could "easily" be "inter-preted as evidence of a distortedimage due to photographic trickeryor a crude model." The "distortion"they refer to is the irregular "window"

spacing in some of the UFO images.This irregular spacing is not likely aresult of photographic trickery sinceany optical effect which could pro-duce that magnitude of distortion ofthe "window" position would producelarge, easily noticed distortions of thewhole UFO image. The irregularitiescould be attributed to a poorly mademodel, although from what I know ofEd it seems unlikely to me that if Edwere to make a model it would bepoorly made. The irregularity couldalso be an actual feature of the UFOas viewed from different angles, orperhaps these rectangular dark patcheswhich have been loosely referred toas "windows" do not have fixed loca-tions on the craft, i.e., they mightmove left or right from nominal posi-tions. (They might not be "windows"as we think of windows as being partof the physical structure of a craftand therefore fixed in position relativeto the structure of the craft.)

I reiterate what I stated in ref. 2:we don't know what UFOs are sup-posed to look like. No one can saythat a UFO cannot have irregularitiesor non-symmetries, just as our owntransportation devices have non-sym-metries, (as well as symmetries).From the point of view of establishingor "disestablishing" Ed's photos asreal the operative question is, are thenon-symmetries sufficient ground toprove that the photos are hoaxes? Inthe absence of any information thatwould strongly support Ed's case andif there were other substantial evi-dence, photographic and non-photo-graphic that pointed toward a hoax,these non-symmetries could be adeciding factor in calling the photos ahoax. But, in view of the voluminousother positive evidence that supportsEd's claims and the lack of convinc-ing contrary evidence, I think not.

H&S quote Robert Boyd as sayingthat Photo 6 contains "strong evi-dence of double exposure." I pre-sume that he has based his statementon my claim in ref. 2 that "Photo 6appears to provide pictorial evidencethat argues for such a hoax." I madethis statement because in photo 6 theimages of the distant power wires andstreetlight are somewhat smeared inthe vertical direction whereas theimage of the UFO does not appear to

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be vertically smeared by image motion,although it is a bit fuzzy around theedges. The different amounts of motionsmear in this picture could have beencreated in only two ways: (a) (the realpicture hypothesis) the camera pannedwith the UFO as it moved (downw-ard) while a single exposure wasmade, or (b), (the double exposurehoax hypothesis) the camera movedupward (or downward) slightly as thefirst (or second) exposure was madeof the background but was steady asthe second (or first) exposure of theUFO model was made. If there wereno other photographic evidence inthis case then the double exposurehypothesis would be preferred andthe photo might well be thrown outon this account. However, there areequally impressive "smeared imagedata" which argue againsf a hoax. Inphoto 1 the motion smear of theimage of the UFO is in the samedirection and has the same magni-tude as the smear of the background(as determined mainly by the smearof the streetlight image) as nearly ascan be determined. This is easy toexplain if the picture were a singleexposure. If the picture were a dou-ble exposure it would mean that thecamera was vibrated in exactly thesame way (by hand motion or forwhatever reason) during both expo-sures; not an impossibility, but highlyunlikely for a hand-held camera.Photo 4 also is smeared with thesmear of the UFO image and thesmear of the image of the light beingidentical. Thus in my opinion theimage smear data are a wash: onephoto (#6) has differential smearsindicative of a double exposure andtwo photos (#1, #4) have identicalsmears indicative of a single expo-sure. Since the differential smear in asingle picture can be explained with-out resort to the hoax hypothesis,i.e., it can be explained as a result ofpanning of the camera as the UFOmoved, it is not possible to use photo6 to prove that the photos arehoaxes.

"Road Shot" & Other Photos

On January 13, Ed reported toCharles Flannigan that he had beenconfronted by a UFO and alienswhile driving along route 191-B the12

evening before. The events are sum-marized in references 2 and 3. In ref.2, I erroneously claimed that thephoto was taken from a location tothe right of the center of the cab. Eddid not remember it that way (herecalled being just to the right of thesteering wheel), but I disputed hisrecollection basing my conclusion onmy experiments at the site. However,an extensive analysis of reflections inthe hood of the truck, done after theMUFON Symposium, has provedthat Ed was correct: the photo wastaken from a location to the left ofthe center and it shows the left handwindshield wiper.

H&S stated that, after the whiteillumination came through the wind-shield and caused Ed to swerve thetruck off to the left side of the road,he "reached for his shotgun behindthe seat, then changed his mind andtook the photograph (my emphasis)."Actually he didn't "change his mind."As stated in ref. 2, he pulled the seatforward, grasped the shotgun andplaced it on the seat beside him.After he had the shotgun he reachedfor the camera and took the picture.

Although Ed didn't report any rainor effects of rain during his encounteron the road, Walter Andrus (ref. 3)conjectured the bright spots in thephoto might have been caused byrain drops on the windshield reflect-ing light from the bottom of the UFO.This suggestion seemed reasonableconsidering that the clouds in the skymight have been rainclouds. In ref. 2 Ialso suggested that there had beenrain and that the road was wet. (Inthe original symposium report I, too,suggested that the bright spots in thepicture might be reflections fromraindrops on the windshield. I subse-quently discovered that the spots areactually tiny holes in the emulsion.The suggestion of reflections fromraindrops was removed from therevised version of the symposiumpaper as presented in ref. 2.) Theassumption that there had been rainand that consequently the road waswet is now known to be wrong. Hadthe local investigators obtained theweather report for that day soonafter the event they would havefound, as Robert Oechsler did manymonths later (in December, 1988),

that there had been no measureableprecipitation for several days preced-ing January 12,1988.

H&S have, unfortunately, built anargument against the reality of the photoon their exaggeration of my errorregarding the rain: they claimed thatthe "environment was dripping withmoisture." They protest that becauseof the wetness there should be reflec-tions of light from the nearby vegeta-tion as well as from the road and thatEd should have mentioned encounter-ing the effects of wet ground. Eddidn't mention being wet and muddyas a result of crawling under histruck. (Now we know why Ed didn'tmention being wet — there was norain. He wouldn't have been muddyfrom crawling on the ground anywaybecause the ground at that location,like most of coastal Florida, is sand, afact that should have been known toWilly Smith, if not to Richard Hall.The sand does not hold water and isnot as sticky as mud.)

Although the suggestion that thereshould have been numerous "envir-onmental reflections" because of thepresumed wetness is wrong, theirsuggestion that there should be areflection from the hood of the truckis still worthy of consideration sincethe hood, being a smooth surface,would reflect light whether it was wetor not. The problem of the lack of areflection in the hood was researchedin the late summer of 1988. By hold-ing a flashlight at various heightsabove the road and about 200 feetaway it was determined that noreflection in the hood appeared untilthe light was seven or more feetabove the road. This is because thefront of the hood was bent by a colli-sion in the fall of 1986. The effect ofthe bend is visible in the "road shot"itself: the front edge of the hood is"outlined" by a relatively bright reflec-tion of the sky. If the hood hadn'tbeen bent the dark ground ahead ofthe truck would appear reflected bythe front of the hood rather than thesky. Since the bright bottom of theUFO was less than 4 feet above theroad (see ref. 2) it was below the min-imum height that would reflect intothe camera from the bent hood.

H&S have protested that Ed'sbehavior, "after being semiparalyzed

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by a manifestly alien apparition ... isnot what you would typically expect."That may be true, but then, H&Sweren't there to actually experiencewhat Ed experienced. H&S go on to sug-gest that instead of firing the gun atthe UFO Ed "casually" took a pic-ture. The use of the word "casually"is highly inappropriate. Ed has saidthat nothing he did during that timewas "casual." He did manage to get apicture, but he did so as quickly ashe could, before the UFO movedback toward the truck (where itzapped him a second time as hecrawled underneath).

H&S point out that the videotaperequires extensive analysis with thefull application of "checks and balan-ces of the scientific method." Theyare correct and I am surprised thatDr. Smith did not do some of this"extensive analysis" of the videotapehimself. Most of it has been availableto researchers ever since it wasshown on the WEAR TV documen-tary in March, 1988. Furthermore, Edhas made numerous copies for peo-ple to work on. Much of what I havedone could have been done byanyone with a good stop-frame VideoCassette Recorder and a copy of theTV documentary. (However, I workedfrom a first generation VHS copy ofEd's 8mm video original.) By carefullymeasuring frame by frame the motionof the UFO relative to fixed distantstreet and building lights I determinedthat the UFO did not exhibit any ofthe characteristics of a simple hang-ing model (such as appears in one ofBilly Meier's movie segments). RobertOechsler and Edward Weibe (a God-dard Space Flight Center employee)used some very sophisticated videoequipment to study the motion. Com-paring the UFO video with a daylightreconstruction by Ed they determinedthat the UFO went on the other sideof a tree that lies behind Ed's house,outside his fenced yard, at a distanceof about 50 feet from the cameraposition. I made a schematic recon-struction (diagram) of Ed's back yardand, with the aid of an excellent stop-frame VHS machine (which I pur-chased just for this analysis!) I con-firmed that the UFO went behind atree. I also found that, at the verybeginning of the videotape, it went onMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

the far side of a windscreen boardthat was about 20 feet from thecamera and that is adjacent to Ed'spool. This suggested that the UFOwas quite far away over the field inback of Ed's house, consistent withwhat Ed said had happened.

I tried to imagine how the motionof the UFO on the videotape couldhave been created by a model. I con-cluded that the model would have tomove along a rigid track that wouldbe more than thirty feet away, morethan 60 feet long and ten or so feetabove the ground. This track wouldhave to be built outside Ed's yard andsloped downward (i.e., not level).Whereas it would be possible to buildsuch a track, it is likely that it wouldhave been seen by someone in Ed'sneighborhood.

I studied the variations in bright-ness from frame-to-frame of the topand bottom UFO lights. I found thatthe fluctuations in brightness of thelights on the UFO are basically ran-dom as opposed to periodic. I foundthis by using the stop-frame VCR incombination with a "frame grabber"and associated computer analysis equip-ment to measure the peak frame-by-frame (voltage) of the UFO lights asrecorded on the videotape. I askedEd to carry out some experimentswith his video camera. These involvedfilming known lights (incandescentflashlight bulbs, a fluorescent light) atknown distances. The tests showedthat random brightness fluctuationscomparable to those of the UFOlights also occur in a videotape of avery small steady light source (aflashlight bulb) if it is filmed from adistance of several hundred feet ormore. Considering this result fromthe point of the hoax hypothesis thiswould require a random amplitudemodulation at a high rate of speed(1/30 sec) of a light on a nearbymodel. If the model used batterypowered steady lights it would haveto be hundreds of feet away andtherefore quite large. At such a dis-tance the rigid track framework referredto in the above paragraph would haveto be several hundred feet long,twenty or so feet above the groundand quite close to the school build-ings on the far side of the field behindEd's house.

My study of the UFO dynamics,the flight track and the brightnessfluctuations has led me to concludethat it would have been somewherebetween extremely difficult and vir-tually impossible for Ed to have fakedthe video.

H&S have also referred to theNimslo camera photos. The Nimslocamera photographic data indicatedthat the UFO was between 40 and 70feet away (see ref. 2). Since theactual length of the UFO was calcu-lated from the image size and fromthe calculated distance (actual size =image size times distance divided byfocal length), the result is a size range2.5 to 4 feet, rather than a specificsize. H&S point out that "A sup-posed alien spacecraft of that sizecould only accommodate very tinybeings." This is a "cute" but unneededstatement. If they were sufficientlyastute they would have noticed thatin the May 1 photos, in which theType 3 UFO was found to be 2.5 feetlong and about 130 feet away, therewas also a much larger craft esti-mated to be more than twenty feet atits maximum diameter and 14 feethigh at a distance of about 475 feet.As I reported at the MUFON sympo-sium this larger craft moved veryquickly (in a few seconds) over Edwhere he saw it above him justbefore he "whited out" (and wasabducted). Presumably it was thislarger craft, and not the small one,which was involved in the abduction.(Perhaps the smaller craft is a "scoutship.")

