NUMBER 116 THE MUFON JULY 1977

UFO JOURNALOFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF MUFONI/ MUTUAL UFO NETWORK, INC

Reconstructed photograph of area near Senozeti, Yugoslavia,where several people witnessed a UFO in February, 1977.

I /MUFON UFOI JOURNALI 103OldtowneRd.

Seguin, Texas 781 55

FROM THE EDITOR

DENNIS WILLIAM HAUCKEditor

WALTER H.ANDRUSDirector of MUFON

L

PAULCERNYPromotion/Publicity

REV. BARRY DOWNINGReligion and UFOs

ANN DRUFFELCalifornia Report

LUCIUS PARISHBooks/ Periodicals/ History

MARJORIEFISHExtraterrestrial Life

RICHARD HALLAssociate Editor

MARK HERBSTRITTAstronomy

ROSETTA HOLMESPromotion/Publicity

TED PHILLIPSLanding Trace Cases

DAVID A. SCHROTHSt. Louis/Mass Media

JOHN F. SCHUESSLERUFO Propulsion

NORMA E. SHORTDWIGHT CONNELLYEditor/Publishers Emeritus

LENSTRINGFIELDCommentary

The MUFON UFO JOURNAL is pub-lished by the Mutual UFO Network,Inc., Seguin, Texas. Subscriptionrates: $8.00 per year in the U.S.A.;$9.00 per year foreign. Copyright 1977by the Mutual UFO Network. Secondclass postage paid at Seguin, Texas.Publication Identification number is002970. Return undeliverable copiesto: The MUFON UFO JOURNAL, 103Oldtowne Rd., Seguin, Texas 78155.

A spectacularUFO witnessed inthe province ofKarelia in Russiain September hasbeen satisfact-orily explainedby James Oberg.

The object wasdescribed as animmense ball oflight with shaftsof light shiningdown from it. TASSdescribed the eventi"A huge s'tar suddenlyflashed out of a darksky, sending shafts

of light impulsesto earth".

Oberg has ident-ified the UFO as thelaunch of Cosmos 9551a top-secret Russianspy satellite launchedat night from the Ple-setsk Missile Base9north of Moscow.

The incident leftthe official news agencyin the embarrassing pos-ition of acknowledginga UFO rather than divulgethe existance of the sec-ret space center.

In this issue

UFO SPOTTED IN YUGOSLAVIA ,3By kilos Krmelj

AUSTRALIAN CATALOGUES 4By Richard Hall

ENCOUNTER AT SEA. «.. o. c ............ . «5By Maximiliano del Rosa

UFOS OVER THE WALDVIERTEL.. e . „. c. e o o o „ 8By Ernst Berger

UFCS COLLIDE OVER BRAZIL.«.e................. 9By 0. Raymundo

LITTLE BALLS AND UFCS 11By Jean Bastide

THE PENTAGON FANTRY IS NOT BARE..e.........o .13By Ray Stanford

A IjC/UK. AT C > £ i 3 c o * c « * « < o * c i * « . c o o . o * o o . . . o e . ....... ..13

By Walt AndrusIN OTHERS' WORDSoo......co........c.oooDO.... 16

By Lucius FarishUFO ENIGMA. c. c e 17

By Stanton T. FriedmanDIRECTOR • S MESSAGE 19

By Walt AndrusRECAPPING AND COMMENTING 20

By Richard Hall

The contents of the MUFON UFO JOURNAL aredetermined by the editor, and do not necessarilyrepresent the official position of MUFON. Opinionsof contributors are their own, and do not necessarilyreflect those of the editor, the staff, or MUFON.Articles may be forwarded directly to MUFON or to:Dennis W. Haucti, 114 Gostlln St., Hammond, IN 46327

Permission is hereby granted to quote from this Issueprovided not more than 200 words are quoted fromany one article, the author of the article is given

credit, and the statement "Copyright 1977 by theMUFON UFO JOURNAL, 103 Oldtowne Rd., Seguin,Texas" is Included.