Other Witnesses

H&S state that, despite the "hordesof investigators, newsmen and towns-people that were staked out in GulfBreeze at the height of Ed's encoun-ters, not one ever witnessed Ed tak-ing a photograph or separately wit-nessed a UFO that coincided withone of Ed's reports, while he tooksome 40 pictures over a six-monthperiod."

How H&S could make this state-ment in a supposedly scientific article,I don't know. Perhaps they didn'treally read the available literature. Orperhaps they are saying indirectlythat they don't believe there are anyother valid sightings in Gulf Breeze. If

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the latter is true, they should offerexplanations for the other of thesightings rather than simply assert, inan indirect way, that there were no oth-er sightings.

First of all, the premise of thisstatement is false: there were no"hordes" of any type "staked out."Most of the townspeople didn't knowwho the photographer was and Ed'ssightings were late at night whenpeople were in their houses and notoutside looking for UFOs. The fourlocal MUFON investigators (Ware,Flannigan, Reid and Watson) did thebest they could and even had a hot-line to Ed starting in January, 1988.For a couple of weeks they main-tained a late night vigil, but eventuallyit was too much for them (after work-ing all day) so they gave up. Duringone of these "stakeouts" (Jan. 21) Eddid have a brief sighting, but theMUFON investigator (Reid) and Edwere separated by several hundredfeet when it occurred. Ed tried todescribe the location of the UFO asseen against the background skyusing the walkie-talkie communicatorsthey used to maintain contact. How-ever, not knowing the names of con-stellations he could not tell Bob Reidwhere to look and Bob looked in thewrong direction. Ed ran to him, butthe UFO was gone by the time Edreached him to point it out.

The H&S claim that "not one ever... seperately witnessed a UFO thatcoincided with one of Ed's reports" isat least misleading, if not just plainwrong, depending upon what is meantby "coincided with one of Ed's reports."At the MUFON symposium I pres-ented a graph of the sighting reportsas a function of the day from Nov. 11through May 1. I showed that onNov. 11 there were 7 reports otherthan Ed's. (Since then I have learnedthat there was another sighting, byArt Hufford and his wife, which wasduring the second week of Novemberand could well have been on Nov. 11.See Appendix 2 for a listing of sight-ings.) The sightings by Charlie Some-rby and his wife occurred only min-utes before Ed's sightings. They claimedthat the photos showed what theysaw. When the Somerby's last sawthe UFO it was headed in the direc-tion of Ed's house. Mrs. Billie Zammit14

reported to the newspaper that shesaw a UFO at about 2:30 AM thatsame day, i.e., about twelve hoursbefore Ed's sighting (see references 2and 4).

There were other sightings thathave been reported (ref. 2) includingthe one by Jeff Thompson. However,I would like to single out this sightingfor a special discussion because ofthe way the public skepticism impact-ed on Mr. Thompson's decision tocome forward publicly with his story.

According to Mr. Thompson, at8:10 AM on Nov. 11 he saw the sametype of UFO that Ed photographed.He reported his sighting to the Sen-fine/ on Nov. 20 (the day after Ed'spictures were published; see ref. 2 fora brief summary of his description).Unfortunately he left no address orphone number where he could bereached (he had no phone of hisown) so the local investigators wer-en't able to contact him for a directinterview. Furthermore, he did notrespond to a public appeal for wit-nesses to come forward. However,on June 24, 1988, Mr. Thompsonwalked into the WEAR TV studio andsaid that he was upset over the pub-lic skepticism about Ed's photos. Hesaid that he had watched a recent(June 23?) TV special "follow up"story on the photos in which reporterMark Curtis investigated some possi-ble ways that Ed might have hoaxedhis photos (Mark Curtis tested sev-eral methods for hoaxing but failed toproduce convincing photos!). On thesame show Robert Boyd claimed thatEd's sightings were "most probably ahoax." Mr. Thompson told Mr. Curtisthat he decided to tell his story pub-licly because he knew what he hadseen. He said that he was "tired ofone man taking all the heat."

Several weeks later Jeff was inter-viewed by Charles Flannigan. Herepeated in greater detail the sightinginformation which was presented inthe Nov. 25, 1987 issue of the Sen-fine/. He also provided a sketch of anobject similar to Ed's "Type 1" UFO.In August Jeff agreed to be on NBCTV's "Unsolved Mysteries" show aboutthe Gulf Breeze sightings (which wasshown on Oct. 5). During the pre-show interview (in August) he stated"They were saying that the pictures

were fakes. And I was maintaining alow profile for a while. But then itstarted kind of ticking me off becausethe man that took the pictures ...(and the other witnesses are) ... allupstanding people of the community.(So) I came forward then, you know,letting them know that I did see itthat day." The interviewer asked him,"Did it make you kind of angry thatpeople were saying this was a hoax?"Jeff responded, "Yeah, it did. But Ican understand, maybe, them sayingthat, you know. Something that sup-posedly doesn't exist, you have tosee it to actually believe it." It isamusing to realize that this veryimportant witness came forward be-cause of the public skepticism.

Two more witnesses who reactedto the skepticism in the same way arechemist Arthur Hufford and his wife.They saw a UFO in Pensacola duringthe second week of November, 1987.(Nov. 11 was in the middle of thatweek.)

Mr. Hufford was also on the"Unsolved Mysteries" show. He toldthe interviewer that he had not readof the sightings in the Gulf BreezeSentinel (because he lives in Pensac-ola) and that it wasn't until late Feb-ruary, 1988, when the Sentinel pub-lished a four-page special section onEd's sightings and photos, that he"realized something bigger had hap-pened. It wasn't just a one time affairin November. That there was some-thing strange going on." He thenwent on to say that he became awareof the controversy but he knew thatit wasn't a hoax because "I had seenit in the sky, and nobody was playingwith mirrors on my windshield on mycar ... if there was a hoax involved, itwasn't the photographer pulling thehoax." At that point Mr. Huffordstarted to "come out of the closet."He informed some of his friends thatthe sightings were serious. He wenton to say "I was bothered when Iread particularly one of the debunkersthat was quoted in the paper, said itwas obviously a hoax, and he wasn'teven going to look at the photo-graphs. And I just ... I just laughedbecause this is crazy, beause it isreal." (Note: Philip Klass is quoted inthe May 21 issue of the PensacolaNews Journal as saying that there is

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only a "one in a jillion chance" thatthe Gulf Breeze photos are authentic,and "I have not personally investigated.I wouldn't waste the time. I onlyinvestigate those (sightings) that mightbe genuinely impressive to the pub-lic." Assuming that "jillion" is a verylarge number, it would appear thatBeliever Phil was up to his old tricks,calling a sighting a hoax before inves-tigating it.) The relevance of Hufford'stestimony to Ed's photos is clearfrom a statement made during thatsame interview: "I'm convinced thatwhat I saw was the same thing thatwas photographed on November llthand published in the Sentinel. There'sjust no doubt in my mind that thisphotographer took pictures of wha-tever it was that we saw" (myemphasis).

Other dates of "coincidental" sight-ings reported by people not related toEd are Dec. 2, (2 others), Feb. 26 (2),Mar. 17 (3), and Mar. 20 (4) (seeAppendix 2). On Dec. 27, "PatrickHanks" (pseudonym), a friend of Ed'sfamily, saw the UFO at the sametime that Ed and his family saw it. Nopicture was taken, however (see ref.2). On Jan. 24 Duane Cook, the edi-tor of the Sentinel, filmed Ed with avideo camera as Ed took a picture ofa UFO. (Compare this fact with theH&S statement that "no one [person]ever witnessed Ed taking a photo-graph.") However, Duane did not seethe UFO himself. He was looking atEd, in the opposite direction to theUFO, which appeared so briefly thatEd didn't have time to point it out (hejust barely had time to take a pic-ture). Duane did watch the UFOphoto develop only minutes after Edhad taken the picture with his oldPolaroid.

On March 17 several witnesses sawEd set up and load the SRS (stereo)camera in Shoreline Park (see ref. 2).They watched as he took test photos.Subsequently they left Ed's vicinityfor a short time but they did notleave the park. The saw the SRScamera flashes and returned quicklyand saw the newly taken stereo pic-tures of a UFO develop as theywatched. On the same night, CityCouncilwoman Brenda Pollack reporteda glowing object moved in the skyover Gulf Breeze. She saw it onlyMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

minutes before Ed took his SRS pho-tos. When she last saw it, it was mov-ing in a direction toward the area whereEd's camera was pointed when hetook the SRS pictures.

H&S have stated that the "morethan 130 other cases claimed are —as of this writing — either weak andnot supportive of Ed's sightings ornot yet even investigated." This state-ment is wrong on several counts.First, I know of no one who hasclaimed that there are 130 othercases. In ref. 2 I stated that I hadfound 55 "non-Ed" reports and thatmany of these were multiple luifnesssightings. This led me to claim thatthere were probably well over ahundred witnesses. I gathered thesereports from the Sentinel newspaperstories. At the time that I wrote ref. 2most of those sightings had not beeninvestigated, and that condition is stilltrue. However, well over a dozen ofthe most significant reports havebeen investigated (see Appendix 2).These reports are certainly not "weak"and they do support Ed's sightings.Robert Oechsler, during his Decemberinvestigation, learned that there weremore witnesses than had been reportedto the paper. The results of his inves-tigation will be reported elsewhere.

H&S have claimed that most of thephotographs show the UFO in "exactlythe same orientation toward thecamera." In particular, the "bottom istilted slightly toward the camera."The significance of this fact for thehoax hypothesis is not 'clear. Edstated that the UFO rocked back andforth and sideways slightly and thathe intentionally took the photos whenthe UFO was brightest. Since thebottom was the brightest part thismeant that he took the photos, whe-never possible, when the bottom wastilted toward him.

Character Issue

As I have already pointed out, it isdifficult to present a clear descriptionof the character of a person whowishes public anonymity. However,he is known to many people in GulfBreeze, including many who don'tknow that he has taken photos. Peo-ple who have worked with him,including businessmen, communityleaders, teachers, etc. judge him to

be a man of good character and nota man who would create harmfulpranks or hoaxes.

H&S have pointed out that Eduses two different last names. Myresponse to this is a big "So What?"He has never tried to hide his identityfrom any investigator (including Smith,Hall, Boyd and Stanford). He usesthe names of both his father and hisstepfather alternately. By either namehe is well known in the community.

H&S have accused the local inves-tigators of not following up leads thatthey have supplied but rather of ask-ing Ed for the answers to skepticalquestions. (Actually the leads havebeen followed up over the manymonths that this investigation haspreceded, although not totally by thelocal investigators.) Their chief com-plaint is that the investigators did notfollow up on "reports" (note the plu-ral) "that Ed had produced deliberatedouble exposure photographs" (notethe word "deliberate" and use of theplural of photograph) "of 'ghosts' forparty purposes and had bragged tolocal teenagers" (note the plural ofteenager) "that he was going to pulloff the 'ultimate' prank which theywould recognize when they saw it."

The claim that Ed took "ghost pho-tos" and that he planned an "ultimateprank" has been attributed to onelocal teenager (NM) who has had agrudge against Ed and Ed's son eversince Ed barred him from coming toparties because the young man broughtsome of his friends who were knownto be "into drugs." (Ed has been veryadamant that there be no liquor nordrugs at the parties at his house forlocal teenagers.) Apparently this youngman also was quite angry that a cer-tain girl was a close friend of Ed'sson. In late 1987 he began to writenasty, demeaning letters to Ed's son(I have seen some of these). He also"keyed" (scratched) the son's car andput sugar in the gas tank. He endedthe harassment when Ed threatenedto call the police. As H&S havepointed out, Don Ware and the localinvestigators have dismissed the "ghostphoto" and "ultimate prank" as a"false issue." However, according toH&S "the objective facts suggestotherwise."

What objective facts? H&S claim15

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that there are reports that Ed braggedabout an "ultimate prank." From whomdo we have these reports? We haveonly the testimony of a teenager who,himself, is far from being above sus-picion. David Richardson of the Pen-sacola News Journal tried to checkup on this NM's story by interviewingseveral of the teenagers that NM hadclaimed could support his story.However, Richardson learned nothingto support NM's claim that Ed wasinvolved with an "ultimate hoax."Don Schmitt of the Center for UFOStudies also called several of thechildren mentioned by NM. Schmittwas surprised to learn that theyhadn't been to Ed's house for a longtime (months) and that they had noknowledge of Ed being involved in ahoax. Finally, Don Ware's "spy"attended numerous parties at Ed'shouse and found no evidence of aUFO hoax (or any other type ofhoax, which is why Ware rejected theBoyd-Smith hoax theory as a falseissue.)

The relevance of the suggestionthat Ed might have intentionally takendouble exposure photographs at par-ties that occurred about two yearsbefore his UFO photos is clear: if itcould be proven that he knew howto take double exposure photos thenthis would provide support for theclaim that the photos were hoaxed,although it would not proue theywere hoaxed. Thus the importantquestion raised by H&S (followingBoyd and Smith in earlier privatepublications) is this: is rhere proofthat Ed deliberately took doubleexposure photographs?

When this was first brought up inthe spring of 1988, Ed stated that hecould recall only one photo, out ofhundreds (?) that he may have takenof children who have come to hismonthly parties (for teenagers), hadan unexpected image. The unex-pected image appeared in the photoof a girl who was at a Halloweenparty in 1985. Ed was as puzzled asthe children as to how the imagecame about but, in keeping with theoccasion, suggested that the imagewas that of a ghost. This suggestionwas evidently heard by several child-ren at the party.

In the fall of 1988 a Miami TV sta-16

tion decided to do an "expose" of theGulf Breeze sightings. With the aid ofthe teenager who had accused Ed,the station managed to acquire twooriginal photos of the girl. The twophotos were taken, one after theother. The first photo shows the girland some background features of theroom. The second picture, which wastaken from a slightly different loca-tion, shows the girl, the backgroundfeatures and some bright spots in arandom array, the "ghost."

Until the original photos were ob-tained no investigator had actuallyseen the "ghost" photo. Ed, trying torecall the photo taken over two yearsbefore, remembered only an indistinctblob or blobs of light that made anindistinct "image." He did not recall aclearly defined "ghost" shape. YetRobert Boyd and Dr. Smith and theother investigators (myself included)had discussed it as if it showed a def-inite image of a "ghost" or a "devil."Smith and Boyd had therefore arguedthat it could only have been pro-duced intentionally by a doubleexposure technique or some .trickeryusing mirrors (my emphasis)." Thestory of this photo grew in the skep-tical retelling to the point that Ed was"accused" of deliberately taking numer-ous double exposure photos at parties.

When I saw the actual photo (onTV) I had to laugh. It shows that Ed'srecollection was correct. The "ghostimage" is just a number of brightblobs of light in a random arrange-ment at the left of the image of thegirl. There is no definite image.

Robert Boyd tried to find a face-like image in the arrangement ofbright spots and, in so doing, provedthat he can pass a "Rohrshach Test."He found that if you look carefullyyou can find two roundish spots thatare side-by-side (the "eyes"?) and alarger roundish spot (the "mouth," oris it a fat nose?). These spots form atilted "face." Of course, you have toignore all the other "non-facelike"blobs of light.

In Ed's recreation room there is alarge mirror on a wall. Opposite thatis a plate glass wall that separates theliving room from the recreation room.One can easily imagine these glasssurfaces catching the flash and bounc-ing it off other reflective surfaces that

are within the field of view of the pic-ture thus creating unexpected imagesin the picture. An accidental combi-nation of reflections from the mirroror from the glass wall with reflectionsoff reflective objects could easilycreate unexpected images. For example,Ed may have taken the picture whilelooking at an angle (not 90 degrees)toward the plate glass wall. The girlmight have been on the same side ofthe glass as Ed or on the oppositeside (in which case the picture wouldhave been taken through the glasswall.) Under these conditions somereflective objects (pictures, drinkingglasses, white shirts, wall lamps, etc.)on the same side of the glass wall asEd, could have been illuminated bythe flash either directly by the flashcube or indirectly by a reflection ofthe flash off the glass wall. At certainangles of the camera relative to theglass wall, light from these objectscould return to the camera so thatthey would be photographed indi-rectly, by reflection off the glass wall.On the other hand, objects on the farside of the wall would be photo-graphed directly, as through a win-dow. If the objects photographed byreflection from the wall were muchfarther away from Ed (the "opticaldistance") than the girl, then, sincethe camera was well focused on her,their reflections would be unfocused,diffuse blobs. These reflections couldcreate images that would be super-imposed on the images of objects onthe opposite of the wall (the back-ground images). This general arran-gement as I have described (photo-graphing a person who stands next tothe glass wall) has been tested by Edat my request. He has demonstratedthat it is difficult to avoid gettingimages of reflective objects on thesame side of the wall as he standsbecause the flash is so bright. Thus ithas been demonstrated that a "ghost"image similar to the one in the pic-ture of the girl could have beencreated accidentally in Ed's recrea-tion room.

The collection of randomly placedblobs appears only in the secondphoto, which was taken from aslightly different location than thefirst. It seems quite possible to methat specular reflections of the camera

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Demon's Delight? Mrs. Ed with "ghost" image.

flash, being highly direction depend-ent, could cause odd reflection spotsin a picture taken from one locationand not in a picture taken from aslightly different location.

In order to demonstrate how theso-called "ghost photographs" wereaccidentally made by Ed, the follow-ing experiment was conducted. Thefirst photo shows Bob Reid next tothe "ghost" and the second photoillustrated shows "Mrs. Ed" next to adifferent "ghost." These pictures weretaken by the method described in thisreport.

Both Bob and Frances were stand-ing next to the glass doorway betweenEd's (former) living room and therecreation room. They were on thesame side of the doorway as Ed whenhe took the picture. The "ghost" ineach case is a reflection in the glass.The "ghost" in the picture with Bobconsists of reflections of Bob's faceand also some objects on a ladder.The "ghost" with Francis consists ofjars and balloons. Ed mentioned thatballoons were present at most par-ties. Bob Reid stood next to thedoor in such a way that the walladjoining the door is visible. Francisstood in such a manner that none ofthe framework of the door was vis-ible. Unfortunately there is no furni-ture in Ed's old house to makeimages of things seen through theglass door as there are in the original"ghost" photo.

The importance of the pictures, espe-cially the picture of Frances, is thatthey show how the original ghostMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

photos could have happened quite byaccident if the girl had happened tobe standing by the glass door whenEd took her picture. These picturesprove that the original "ghost" photocould have been an accident and didnot have to be taken by doubleexposure as has been claimed. Thereason for publishing both and notjust Frances is that the photo withBob Reid establishes that these werecontrolled tests, carried out at myrequest, and that Bob can verify thatthe "ghosts" were, indeed, producedby reflection in a glass. If the photo ofBob was not published, the skeptic'simmediate response would be that Edsimply duplicated his double expo-sure technique to create a picture ofFrances. The photo of Bob, however,with the edge of the glass door show-ing and the ghost in the glass proveshow the photo was taken. The Boyd-Smith argument, as summarized byH&S, now looses its importance.

H&S have used the testimony ofMayor Grey to bolster their case that"Ed's reputation as a prankster is notwithout prior foundation." Mr. Greyis quoted as saying "Ed's a heck of anice guy, very charming, but it istotally consistent with his personalityto pull off a stunt like this." Thereader will remember that Grey wenton record in late April as claimingthat the sightings were a hoax becausehe was afraid that Gulf Breeze wasgetting a bad "image" (see the sectionentitled Premature Publicity). Mr. Greymay be an expert on the "image" ofGulf Breeze, but is he an expert on

Ed's personality? Ed is well known forinventing creative games for teenag-ers (to give them something to doand keep them out of trouble). Hewas personally thanked by the Mayorfor creating a citywide game to helpcelebrate an anniversary. But is thiscomparable to creating a UFO hoaxwhich could have a considerableunfavorable impact on many peoplein Gulf Breeze? I think not. Further-more, neither Dr. Overlade nor Har-vey McLaughlin, who studied Ed inways which could detect a maliciouspersonality, found anything in Ed'scharacter that would suggest hemight attempt a UFO hoax.

Mr. Grey's implied suggestion thatthere is little difference between Ed'screative games and a large scaleUFO hoax reminds me of PhilipKlass' suggested explanation of theVal Johnson, police-car-damage caseof August 1979. In UFOs, the PublicDeceived (Prometheus Books, Buf-falo, NY, 1983) Klass essentially triedto deceive the public by suggestingthat Johnson hoaxed the sighting anddamaged his police car to providehard evidence of the event. As evi-dence that Johnson might have hoaxedthe sighting Klass suggested thatJohnson was a practical joker. Hebased this suggestion on the state-ment by another police officer that,as a joke, Johnson might hide yourcup of coffee. Evidently "BelieverPhil" Klass hoped that the averagereader could not tell the difference"scale" between hiding a cup of cof-fee and damaging a police car.

H&S have protested that the inves-tigators were lax in checking intoEd's claims and background. Theycomplain specifically about the deci-sion of the local investigators torefrain from questioning the 8-10"teenagers whose names and phonenumbers had been provided as wit-nesses to the allegations against Edin support of the teenager who hadbeen involved in disagreements withEd's son." Don Ware has said thatthe local investigators decided not tocall the children since to do so andask specific questions about Ed wouldreveal his identity as "Mr. Ed" andWare and the others had promisednot to reveal his identity. Moreover,as I have already pointed out, Don

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Bob Reid and a second, duplicate "ghost" image.

Ware had a "spy" who would havebeen privy to the same information asthe other teenagers, having been atEd's house many times. However, the"oath of confidentiality" did not pre-vent others from questioning thechildren. I have already discussed theresults of the investigations by DavidRichardson and Don Schmitt whoindependently questioned several ofthe children. They learned nothing ofsignificance.

Summary And Conclusions

In concluding their article H&Sclaim that skepticism about the GulfBreeze episode is "entirely justifieduntil independent photoanalysis workis completed and reported, the sup-posedly supporting evidence system-atically analyzed and the centralquestions answered." They criticizedme and several others (Ware andHopkins in particular) because ourminds "appear to be made up." (Nat-urally they did not criticize Dr. Smithwho made up his mind at least by lastApril, when he wrote a paper entitled"Gulf Breeze, The End," and perhapseven as early as last March when,according to Robert Reid, he tried topressure Reid into convincing theother local investigators that Ed'ssightings were a hoax ... and this wasonly after being in Gulf Breeze for afew hours! Nor do they criticizeRobert Boyd and Mark Rhodighierwho, in April, published the CUFOSstatement that the case was a hoax,ref. 10.)