Milos Krmelj

Not ong time ago UFO-NLPSekcija ZVEZA SOLT Studentskonaselje blok VII 61000 Ljubljana,Slovenija, Yugoslavia, which isthe oldest and most known UFOorganization in Yugoslavia, senta letter describing a UFO spotting.Two of our members went to thefield investigation, and in order toobtain the most faithful picture ofthe event. We arrived to a littleidylic village, near Senozeti. It issituated some 18 kilometers(tenmiles) from Ljubljana, its altitudebeing relatively high, about 700meters above sea level. The villageoffers a beautiful view on the sur-rounding hills. We soon came intocontact with the two main eye-witnesses, Metoda G, 18 years old.(We have their address in our files)She sent us the above-mentionedletter, and her mother Helena G.

The statement of the two readsas follows: "It happened on Feb-ruary 4th 1977, early in the morn-ing. Outside it'was still dark; theeastern sky only begun to becomered. The valley was covered withthe light mist, and the sky wasinterspersed with little clouds. Thesun was not visible. It was around6:30 a.m. When my mother and Ileft the house. About 100 metersfrom the house, I suddenly spottedan orange-coloured glowing bodythat had been the shape of an el-lipse. Till that moment, my motherhad not noticed anything, but sud-denly she cast her eyes forwardand shouted: "Look, Metoda, whatis this thing up these?" "I can notsay what it might be" I answered.We went on, observing the sky.

UFO is reconstructed over actualphotograph of the area.

That thing was a very big one. Wecould compare it's size to that: ifI stretched out my arm. I wouldjust cover it with my two extendedfingers. The object was hoveringfixedy above the forest. Whilecontinuing our way, the objectdisappeared, and then we saw anunusual appearance. Somethingwas glowing behind the hill and itseemed as though a house or theforest was on fire. I got very scaredand told my mother that it wouldhave been best if we returnedhome or at least stopped becauseit looked like our forest was on fire.Nevertheless we continued our wayand the light behind the trees wasmore and more spreading around."What if there is fire that broke outin the nearby village?" shrinked

my mother and added: "let's hurry,perhaps they will need our help inextinguishing the fire. We startedto run. Since the path ran throughthe woods, we took a short-cutacross the fields. We made hastfearing in our hearts and at thesame time hoping that our pre-sumption of the fire was not true.

When we reached again the road,paralell to the chapel from wherethe source of the light should havebeen perfectly visible, we sawnothing. The light disappearedas suddenly as it had appeared.We made observations of the hillof the sky, we looked all aroundus but all in vain. We are not ableto give an explanation of the light.The whole observation lasted some10-15 minutes since we got pretty

3

AUSTRALIAN CATALOGUES AIDRESEARCH

Another reconstructed photographof UFO and actual area in whichit was seen.

far from our house. We listenedattentively but there was no soundwhatsoever, coming from aroundus. There was complete silence.Neither did we notice any smokeor something like that coming fromthe spot. We really did not knowwhat it was all about. People whoknow us belived us for they knowwe do not tell lies.

Later on, we made some in-quiries around the village, wonder-ing if someone else had also seenthe light, but nobody could tell usanything about it."

While being interviewed, the twoeye-witnesses recalled some otherparticulars. On the object, theynoticed certain points that werebrighter than the orange back-ground. We asked them how manypoints there were on the objectand they said there were 4-7 pointson it. They could not give us pre-cise number. Helena G. also statedshe had very strange feeling as if4

these "points" had been observingthem. When we mentioned thatthey could have mistaken the objectfor the doud or some optical il-lusion, both witnesses stated thatthis was not probable and that theyare both convinced that the objectwas real and massive. Let mequote also Helena G., who saysshe has never heard before ofUFOs neither did she know thatsomething like that could exist.Her daughter and she, they areboth convinced they witnesseda real very extraordinary phe-nomenon.

Later it was estimated the dis-tance between the spot in which theobject should have been hooveringand the one on which the two eye-witnesses spotted it first. It wasabout 400-600 meters. The altitudeof the object above the edge ofthe forst is estimated to be aroundten degrees.

(Continued on page 18)

By Richard Hall

Members of UFO Research,South Australia, and the TasmaniaUFO Investigation Centre have-joined forces to produce a series ofcatalogues on special types of UFOcases. Active in this work is KeithBasterfield of UFOR and PaulJackson of TUFOIC, both MUFONRepresentatives, along with otherAustrlian researchers.

Humanoid reports are beingcatalogued by the AustralianEntity Study Group, the downunder counterpart of MUFON'sHumanoid Study Group; the twogroups are exchanging information"An Australian Catalogue of CloseEncounter Type Three Reports,"with supplements, has alreadybeen published. Also in print is"A Preliminary Listing of Austra-lasian Close Encounter, ApparentOccupant and Physical TraceCases," by Keith Basterfield.