I cannot speak for Ware and Hop-18

kins, but I have described how Imade up my mind at the beginning ofthis paper. Although I was aware ofall the "negative evidence," I wasmore impressed by the positive evi-dence, in particular the videotape andthe stereo photos. Only very strongdirect evidence to the contrary wouldconvince me that Ed knew how tofake the SRS camera photos. (Justbecause 7 was able to figure out howto defeat the SRS camera after theMarch 17 and 20 photos were takendoes not mean that Ed had figured itout before they were taken.) It isquite probable that a professional illu-sionist with plenty of support fromassociates could have hoaxed some-thing like Ed's sighting reports andphotos if it had occurred to him todo so. But this statement regardingthe capabilities of a professional illu-sionist is merely an observation withno relevance to the sightings sincethere is no evidence that a profes-sional illusionist was involved.

If Ed were the only person to havereported sightings, i.e., if his familymembers had not reported seeing theUFO and if there were no othersightings by ~the Gulf Breeze resi-dents, I would still be very skeptical.However, I accept the idea that otherpeople in Gulf Breeze have had sight-ings. I was, of course, aware of thisfact during the spring and it playedno small role in convincing me thatEd's sightings were real. As I said inref. 2, "It would, indeed, be strange ifEd's photos and sightings were writ-ten off as hoaxes while other sight-

ings were accepted as true!"At the beginning of this article I

stated that I agree with general criti-cism ftl (premature publicity), #2(insufficient publication) and #4 (un-even reporting of "positive" and "nega-tive" evidence) made by H&S. I alsostated that I disagree with point #3(there is "negative evidence"). It ismy opinion that there never wasconvincing "negative evidence" of thesort that was publicized by Smith andBoyd. (Note that Ed's photos them-selves would not be considered "neg-ative evidence" unless one could findstrong evidence within the photosthemselves that trick methods musthave been used. I could find no suchconclusive proof.)

The only potentially important "nega-tive evidence" was based on unrelia-ble testimony which was exaggeratedby Boyd and Smith into a de-factoindictment of Ed's character. Specifi-cally, they used a claim by a teenagerthat Ed had taken numerous "ghostphotos" at parties for children tosuggest that the "ghost images" weremade by double exposures or byother means for trick photography. Tothem this indicated that, at the veryleast, Ed knew something about trickphotography. Even before they hadthe "proof in hand, i.e., even beforethey had a "ghost photo" to proveEd's knowledge of trick photography,they proclaimed the UFO photos tobe hoaxes. However, now that (the)one "ghost" photo is available, theyno longer have proof that Ed knewabout trick photography. The "nega-tive evidence" has evaporated.

There would be important negativeevidence if credible witnesses testifiedthat they had seen Ed (and his family)involved in creating UFO pictures.Such testimony of direct observafionof hoaxing would be very conclusive,as opposed to the evidence that H&Shave cited which is, at best, indirect.Considering the number of photosthat Ed took, the number of differentUFOs represented, the number oflocations at which he took photosand the videotape one would thinkthat, if a hoax were being perpe-trated, someone would have seensomething related to the hoax. Quot-ing James Moseley (ref. 14), "Whereare Ed's models? Where is a neighbor

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

Page 19: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

or enemy who will come forward tosaw he saw Ed setting things up for ahoax photo?"

One reason that the H&S articleexists is because several skepticsbecame convinced early in the inves-tigation that the sightings were ahoax. They complained loudly thatthe questions they raised were notbeing treated "fairly" by the localinvestigators. They were so certainthat they were correct that they werewilling to publicize their claims with aconsequent negative impact on theGulf Breeze witnesses. I have noproblem with their skepticism of lastspring, and I have no problem withthe fact that they publicized it. Whatbothers me is that they have beenunreasonable in continuing their adam-ant skepticism beyond the reasonabletime for it to end, i.e., beyond lastsummer when Ed completed manyhours of personality tests and hyp-notic regressions. These tests andregressions show that Ed is, withouta doubt, a classic abductee. Thisexplains why he is "different" fromother people who have reported oneor two sightings.

By the end of the summer of 1988the small community of researcherswho worked directly on the caseknew of Ed's regressions and hisabduction reports (although the con-tent of these reports has been keptsecret to avoid contamination ofother cases; note that a number ofitems Ed has reported during regres-sions have turned up in other unpub-lished abduction accounts). At thatpoint the skeptics within the UFOcommunity should have admitted that,at the very least, they had little evi-dence to support their position.

I hope that this article has ans-wered the questions raised by H&S. Ihope the reader will now understandwhy I arrived at that conclusion and Ihope that the arguments presentedhere will help the reader make amore informed decision of his own asto whether or not he accepts thiscase. As for myself, I agree with JimMoseley that, until some universallyconvincing proof of fraud is unco-vered, "Ed deserves benefit of the doubt."

References

1) Hall, R. and Willy Smith, "Balanc-MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

ing the Scale," MUFON UFO Jour-nal, #248, December 1988.

2) Maccabee, Bruce, "A History ofthe Gulf Breeze, Florida Sightings(revised), Analysis of Stereo Photostaken on February 26 and May 1 andViewgraphs presented During theMUFON International Symposium Pro-ceedings;" the first listed paper wasfirst published in the Proceedings ofthe International MUFON UFO Sym-posium, June 1988; the revised ver-sion of that paper and the other twopapers listed here are available fromthe Fund for UFO Research, Box277, Mt. Rainier, MD 20712)

3) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., "The Gulf Breeze, Flor-ida Photographic and CEIII Case —Part 1," MUFON UFO Journal #239,March, 1988

4) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., "The Gulf Breeze, Flor-ida Photographic Case — Supple-ment to Part 1," MUFON UFOJournal #240, April, 1988

5) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., (part II of the articlelisted in 3), MUFON UFO Journal#241, May, 1988

6) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., (part III), MUFON UFOJournal #242, June 1988

7) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., (part IV), MUFON UFOJournal #243, July 1988

8) Ware, D., C. Flannigan and W.Andrus, Jr., (part V), MUFON UFOJournal #244, August 1988

9) Rhodighier, M. and R. Boyd,"Gulf Breeze, Florida: The OtherSide of the Coin," Center for UFOStudies (CUFOS) Special Bulletin,April 1988; Clark, J., "Ill Breeze,"and Stacy, D., "Gulf Breeze, a Noteto the Skeptical," and Rhodighier, M.,"Gulf Breeze, A Note to the Commit-ted," International UFO Reporter(CUFOS), March/April, 1988; "Mr.Ed," "The CUFOS Position, A Re-sponse from Gulf Breeze," MUFONUFO Journal, September, 1988 (theCUFOS material is available fromThe J. Allen Hynek Center for UFOStudies, 2457 West Peterson Ave.,Chicago, IL 60659)

10) Rhodighier, M., R. Boyd and R.Stanford, News Release: "Gulf Breeze,Florida, UFO Report Established tobe of No Scientific Value," CUFOS,

April 18, 198811) Stanford, R., "A Strange Breeze

in Gulf Breeze," April 15, 1988 and"A Strange Breeze in Gulf Breeze,Part Two," April 19, Project StarlightInternational, Box 599, College Park,MD 20740

12) Falvo, J., report on his May 24,25 trip to Gulf Breeze and investiga-tion as contained in a letter to Vin-cent DiPietro (private communication).

13) Filer, J., report on his GulfBreeze, Florida investigation, Septem-ber 1,1987 (private communication).

14) Moseley, J., "A Report on OurExclusive Interview with 'Mr. Ed' ofGulf Breeze, Florida: Are His PhotosHoaxes or Are They (Gasp, Shudder!)REAL???", Saucer Smear, Volume36, #1, Jan. 10, 1989 (available fromJ. Moseley, Box 1709, Key West, FL33041)

15) Oechsler, R., "Report on theGulf Breeze Investigation" (availablefrom the Fund for UFO Research).

Acknowledgements

I could not have compiled this articlewithout the help of the local GulfBreeze investigators (Donald Ware,Charles Flannigan and Robert Reid). Ialso acknowledge communicationsand/or written communications withthe following people in alphabeticalorder: Walter Andrus, Jr. (MUFON),Mike Burke (Pensacola News Jour-nal), Dr. Mark Carlatto (photoana-lyst), Duane Cook (editor, the GulfBreeze Sentinel), Mark Curtis (WEARTV reporter), Thomas Deuley (Nimslocamera and film analyst), GeorgeFiler (investigator), James Falvo (inves-tigator), Dr. Richard Haines (investi-gator/psychologist), Bruce Haupt(lawyer), Budd Hopkins (investigator),Arthur Hufford (UFO witness), Mich-ael Kradz (voice stress analyst), Dr.Rima Laibow (psychiatrist), HarveyMcLaughlin (polygraphist), JamesMoseley (in-vestigator), Dr. RobertNathan (photo analyst), Robert Oechs-ler (investigator, photo analyst), Dr.Dan C. Overlade (clinical pycholo-gist), Kris Palmer (Unsolved Myster-ies TV show), Brenda Pollack (UFOwitness) and Tracy Torme (UFOCover Up Live TV show/Gulf Breezesegment producer). I also thank Mr.Ed and his wife for their help in supp-

19

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lying information I have needed forcarrying out my technical analysis.

APPENDIX 1Computer Analyzed Photos

Two of these photos have beenstudied to determine if there is evi-dence of hoaxing. These are ttl and#5. Photo #1 (see Figure 1) shows theUFO apparently behind the tree. Ifthis photo were a superposition bydouble exposure the very dark imageof the tree branch would be over-layed by the brighter image of themain body of the craft. Photo 5 (seeFigure 3) has a line running from thetop of the picture to the bottom. Ithas been suggested that this line is asuspending device for a model. Thissuggestion raises the question ofwhether or not this line crosses overthe image of the UFO and thereforecould be a film flaw.

To study the possibility of a doubleexposure, photo ttl was "tricolorscanned" (red, blue, and green colorseparation filters were used) with anOptronics image digitizer operated inthe reflection mode. The scanningwas done with 255 grey levels (pluszero) and at 100 micron resolution.The data tape was sent to Dr. MarkCarlatto of The Analytical SciencesCorp (Boston). He used image pro-cessing equipment to produce Figure2. Figure 2 is a reconstruction of aportion of the "blue image" (the dig-itized image obtained when the bluecolor filter was used) of photo 1.(Blue was used to reconstruct theimage since the picture has an overallbluish cast, a property of the PolaroidType 108 film when used at low lightlevels.) It is a blowup of the UFOimage and the adjoining tree image.In this enhanced picture it is clearthat the tree overlaps the main bodyof the UFO image because the treeimage is "perfectly black" even whereit cuts into main body of the image.The tree image does not overlapimage of the bright bottom becausethe UFO was tilted.

For comparison with the results ofthe computer-aided analysis, notethat Figure 1 is a high contrast copyof photo 1 that was made for RobertNathan at JPL. This high contrastcopy also shows that the tree image20

completely blocked the image of theleft side of the main body of theUFO.

The area within the small boxdrawn on the picture in Figure 2 wasanalyzed further to try to determinewhether or not the UFO could havebeen a photo of a model which wascutout and pasted onto a photo ofthe background and the combinationrephotographed. However this analy-sis was inconclusive because theimages in photo 1 were clearly smear-ed a small amount by camera motionas proven by the elongation of theimages of both the UFO top light andthe streetlight at the right side of thefull frame photo (see Figure 1; theseimages are smeared in a downward-to-the-right direction).

Figure 3 is a high contrast copy ofPhoto 5 that was made at JPL.Barely visible, running from the top of

the picture to the bottom and ouerthe,UFO image just to the left of thethird "window" from the left, is a faintwhite line. The line is quite, thoughnot perfectly, straight on the average,but on close inspection is seen to havesmall wiggles in it. Figure 4 is a highcontrast digitized blowup of the UFOimage and the surrounding area.Ignore the bright spots and blotcheswhich are film defects, dust, etc.which were picked up and amplifiedby the digitizing-enhancing process.Clearly evident, just to the left of thecenter of the UFO image is thewiggly line that runs from the top ofthe picture to the bottom. The lineclearly passes "over" or through theimage of the UFO. Thus this is a filmflaw. This type of flaw has been seenin a number of the Type 108 Polaroidpictures, including non-UFO pictures,as pointed out in reference 2.

FIG. 1MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

Page 21: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

FIG. 2

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989FIG. 3

21

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PHOTO 22 PHOTO 23

22FIG. 4

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

Page 23: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

APPENDIX 2

List of Gulf Breeze UFO WitnessesCompiled by Bruce Maccabee

NOTE: Listed names were published in the Sentinel. Use of initials of wit-nesses indicates confidentiality requested.

Name/ Date//time Features Investigated# of witnesses/ by MUFON?

Reported to (S = Sentinel, P = Pensacola News-Journal, M = MUFON, O = Other)

Anonymous/1/S

SB/l/M

Zammit/l/S,MThompson/ 1/S,MSomerby/2/S,MED/1/S.MAnonymous/2/SLube/l/SHanson/ 1/SAnonymous/l?/SHufford/2/M,O

"Cathy"/4/S

Anonymous/2/S

ED/l/M

McL ..... /2/SED/2/M

Anonymous/2/S

ED/l/M

Newman/2/S

ED/2M

ED/l/M"B. Bill"

ED/l/S.M

ED/3/M

ED/4/M

06/-/86//-- photos of Ed-type UFO

11/09/87//0100 entities, abduction

No

Yes

11/11/87//0230 glowing object, blue beam Yes//0815 Ed-type UFO, jets chased Yes//1700 Ed-type UFO, moving toward Ed Yes//1705 photos 1-5, blue beam, hum, voice Yes//1800 no noise, bob up and down No//1830 slowly moving strange light No//1930 7 yr. old, colored lights fall No//2130 light arcing downward No

11/1 l?/87//eve Ed-type UFO near Pensacola Yes

1 l/13/87//dusk stationary object, 4 lights

ll/19/87//eve hovering object, light beam

11/20/87//1700 photos 6-9, hum, voice

12/02/87//0017 large, bright, no wings, slow//0300/0330 photos 10, 11, entity, beam,

object over field behind house//1845 ball of light, pop up, hover

No

Yes

YesYes

No

12/05/87//0545 photo 12, over field behind house Yes

12/14/87//0500 white or yellow sphere, 10 sec.

12/17/87//0100 photos 13-17a + 17b, abduction

12/22/87//1715 Ed heard hum only; no sighting//1730 took nine photos; over field

12/23/87//0600 photo 18, 3 UFOs behind house

12/27/87//2015 "P. Hanks," Ed, Wife; UFO behind house Yes

12/28/87//2030 Whole Ed family; videotape Yes

(Jan. 7, 1988: Ed interviewed on all the proceeding events by Don Ware and Charles Flanni-gan. Ed admitted to being "Mr. X." At this time Ed did not recall the abduction on Dec. 17.That was recalled only through hypnosis in December, 1988.)

Name/tt of witnesses/

ED/l/M

ED/l/M

(ED/1/S,M)

ED/l/M

ED/l/M

Zepp/4/S,M,O

Date//time Features Investigatedby MUFON?

01/10/88//1800

01/12/88//1745

01/14/88//2045

01/16/88//0200

01/21/88/2230

Ed heard hum only, no sighting

photo 19 (Road Shot), white beam,UFO over road, entities, blue beam

"government agents" attempt toobtain Ed's original photos

photo 20, hum, 2 UFOs (Type 1, 2)

Bob Reid on "stakeout" with Ed;didn't see UFO Ed saw briefly

01/22/88//2000 bright oval, shined light down

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

(Same date: while Bob Reid was with Ed at night a helicopter circled over Ed's house six timesand was videotaped by Ed at about 9:30.)

ED/1 + 1/S.M

ED/3/M

S.B./2/M

ED/3/M

01/24/88//1730 photo 21, D. Cook videotape of Ed Yes

01/26/88//2130 photo 22, 23, Type 2 UFO, "towel" Yes

02/06/88//0830 bright ring shaped, in Alabama Yes

02/07/88//2030 photo 24, blue beam "close up" Yes

(On Feb. 8 Budd Hopkins visited Gulf Breeze and Ed. During the same week a circle of deadgrass was discovered in the field behind Ed's house. On Feb. 10 Ed was given the Nimslocamera to use during his next sighting.)

J /2/M 02/12/88//2300 boomerang shape with light, noise

(On Feb. 20 B. Maccabee, C. Flannigan and R. Reid interviewed Ed for 14 hours.)

Yes

G /1/MED/2/M

02/26/88//2030//2130

No

Yes

YesNo

Yes

Yes

--/4?/S

Poole/7?/S

Fletcher/1/S

Kneff/1/S

Anonymous/2/S

Fuchek/4/SAnonymous/2/S

//night

02/27/88//2030

02/28/88//2145

03/01/88//2200

03/03/88//night

03/04/88//1845//2145

long dark object with two lights YesPhotos 25-34, Ed used the Nimslo Yes3-D camera, Type 3 UFO, calculated to havebeen 40-70 ft. away, beyond a treetop and2.5-4 ft. longstrange lights hovering over GB

large yellow light hovering

amber lights in a rotating circle

yellowish light moved over the bay

two oblong crafts, bright lights

oval orange light in sky, movingED-type UFO, photos didn't come out

No

No

No

No

No

NoNo

(On March 4, the Nimslo camera was opened and the photos developed in public. Also onMarch 4, Ed informed the MUFON investigators that he had passed polygraph (lie detector)tests taken on Feb. 18 and 23. During the evening of March 4 the WEAR TV special on theGB photos was shown.)

iao

Ou.

Ou.5

Page 24: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

(On March 7 Ed bought a Model 600 Polaroid camera because his old Polaroid had been "dis-credited" by Maccabee's demonstration that it could be used to create double exposures.)

2

I-nOo"

Name/# of witnesses/

ED/l/M

ED/l/M

Date//time Features

03/07/88//1800 Ed heard hum, no sighting

03/08/88//1745 photo 35 (used Model 600), hum

Investigatedby MUFON?

Yes

Yes

(Maccabee suggested Ed make a stereo camera using Polaroid cameras. He built a "self refe-rencing stereo camera," the "SRS" camera, with a two foot camera separation.)

Sp /2/M

Sominski/1/SCarter/1/SDG/2/S

Warren/2/SWB/l/M (in Alabama)AG/2/M (in Alabama

BSW/3/S.MHurd/l/S"Team"/many/S"Teacher"/l/SRO/2/S.M

BP/l/M

03/10/88//0030 object dove into Gulf of Mexico No

NoYesNo

NoYesYes

YesNoNoNo

Yespictures taken (didn't come out), heard hum

//night bright light in west Yes

03/11/88//1830//1830//1845

03/13/88/2215//2310//2305

bright bottom, top light, spinfast bright light, no soundblinking lights, circle, noiseless

two bright lights, erratic motionrow of four lights, noiselessrow of four lights

03/14/88//2200 bright orange ring, voice heard//2000 four bright lights hovering//2000 lights all around it, hovering//2045 moving light in sky, vanished//2145 square orange lights rotating

(On March 15 Maccabee received test photos made with the SRS. They showed that the dou-ble camera provided stereo distance measurements, but it underestimated the distances.)

Anonymous/3/SAnonymous/1/SReese/2/SAndrews/2/S

Anonymous/1/SBP/3/S.MPollack/l/S,M,OED/2/S.M

03/16/88//"eve" flashing white light hovering//2030 bright, bluish, windows, small//2200 yellow lights and dark spaces

//2200? large "sausage shaped" light

NoNoNoNo

03/17/88//"eve"//2045//2200//2205

bright, bluish, planes made it go Nobright pulsating light moving Yesorange, bright moving light Yesphotos 36L and 36R, the first SRS Yescamera photos of a UFO, calculated to beover 180 ft. away. Operation of the cameraand developing of the pictures was witnessedby five people besides Ed. Only Ed and hiswife saw the UFO.

Hamilton/2/SRegister/1/SMcCann/6/S,MAnonymous/2?/SED/l/M

Anonymous/2/S

03/20/88//1500//1924//2010//2030//2245

moving shiny object, vanishedwhite bottom ring, top lightflashing colored lights, blue beamsvery bright, bluish, windowsphotos 37L and 37R, SRS photosthe object was beyond a tree 60 feet away

03/21/88//1500 big, oblong, dark, hovering

NoNo

YesNo

Yes

No

Name/# of witnesses/

Anonymous/2/S

Gibson/1/S

Brown/2/SAnonymous/2/S

Anonymous/?/S

"Ann"/2/S,M

Cunningham/1/S

Carter/3/S

Wheeler/3/S

Anonymous/2/SAnonymous/2/SAnonymous/1/SAnonymous/1/SAnonymous/1/SAnonymous/1/SAnonymous/1/S

McNutt/2/S

Anonymous/2?/S

Anonymous/2/S

ED/2/MAnonymous/1/S

Holcomb/l/S,M

ED/l/M

McConneil/2/S,M

Date//time Features

03/23/88//2230

03/25/88/1945

03/30/88//2000//2230

03/31/88//2045

04/03/88//0245

04/04/88/2045

04/05/88//1915

04/06/88//2100

04/07/88//2000//2030//night//2100//2130//2200//2300

04/09/88//2200

04/11/88//2330

04/14/88//2102

04/21/88//2230//2230

3 bright lights, erratic motions

cluster of white lights moving

Investigatedby MUFON?

No

No

spinning, red, yellow, blue lights Noalmost diamond shaped, white "bulbs" No

elongated bright, hovering craft No

bright glowing UFO, pulsated, Yesheard sound. Note: lived across street from Ed!

bright white lights, red lights

bright light, moved back and forth

big white ring over trees, moved

big lights, hover, move fastcircular light, blue beamsswirling red lights, move fastalmost diamond shaped, white "bulbs"triangular, white light, red, green3 lights in row, one below, noiselessred, white, blue lights, hovering

big orange light, move fast

orange lights in row, rotating

red and white blinking, odd turn

Type 3 UFO, passed nearbyround, flat, orange lights, photos(?)

04/28/88//2200 bright orange, circular light, ED

No

No

No

NoNoNoNoNoNoNo

No

No

No

YesNo

Yestype 1 UFO, no noise, saw blue beam comeout

05/01/88//0115 photos 38L, 38R, SRS photos, two YesUFOs, type 1 (475 ft. away, 14 ft. high), type2 (130 ft. away, 2.5 ft. long), missing timeperiod, abduction experience, marks on head.This was Ed's last sighting.

07/08/88//0454 Ed type 1 UFO over water, beam Yes

(There were a few sightings in the late summer, fall and winter of 1988.)