Paul Jackson wrote in March,"I am currently compiling anAustralian Car Pace Catalogue...the first of its type in this country.Many of the other groups in thiscountry will also be working onvarious UFO catalogues during theyear; it is hoped to catalogue asmany sightings as possible so thatthey will become available toserious researchers world wide."

EncounterAt Sea

By Maximiliano del Rosal

(From pages 3-6 of the May 1976issue of STENDEK)Translated by Ricardo Aguilar

The sighting took place in anarea of the ocast of the Cudillero(Oviedo) province, Spain, calledGavinero beach, on the evening ofa Friday to Saturday (or Saturday toSunday) in the first days of October1973. The witness I interviewedwasn't able to precisely pin-pointthe date of the sighting, due to thefact that nearly two years had pass-ed between the night of the eventand the days inwhich I carried outthe investigation. On that day thewitnesses, Mr. Manuel Silgas andMar. Angel Gonzalez Martinezwere placing nets in an area em-braced between the "beaches" ofConchiquina and of Gavieiro atapproximately 8:15 p.m. The wit-nesses were working on rowboat from which they were raisingtheir nets in an orderly fashionalong a circuit which began inTronco, continued by ConchiQuina and which ended close to tworocks called the Entreyubias;from here they returned back to thebeginning of the run. On the firstoccasion inwhich they worked inthe vicinity of the Entreyubiasthey could still see, underneath afleeting sunset, a light which wasmoving silently from the largerocks known as the Altar de losSantos, towards the land, followingthe rocky shoreline of Gavieiro.When they returned the secondtime to the above mentioned spot

and upon lighting a lantern, the. light moved rapidly from the shoreup to the Entreyubias, maintainingitself motionless while illuminatingthe large rock and the two witness-es, some three meters above thewater's surface.

.The lantern, which they usedonly while lifting the nets inorderto check their contents, was com-mon. It had white and red lights,although the latter was not used.

They worked at half-tide, with aclear moonless sky and with suf-ficient visibility. The closeness ofthe light, some 50 to 70 meters fromthem, did not cause any uneasinesssince, accordig to a tape recordingthat I made of Mr. Selgas, he saidto his companion, "It is a boatwhich is roving like us."

We should make it clear thatManuel Selgas is the witness ofmajor interest, as he was the onethat was rowing and of the two he

. was most familiar with the area,also, while his friend lifted the nets,he had a better opportunity to ob-serve the light, since he was facingthe movements of the object.

When they saw the light goingback and forth from the Altar de losSantos to the shoreline and viceversa, it illuminated the coast,always remaining 1.80 to 2 metersabove the water, with a speed ofabout 20 km/hour and with a red-dish appearance. The movement ofthe object was very rapid, simultan-eously it increased in size (like ahandball at the shoreline and likean ordinary traffic light signal when

it stopped over the rocks) and inclarity, with a less reddish tone. Inthe location of maximum proximityit illuminated the witnesses without dazzling them.

The light remained there and thetwo friends gave it no importance.Only when the witnesses withdrewdid the light return to its originalposition. They found it there whenthey returned for a third time tothe Entreyubias and, as soon asthey lifted the nets and put thelantern on, the luminous object, fora second time moved exactly to thesame place as in the previous occa-sion. This repitition intrigued thetwo fishermen, so much so as tomake Mr. Selgas comment, "Theyare watching us." In his declar-ation he expressed his astonish-ment in the presence olf that lighgtwhich "came so rapidly over thebaxos (rocks which are partiallyexposed^ at. half-tide):'' My db'sesrsion was how they managed tocome over the rocks up to wherewe were."

As in the previous occasion,when they withdrew from the rocksthe object returned to its' maneu-vers between the Altar de losSantos and the Gavieiro shore.Goaded by their curiosity, as theywere passing Conchiquina on theirway to Tronco, they signaled withthe lantern and the light, in spite ofthe considerable distance of thewitnesses, repeated its rapid move-ment up to the rocks of Entre-yubias.