BASIC STATISTICSTotal number of reports: 96 (ED reports: 23, non-Ed: 73)Number of non-ED witnesses was more than 132.Number of investigated sightings: 43 (Ed: 23, non-Ed: 20)Days with more than 2 reports: Nov. 11 (9), Feb. 26 (3), Mar. 13 (3), Mar. 14 (3), Mar. 16 (4),

Mar. 17 (4), Mar. 20 (5), Apr. 7 (7)Days with sightings coincident with Ed: Nov. 11, Dec. 2, Feb. 26, Mar.

Page 25: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

UFO Sound Recognition TechniqueBy Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.

. Dr. Haines is the author ofObserving UFOS (1980) and Mel-bourne Incident: Case Study of aMissing Pilot (1987).

Abstract

A simple technique is proposed forpermitting UFO witnesses to recog-nize digitally produced reproductionsof the sounds that were heard duringa UFO encounter. Using a moderndigitally controlled electronic keyboard(also called "music synthesizer," "dig-ital tone generator," etc.), a trainedfield investigator can plan, develop,and present a wide variety of sounds,find one or two that matches whatwas heard originally, and then recordthe settings to permit later character-ization of the frequencies and evencomparison with recollections of otherwitnesses. Considering the very largenumber of different sounds possible,if two (or more witnesses) choose thesame sound characteristic(s) inde-pendently while using the presentUFOSRT, there is stronger reason tobelieve both actually heard the soundselected rather than selecting it merelyon the basis of chance. The presentUFOSRT might also be helpful indeveloping insights concerning thenature of the phenomenon itself.

Introduction

The general subject of soundsassociated with UFO sightings hasbeen treated elsewhere and will notbe reviewed here in depth (Gillmor,1968; Hall, 1964; McCampbell, 1973;Vallee, 1969). It is unfortunate thatHall"s (1964, pg. 98) statement still istrue that "To date, the descriptionsof the sounds have been sketchy."This line of questioning has not beenpursued by investigators in as muchdetail as it might have been, probablybecause of the "silent UFO stero-type." Hopefully the present paperwill not only encourage investigatorsMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

to take more notice of any suchsounds but also provide a potentiallypowerful method for doing so.

A rather wide range of soundshave been experienced before, dur-ing, and/or after sighting aerial phen-omena. McCampbell (1973, pg. 43)has categorized these sounds intofive basic groups (violent; low pitch;rush of air; high pitch; signals). Des-pite the differences one would expectbetween the subjective descriptionsgiven by different witnesses and chang-es that occur over time there is aremarkable commonality of terms, somuch so that one would expect thatauditory memory should be able to"recognize" the basic features of thesound. The author has developed a simi-lar lar approach to visual recognitionmemory for UFO outline shapes(Haines, 1970). Indeed, the presentUFOSRT represents a continuingattempt to help upgrade the quality o f 'UFO evidence.

Method/Apparatus

Even though the normal humanauditory perception range is from 20to 20,000 Hz (Guyton, 1961), a soundgenerator used for present purposesneed not necessarily be able to pres-ent this wide a range of frequencies.What is far more important is the

ability to generate a rich variety ofcomplex tones with harmonic com-ponents, timbers, reverberation, onsetand offset features, intensities, specialeffects, etc.

The human auditory system's abil-ity to perceive whether or not a giventone is present depends, among otherthings, on its intensity. Thus, for asound intensity as low as -60 db afrequency range only from 500 to5,000 Hz can be detected. Whenintensity is increased to -20 db, thefrequency range expands to fromabout 70 to 15,000 Hz (Ibid.). Thepoint is that a witness can only rec-ognize sounds that were heard; asound generator must be capable ofcontrolling both frequency and inten-sity. And in old age, one typically canonly detect frequencies from 50 to8,000 Hz or less (Hirsh, 1952). There-fore, the sound generating device thatis capable of being used for youngpeople with good hearing will be use-ful with the elderly.

A large number of electronic key-boards are now available in an almostequally wide price range. Even theless expensive models can producemost of the sound characteristics dis-cussed above. In addition, there areother features which should be soughtfor this application. Table 1 lists thesefeatures.

Sound Generation and Other Characteristicsof Value to UFO Field Studies

Wide frequency range (from 10 Hz to 25 KHz)High Dynamic Sound PressurePlayback/record capabilityRegistration Memory capability (to repeat tone sequences)Orchestra settings: (organ, strings, brass, clarinet, calliope, piano, harpsichord,

vibes, guitar, bass)Solo settings: (flute, piccolo, violin, trumpet, horn, trombone, saxophone, oboe)Percussion settings: (snare drum, bass drum, cymbol)Special effects: (hiss, steam, hand clap, bells, chimes, others)

Table 125

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The witness should stand exactly where he orshe stood at the time of the original event, facingthe same direction. The field investigator should belocated at a position that approximates the UFO'slocation. The witness should close his or her eyesand recall the original event in as much detail aspossible.

Procedure

The basic technique which shouldbe followed in performing a soundrecognition test involves a visit by thewitness and investigator to the origi-nal site if possible. The importance ofreturning to the original site cannotbe overemphasized. Not only will thesights and sounds present there tendto stimulate more accurate recall fororiginal memories but the acousticalcharacteristics of the environment willalso be the same (or similar) as theywere originally; such sound reflection-absorption-scattering characteristics canplay a vitally important role in soundformation.

The witness should stand exactlywhere he or she stood at the time ofthe original event, facing the samedirection. The field investigator (withthe equipment) should be located at aposition that approximates the UFO'slocation (but not distance). The wit-ness should close his or her eyes andrecall the original event in as muchdetail as possible. The investigatoralready should have pre-selected asub-set of sounds in advance (basedupon the verbal interview). If a largenumber of candidate sounds are tobe played to the witness, then it isimportant that playing one does notunduly influence his perception of thenext. Each sound should be played tothe witness for from five-ten secondsat the most with about a 20 secondsilent period (or longer) betweenthem. It is wise to not concentrateupon one particular sound character-istic with the witness until a completecombination is found that contains asmany different features of the originalsound as possible. Once the sound isfound which comes closest to theoriginal UFO's sound only then should26

its intensity be concentrated on. Forexample, did the sound stop suddenlyor fade away as the UFO departed? Ifa tonal shift was remembered (similarto the doppler shift effect), this toocan be generated at this time. Finally,temporally recurring patterns of on— off — on — off can be duplicated.This trial and error process may takeminutes or hours. When completedthe field investigator should digitallyrecord the sound(s) or at least theexact keyboard and other settings ofthe sound generating device for lateranalysis.

It also is a good idea to tape recordthe entire process above for laterreplay in case the witness changes hisor her mind and feels an earliersound was correct. These tape record-ings are also useful in understandingthe sound characteristics componentsthat contributed to the original soundthat was heard.

Discussion

This paper has outlined an effectiveand convenient means for generatinga wide variety of repeatable soundsto a UFO witness in order to identifyone which matches that heard duringthe original event. The overall accu-racy of such a method based uponrecognition (auditory memory) will begreater than if an original "soundgeneration" technique is used, themajor objective of the present UFOSRTapproach is to obtain repeatablemeasures of UFO-related sounds underconditions as close to the originalconditions as possible.

References

Gillmor, D.S., (Ed.), Final Reportof the Scientific Study of Unidentified

Flying Objects, Bantam Books, NewYork, 1968.

Guyton, A.C., Textbook of Medi-cal Physiology, (2nd ed.), W.B. Saun-ders, Philadelphia, 1961.

Haines, R.F., Observing UFOs,Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1980.

Hall, R.H., (Ed.), The UFO Evi-dence, NICAP, Washington, D.C.,1964.

Hirsh, I.J., The Measurement ofHearing, The McGraw-Hill Book Co.,Inc., New York, 1952.

McCampbell, J.M., UFOLOGY, Jay-mac Co., Belmont, CA 94002,1973.

Vallee, J., Passport to Magonia,Henry Regnery Press, New York,1969.

UFO NEWSCLIPPINGSERVICE

The UFO NEWSCLIPPINGSERVICE will keep you informedof all the latest United Statesand World-Wide UFO cases,close encounter and landingreports (i.e., little known photo-graphic reports, occupant cases)and all other UFO reports,many of which are carried onlyin small town or foreign news-papers.

Our UFO Newsclipping Ser-vice issues are 20-page monthlyreports, reproduced by photo-offset, containing the latest Uni-ted States and Canadian UFOnewsclippings, with our foreignsection carrying the latest Brit-ish, Australian, New Zealandand other foreign press reports.Also included is a 3-5 page sec-tion of "Fortean" clippings (i.e.,Bigfoot and other "monster"reports). Let us keep you inform-ed of the latest happenings inthe UFO and Fortean fields.

For subscription informationand sample pages from our ser-vice, write today to:

UFONEWSCLIPPING SERVICE

Route 1 - Box 220Plumerville, Arkansas 72127

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

Page 27: MUFON UFO Journal - 1989 4. April

Looking BackBy Bob Gribble

FORTY YEARS AGO - April1949: On the 24th Charles B. Moore,a graduate mechanical engineer, aero-logist, and balloonist, and four Navyenlisted men, observed a rapidly mov-ing UFO at 10:20 a.m. near WhiteSands Proving Ground, New Mexico."It didn't appear to be large," one ofthe scientists said, "but it was plainlyvisible. It was easy to see that it waselliptical in shape and had a whitish-silver color." After taking a splitsecond to realize what they werelooking at, one of the men swung atheodolite around to pick up theobject and the timer reset his stopwatch. For sixty seconds they trackedthe UFO as it moved toward theeast. In about 55 seconds it haddropped from an angle of elevation of45 degrees to 25 degrees, then itzoomed upward and in a few secondsit was out of sight. They estimatedthe size of the UFO to be 40 feetwide and 100 feet long and at an alti-tude of 56 miles. It was travelingabout 25,200 miles per hour.

***

THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO -April 1954: Elbert E. Edwards, super-intendent of schools in Boulder, Colo-rado, his teenage son, Arthur, andthe internationally known explorer,John Goddard, sighted an enormous,cigar-shaped object, brilliantly lightedby five or six large porthole-like open-ings, while camping in the GrandCanyon in Arizona on the 16th. TheUFO passed from north to southwestat 10:20 p.m. at an altitude estimatedat 6,000 feet above the canyon rim.Edwards said the object was between300 and 400 feet in length. Two otherwitnesses camped in the same areareported seeing a "flying monsterwith many lights" the same night.

On the 23rd, a Pan American air-liner, piloted by Captain Jack Adriance,was flying at 20,000 feet betweenPuerto Rico and New York. SuddenlyMUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

a call came from another Pan Ameri-can plane more than 200 milesbehind. A strange flying object, theother captain reported, had just streak-ed past. "It's headed straight towardyou," said the pilot. It's round andpulsating with an orange-greenish light."A few moments later Captain Adriancewas amazed to see the object, or anidentical one, flash past his airliner.Cutting in his microphone, he calledCaptain Ned Mullen, piloting anotherPan American flight ahead. In a fewminutes Mullen radioed back that themysterious UFO had just passed him,disappearing in seconds.

***THIRTY YEARS AGO — April

1959: About 8:30 p.m., Mr. and Mrs.Bill Loomis were driving near Tenino,Washington, 30 miles southwest ofMcChord Air Force Base, when theyspotted a brilliant UFO to the eastmoving north at a high rate of speed."It really traveled at a high rate ofspeed," Loomis said, "and I mean itwas fast. It was just over the treetops." The object appeared to bemoving down the valley east ofMcChord. About the same time thepilot of an Air Force C-118 transport,on a routine training flight out ofMcChord, radioed that "We have hitsomething, or something has hit us."The message was followed by thecrash of the C-118 five miles sou-theast of the city of Sumner. Thefour man crew was killed. Followingthe crash, Col. Robert E. Booth,commander of the 1705th Air Trans-port Group to which the plane wasattached, made the following state-ment: "It would appear there was akind of mid-air collision prior to thecrash." Confirming Booth's statement,Bill Loomis said the UFO appearedto have been traveling in the directionwhere the big transport was crippledin mid-air.

***

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO -April 1964: Mr. and Mrs. AllenLund, who live near Missoula, Mon-tana, said a "ship definitely not of thisworld" visited their ranch severaltimes in April. They described theobject as a large "top-shaped shipwith a row of lights around its cir-cumference." A strong beam of lightprojected from the shape late onenight as Mrs. Lund and her daughter,Mrs. Connie Savage, slept in thefront of the house. They both awa-kened to see the beam of light, aboutthree inches in diameter, pointing attheir feet at the end of the bed. Theyboth rose and, according to Mrs.Lund, the beam followed them aroundthe room. She reported each appear-ance of the craft "scared the dogsand spooked the horses." The dogsrushed to get into the house andhorses stampeded to the far side ofthe property.

In addition to the strange reactionof the animals, each time the shipwas in the area the oil furnace in thehouse would "light itself." Mrs. Sav-age's son, 3^-year-old Kyle, told hismother and grandparents of a manwith whom he talks in the barn. Hetold them the man's name, but Mrs.Lund said it's almost unpronouncea-ble. The child "disappeared for sev-eral hours at a time and then sud-denly shows up from nowhere," Mrs.Lund said. He claims he has beentalking with the man but won't takeher to him because, "We don't wantyou — and that man doesn't likeyou." Mrs. Lund is convinced theship is "not of this world," thinks theoccupants of the ship are probablyfriendly and "we have nothing to befrightened of."

Gary Wilcox, well known and sub-stantial farmer near Newark Valley,New York, said he carried on a con-versation with two persons fromanother planet after their spaceshiplanded on his farm on the 24th. Hesaid he discovered the ship about10:30 a.m. When he reached theobject, which was on landing gearabout four feet above the ground,two beings came out from under thecraft. They were dressed from headto foot in uniforms the same alumi-num color as their ship. The twooccupants immediately engaged him

27

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in conversation. "They spoke as goodEnglish as I do," Wilcox said. He saidthe conversation was pretty one-sided, with the visitors doing most ofthe talking. Wilcox said they made noeffort to attack him or harm him butseemed greatly interested in the soil,grass, shrubs, twigs and dirt, andgathered up several samples. He des-cribed the ship as being about 20 feethigh, 16 feet wide, and between 4 and5 feet thick. Wilcox said the vehicletook off at 12:30 p.m., "so fast I couldhardly see it."

Shortly before 6 p.m. of the sameday, Officer Lonnie Zamora spotted afour-legged, egg-shaped craft in agully a mile south of the courthousein Socorro, New Mexico. He first sawit from about 200 yards and thoughtit was an overturned car. He said hesaw what appeared to be a pair ofwhite coveralls, but whether anythingwas in them he did not know. Heeventually got to within about 100feet before he noticed it was some-thing out of the ordinary. The craft,about the height of a car but larger,appeared to be made of shiny, aluminum-like metal. When he got to within 50feet of the craft the vehicle ascendedand slowly moved away until it fadedfrom sight. Zamora said the craft wason the ground, supported by fourgirder-like legs. At the site, four five-to-six inch depressions were found aswell as a couple of round tracksabout four inches in diameter whichofficers theorized might have beenmade by occupants of the vehicle.They even went so far as to estimateby the depression that the trackswere made by a being of approxi-mately 120-160 pounds.

About 12:30 a.m. on the 26th,Orlando Gallegos sighted a largeUFO sitting on the ground near LaMadera, New Mexico. He said hewas about 200 feet away and wasafraid to approach closer. He des-cribed the craft as being of brightmetal without windows, as long as autility pole, about 14 feet in circum-ference and resembling a large butanetank. The following day Capt. MartinVigil, state police district commander,and officer David Kingsbury, went tothe landing site. "The ground was stillsmoldering 20 hours after the sight-ing," Vigil said. "It was charred over a28

large area." He added that whatlooked like paw prints were found atthe scene, along with depressionssimilar to those found at Socorro.The charred area was a pecularshape, like two overlapping circles,about 20 feet across. Large rockswithin the area showed evidence ofextreme heat, while others within afew feet weren't damaged at all. Asoft drink bottle had melted whileanother five feet away was intact.Capt. Vigil said evidence indicates anextreme heat of short duration ratherthan a smoldering fire over a periodof days. He said it is his belief that"something was there."

While driving about 30 miles east ofAlbuquerque, New Mexico, on the28th, Don Adams fired twelve .22-calibre pistol shots at an "oblongthing" at about 1 a.m. He said he hitthe craft six times and heard thebullets bounce from it after his carstalled while driving under the vehi-cle. As he paused to reload, the craftmoved silently northward. He wasunable to determine whether shots 7to 12 struck the object. He describedit as being a light green color, about25 or 30 feet long and silent. He saidit hovered about 100 feet directlyover his head. Later the same day,Sharon Stull, 10, of Albuquerque,New Mexico, observed a UFO forfive or 10 minutes. Thirty minuteslater, while in class, she noticed burn-ing sensations about the eyes andface. Sharon's doctor said "The sunexposure she had would usually beconsidered insufficient to cause theburns and inflammation. It appears tobe the type caused by longer expo-sure to the sun."

***

TWENTY YEARS AGO - April1969: It was 2 a.m. on the 23rd whenMrs. Virginia A. Guinn and a boarderwere awakened by violent reactionsfrom dogs and cats at her farm inSilver Springs, Maryland. Most of thedogs were "barking and howling," butthe boarder's German Shepherd "wasbarking in a peculiar manner — a ser-ies of short barks." Outside, Mrs.Guinn's four cats were climbing upthe screen door, yowling and fighting,"something they had never done

before." Going outside, the witnessessaw a round, bluish white craft "aslarge as two rooms." Then theobservers heard a humming noiseand the craft suddenly vanished.When the craft disappeared the animalsquieted down. Mrs. Guinn discoveredlater that morning that the horses inthe barn "had broken free of their tiestalls, and had knocked harnesses,etc., off the walls." She also said thata neighbor's barn had been "torn up"by horses during the sighting.

***

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - April1974: Newton Grove, North Carolinapolice officer John Hayes said he wasnotified by radio (date unknown) thata UFO was headed toward thatSampson County town, around mid-night. Shortly afterward a circularcraft hovered above his police car.He turned on the patrol car spotlightand the craft produced a light inresponse. He said the UFO "ans-wered his flashes" for a period oftime before moving away. The samemonth (date unknown), Duplin County,North Carolina school bus driver GailStroud said a bright orange UFOdove at her school bus, terrifying herand the children. She said it thenbacked off and flew in front of herbus for approximately two miles. Shesaid each time she would stop thebus and turn on the flashing red stoplights, the object would also turn onred lights. It finally sped away at highspeed after turning in the sky, reveal-ing a frying-pan shape.

MUFONAMATEUR

RADIONET

EVERY SATURDAYMORNING

AT 0800 EST (OR DST)ON7237KHzs.s.B.

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989

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In Other's WordsBy Lucius Parish

Comparisons between UFO activityand fairy lore are featured in theDecember 20 issue of NATIONALENQUIRER. Quotes from Brad Stei-ger and Hayden Hewes are featured.Ahem! An airline pilot's report of ahuge UFO off the east coast of Africais the subject of an article in theJanuary 17 ENQUIRER. Many groundobservers in Mozambique saw theobject at the same time the pilot wasattempting to chase it.

A summary of the Frederick Valen-tich disappearance case from Austra-lia is presented in the "Anti-Mat-ter/UFO Update" section of JanuaryOMNI. Richard Haines' book on theincident, MELBOURNE EPISODE, isbriefly reviewed. This same column inthe February issue has PatrickHuyghe's article on Canadian neuro-psychologist Michael Persinger's the-ory that UFOs are caused by intensenatural electromagnetic fields andthat exposure to these fields can behazardous to the health of both UFOwitnesses and field investigators. Thisissue of OMNI also has a preliminaryreport on responses to the UFOabduction questionnaire which ap-peared in the December 1987 issue ofOMNI.

The latest booklet in Loren Gross'UFOs: A HISTORY series is 1953:January-February. In addition to asummary of UFO events during thefirst two months of 1953, Gross hasreproduced the Report of the Robert-son Panel which met during January1953. As stated in previous columns,all the booklets in Gross' series arehighly recommended. This latest one,like the previous efforts, is approximat-ely 100 pages in length, plus an indexand reproductions of newspaper clip-pings from 1953. The price is $6.00and orders should be sent to Grossat 690 Gable Drive — Fremont, CA94538.

A correction: in a previous column,I stated that Berkley Books would bepublishing a revised edition of TUJUN-MUFON UFO Journal, No. 242, April 1989

GA CANYON CONTACTS by AnnDruffel and D. Scott Rogo. Not true;this will be brought out by NewAmerican Library (Signet Books) andis scheduled for May release. Theprice is $4.50.

Avon Books has recently publishedthe U.S. paperback edition of PHENO-MENON: FORTY YEARS OF FLYINGSAUCERS edited by John Spencer &Hilary Evans ($4.50). This is a largebook (413 pages), featuring contribu-t ions by many UFO research-ers from all parts of the world. In allof this, you might even find a fewthings you can agree with!

Forthcoming books include REPORTON 'COMMUNION' by Ed Conroy(William Morrow; July; $15.45), EN-COUNTERS by Edith Fiore (Double-day; August; $17.95), THE CHAL-LENGE OF CYDONIA: THE MONU-MENTS SPEAK by Richard Hoagland(North Atlantic Books; June; $12.95)and a book on UFOs and governmentsecrecy by Howard Blum (title un-known at this writing), to bepublished by Simon & Schuster.

Beam Zaps Earth"The Earth is being zapped by a

beam from outer space and scientiststell us they don't know what it is. Thebeam comes from a star system far,far away — 14,000 light years away.The beam is aimed directly at us andwhat is spooky about it is thatscientists don't know what it is, butthey say it carries a million billionelectron volts of energy. For twoyears scientists have been gatheringdata. The beam comes from whatscientists call a neutron star. It isnearly the size of our own moon butthis star is extremely dense, and hasa mass nearly double that of the sun.The star is described as a largespinning magnet, generates electro-magnetic fields and gives off powerfulradiation.

"It was first detected by the LosAlamos National Laboratory in Julyof 1986. Scientists say the finding isboth interesting and puzzling. It couldmean the presence of a hew kind ofparticle. The discovery could give usnew insights about sources of energyin the universe and about the elemen-try structure of matter. Therefore itcould be extremely relevant to ourunderstanding of the universe, but sofar scientists know very little aboutthis mysterious beam. Scientists havebeen checking and rechecking theirresearch and trying to come up withexplanations. But so far conventionaltheories just don't explain it.

"Now, some people, when theyencounter the unexplainable, try toforget about it or brush it off as a baddream. But scientists have been try-ing to make this unexplainable thinggo away, trying to prove that thebeam doesn't really exist, trying tosay in some cases that it's a mistake.But so far they have not been able toprove that, because it's there. Thebeam will not go away. Nobodyknows what it is, and yet it couldhave a major impact on our societyone day. Who knows, it could changeour lives. We can only guess rightnow. We're like little children staringup at the sky and wondering. Wethink we know so much and yet themore we know the more we find howlittle we know. Emerson put it thisway: "We think our civilization isnear its meridian but we are yet onlyat the cock crowing and the morningstar."

— Charles Osgood"The Osgood File"CBS Radio(Submitted by Bob Gribble)

MUFONAWARD BALLOT

A ballot will be enclosed inthe May 1989 issue of theMUFON UFO Journal so allmembers and subscribersmay vote for their choice toreceive the Annual MUFONAward plaque for the mostoutstanding contribution toufology for 1988-1989.

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NEWSFLASH

Donald B. Ratsch, MUFONmember in Baltimore, Maryland,has been monitoring the radiobroadcasts from the space shut-tle Discovery through WA3NAN,the club station of the GoddardAmateur Radio Club in Green-belt, MD, transmitting on 147.450MHZ. At 6:35 a.m. EST onMarch 14, 1989, he heard thisstatement, "we have a problem— we have a fire." (This mighthave been the first clue to the.resultant electrical problem thatwas subsequently repaired.)

The most interesting trans-mission occurred seven minuteslater at 6:42 a.m. EST, whenone of the astronauts made thisstatement "Houston (from) Dis-covery, we still have the alienspacecraft under observance."Don Ratsch called Walt Andrusand played the tape recordingover the telephone on the morn-ing of March 14, 1989. Furtheranalysis of the tape is now beingconducted by qualified person-nel in Maryland as of Sunday,March 19th. Preliminary analysisof the voice by comparisonmethods indicates that the astro-naut making the second trans-mission was probably either Mich-ael L. Coats, Commander ofDiscovery or John E. Blaha, thepilot. We hope to provide moredetails in the May issue of theJournal on this exciting event.

MUFON20th

ANNIVERSARY

May 31, 1989

The Night SkyBy Walter N. Webb

April 1989

Bright Planets (Evening Sky):Mars continues to separate from Jupiter in Taurus, the pair beingabout 16° apart in mid-April. Mars is to the upper left of the more bril-liant giant (25 times brighter) which dominates the western sky at dusk.In midmonth Jupiter (-2.0 magnitude) sets just before 11 PM daylighttime; Mars (1.5), about an hour later. The crescent Moon passes thetwo planets on April 9 and 10. Toward the end of the month, look foran orange dot about 10° to the lower right of Jupiter. It is Mercury atits best appearance of the year.

Bright Planets (Morning Sky):Saturn (0.4 magnitude), in Sagittarius, rises about 1:30 AM daylight timeand is positioned low in the SSE at dawn in mid-April. The ringed planetbegins retrograding (moving westward) on the 22nd.

Meteor Shower:The bright gibbous Moon hampers the April 22 peak of the annual Lyridmeteors. Ordinarily about 15 of the bright white streaks would have beenvisible toward dawn darting out of the constellation Lyra the Harp. Theshower actually lasts from about the 19th to the 24th but in smallernumbers.

Moon Phases:New moon — April 5First quarter — April 12Full moon — April 20Last quarter — April 28

o

30

The Stars:That celestial symbol of spring, Leo the Lion, is due south at 10 PM day-light time. Look for a backward question mark of six stars, with Regulusmarking the dot. This sickle-shaped pattern represents the lion's head andmane. A triangle of stars to the left is the beast's rear haunches and tail.

The Big Dipper once again lies high in the north in its best evening posi-tion of the year. Use its various pointer stars to find other springtime starpatterns. Besides the two stars on the end of the bowl pointing the way toPolaris the North Star, the curve of the dipper's handle "arcs to Arcturusand spikes to Spica." Arcturus is the bright orange star in Bootes theHerdsman, while Spica is the brightest luminary in Virgo the Maiden.Reversing the bowl pointers brings you back to Leo.

This month the Moon covers (occults) two groups of stars for observersin the Northeastern States. On the evening of the 8th, some of the Plei-ades will be hidden by the lunar crescent. Nearby Jupiter enhances theshow. On April 13 the quarter Moon crosses the Beehive in Cancer, thelittle star cluster introduced in the March "Night Sky."

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 242, April 1989

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MESSAGE, continued

available starting Thursday, June 29and extending through July 3 forpeople arriving early or departingafter the symposium at the same pri-ces. Only a limited number of roomsin this category are available, so earlyreservations are recommended. 150rooms have been allocated for Friday,June 30 and Saturday, July 1st forthe majority of the attendees. Thehotel will hold the block of sleepingrooms until May 30, 1989. The Alad-din Hotel will continue to acceptreservations after this date based onroom and rate availability. Early reser-vations are highly recommended. Anadvance deposit for one night isrequired to hold your hotel reserva-tion of $48.00 plus hotel tax, totaling$51.36. The deposit must be mailedto the Aladdin Hotel, P.O. Box93958, Las Vegas, NV 89193-3958.The State Directors Meeting is sche-duled for Friday, June 30th (10 a.m.to 5 p.m.) and the Board of DirectorsMeeting for Sunday Morning, July 2,1989 (9 a.m. to 12 noon).

The formal speaking program willconsist of four sessions at $10.00each, totaling $40.00 at the door. Aspecial advance registration packagefor all sessions is $35.00 per person.There will be three sessions on Sat-urday, July 1 and one session onSunday afternoon, July 2nd. Advanceregistration should be mailed to JohnLear, 1414 Hollywood Blvd., LasVegas, NV 89110 with a check ormoney order made payable to: MUFON1989 Symposium. Your tickets andregistration packet may be picked upat the symposium registration tableupon your arrival in Las Vegas, start-ing June 30th.

SEVEREN L. SCHAEFFERContinental Coordinator for Europe

THE SCALE REMAINSUNBALANCED

The Director's Message is reducedin length intentionally to allow maxi-mum space for our featured article byDr. Bruce S. Maccabee on the GulfBreeze Case, titled "The Scale RemainsUnbalanced." This is a definitiveresponse to the article by RichardH. Hall and Willy Smith in theDecember 1988 issue of the MUFONUFO Journal. We are confident that

all readers will appreciate this expand-ed issue of the Journal.

Missouri MUFON and the UFOStudy Group of Greater St. Louis arepleased to announce THE SHOW-ME UFO CONFERENCE to be heldon October 21, 1989 at the Ha'rleyHotel in Earth City, MO. (Just westof St. Louis off IH 70 and IH 270.)

MUFON

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 29 & 30, July 1 — 10th Rocky Mountain Conference on UFO Investigation, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming.

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

July 14, 15 & 16 — Fifth London International UFO Congress, London Business School, 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

MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989 31

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Director's MessageBy Walt Andrus

NEW OFFICERS

It is a distinct pleasure to announcethat Severn L. Schacffer, M.A., hasaccepted the position of ContinentalCoordinator for Europe. Mr. Schaeffer,a U.S. citizen residing in Paris,France, is an Adjunct Professor inthe School of Medicine at the Univer-sity of Paris. One of his attributes forthis prestigious position is his fluencyin French, English, and Spanish andalso the ability to speak passable Por-tuguese and Italian. Mr. Schaefferwas earlier classified as a ResearchSpecialist in Medical Epistemologyand holds a B.S. in physics. He plansto attend the various European UFOCongresses where he will meet ourForeign Representatives.

Burtus "Jeff Ballard has beenpromoted from State Section Direc-tor in Northern Alabama to StateDirector for Alabama at the recom-mendation of Scott Caldwell. Mr.Ballard has appointed William B.Howard, Jr. of Huntsville to becomethe State Section Director for Madi-son, Jackson, Limestone, Marshalland Morgan Counties. Karen L. Bal-lard (Jeffs wife) has become theInvestigative Coordinator for Alabama,both residing in Arab. Their team ofinvestigators has been very involvedin the recent Fyffe, Alabama UFOsightings.

Kenneth R. McLean, State Direc-tor for Wyoming, is endeavoring toactivate the investigative team inWyoming and is seeking volunteersto serve as State Section Directors.Please write to P.O. Box 911, Lara-mie, WY 82070. Myron W. Carlson,State Director for Colorado, hasappointed Ethan A. Rich, presentlya State Section Director living inEnglewood, to be the Assistant StateDirector. Mr. Carlson has approvedthe selection of Robert F. Steele,Jr., living in Pueblo, to be the StateSection Director for Pueblo County.Francis L. Ridge, State Director for32

Indiana, appointed Norma J. Crodaas State Section Director for MarionCounty and added La Porte Countyto the responsibility of Michael J.Rigg. Margaret L. "Peggy" Tillmanof South Charleston, Ohio has beenmade Co-State Section Director withher husband Larry J. Tillman forClark, Madison, Union and FayetteCounties.

Scott A. Colborn, State Directorfor Nebraska, has identified StephenP. Johnson as the new AssistantState Director for Nebraska.

Allan A. Seller, a semi-retirednewspaper publisher and editor inPittsfield, Illinois, has volunteered tobe the State Section Director, forPike and Calhoun Counties. JohnCarpenter, State Section Director,for Greene, Webster, Polk and Chris-tian Counties in Missouri, appointedGary Boone of Springfield to be hisassistant. Shirley A. Coyne, StateDirector for Michigan, selected DavidC. Reinhart for the post of StateSection Director for Shiawasee andSaginaw Counties after he passed theField Investigator's examination.

Four new Consultants have volun-teered their expertise to help resolvethe UFO phenomenon. MarcelloTruzzi, Ph.D., a professor of Sociol-ogy at Eastern Michigan University, isalso the Director of the Center forScientific Anomalies Research andEditor of Zereric Scholar. Dr. RonWestrum, a long-time MUFON mem-ber and consultant is the AssociateDirector of CSAR. John E. Bran-denburg, Ph.D. of Alexandria, Virgi-nia is a new Consultant in PlasmaPhysics and a principle in MARSResearch. Dr. Brandenburg will be afeatured speaker at the Las Vegassymposium on the subject "The Cyd-onian hypothesis: Was Mars Once ALiving Planet?" C.B. Scott Jones,Ph.D., Consultant in InternationalRelations, serves on the Senate Staffof Senator Clayborn Pell from RhodeIsland and is a former U.S. Navy carrier

pilot and intelligence officer. Dr. Joneshas organized the Center for AppliedAnamalous Phenomena. Michael W.Hanson, M.D., residing in Pueblo,Colorado, joined as a Consultant inAnesthesiology and Field InvestigatorTrainee.

The following Research Specialistsjoined MUFON during the past month:Paul A. Jurek, M.A., living in Austin,Texas, for Clinical Psychology; AnnH. Wilson, Ed.M., residing in Green-field, Massachusetts; and Peter A.Jordan, M.A. of Elizabeth, New Jer-sey for Psychology. Mr. Jordan was aspeaker at the MUFON 1983 Sympo-sium in Pasadena, CA.

MUFON 1989 SYMPOSIUM

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: AGovernment Conspiracy?" Speakerscommitted are Jacques F. Vallee,Ph.D., William L. "Bill" Moore,Donald A. Johnson, Ph.D., John F.Brandenburg, Ph.D., (MARS Research),Stanton T. Friedman, Timothy Good,Linda Moulton Howe, and JennieZeidman. Five of these speakers willrelate intriguing new information involv-ed in the U.S. Government's conspi-racy to hide the real evidence behindthe UFO phenomena.

John Lear, State Director forNevada, will serve as the host chair-man with Hal Starr, State Directorfor Arizona, Co-Host Committee.Reservations for rooms may be madeby writing or calling the Aladdin Hoteland Casino, 3667 Las Vegas Boule-vard South, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109or telephone (702) 736-0111 or (800)634-3424. The price per night is$48.00 for a single and $48.00 fordouble occupancy.

Guest room accomodations will be

Continued on page 31MUFON UFO Journal, No. 252, April 1989