By then they had rejected theidea of the object being a boat andthey began to suspect that the ob-ject might be related to smugglers;which was not at all improbable. Atthis point Manuel had come up with

a small plan: "look, you stay inthe boat and I'll swim over to the .Entreyubias and when the lightcomes, well I'll know if it's a boat orwhatever it is. They won't be ableto see me below the water becauseI'll have my mask and tube. ThenI'll stay under the water and in-between the seaweed and I'll lookto see what it is, to see what boatit is, to see who they are." Angelopinionated that the plan wasrisky because if they were smugglersthey might see him; after consider-ing the idea of approaching by land,Selgas abandoned his interestingplans and well according to what hetold me, the opinions of his friendset him back; "he scared me,"Selgas said.

Both men decided that whenthey would return for a fourth timethey would be more quiet andwould not put the lantern on forany reason. This is the way it wasdone and as soon as they reachedthe same spot as before, the light("that torrent of light on top of us")returned to its position on top of therocks. It appears that this was toomuch for the witnesses, who aban-doned their nets and left, leavingthem there until the following dayduring which they came by to pickthem up.

Its sudden changes didn't endthere. While passing Conchiquinaon their final departure and afterobserving that the mysterious lightwas returning to its maneuversalong the shore, Selgas saw howthe object was moving a bit morefarther out, past the Altar de losSantos. The object increased itsspeed causing Selgas to climb onthe bench and exclaim, "ImagineAngel, what motors that animalmust have inorder for it to be

moving the way it is, look,...look at it!" In the blink of an eyethe light disappeared out to seatoward the Northeast.

The case interested me, becauseI have known Manuel Selgas, amason by profession, for manyyears. Together with his wifehe runs a gas station located in theintersection of the national highway632 (Aviles-Luarca) with the roadwhich goes to the port of Cudillero.I have evidence of his integrity andnormalcy. Futhermore there existin my opinion a series of circum-stances which support the story.

Selgas is an experienced fisher-man (he has participated in con-tests at the provincial level and ina national championship whichtook place some years ago in Bar-celona) and thus, he is very ac-customed to the phenomenon whichare produced at sea, be it by dayor by night., ' , ,.

Neither Selgas nor his companionalthough they were aware that theywere.witnessing "something rare",related the phenomenon to a UFOencounter for the simple reasonthat they aren't familiar with thesubject.

They silently agreed in not givingany publicity to the affair. It wasonly a few months ago that I foundout about the case while in a casualconversation with Selgas. Manuelrepeatedly expressed his surpriseat the amount of importance thatI attached to his story,; thus he toldme "if I would have known that Iwas getting myself into such a messI wouldn't have said anything."It is interesting to note that, in spiteintact, for in the successive timesthat I asked him to tell me thedevelopments of the sighting,I could not find any errors with re-

gard to previous accounts. I had tomake him see the strange aspectsof the event, so that he could beginto suspect that he was witness tosomething not very conventional.To start off with the object wastotally silent, which would havebeen impossible had it been a shipof any means of propulsion, exceptfor navigation by sails or oars.But even in this case the rapidmaneuvers in the vicinity of thewitnesses and the speed with whichit disappeared would have beenextremely difficult to carry out inan area filled with dangerous,partially or totally covered rocks.

Futhermore it is also strange thatthe light, which according to thewitness, illuminated all directionsequally, didn't show for anymoment the structure which sup-ported it, whether it was above orbelow, "I didn't see any boatunderneath". Also, whether theobject was stationary or mobile, itdid not exhibit any type of osscila-tion thus it couldn't have beensomething attached to a mast orother floating object, which wouldhave had at least some gentleoscillating motion, especially whenit was stationed near the rocks.But, apart from what was saidbefore, I consider the description ofthe light as much as the way inwhich it disappeared as being fun-damental in this case.

That light which illuminated alldirections uniformly was a "rarelight," something unconventional."Not of a lantern nor of a car'sheadlight. It was like a blowtorchwhen it is cutting, but without thesparks, of a rare color. It was asif something was burning, but with-out the flame moving from itssource. As if there were a circleoutside which wouldn't permit theflame to leave from there." Before

this final evaluation, I asked him ifthe light had any defined boarders.He assured me that it didn't, thatthe flame couldn't leave from thecircle, but that there wasn't any'boarder.

With regard to the speed withwhich it disappeared the testi-mony can't be any more concise,"it disappeared like a star disap-pears when it comes down, whenyou lose it." According to the storythe object began to increase itsspeed while passing in front of theAltar de los Santos, it also in-creased its altitude swiftly althoughthe witness isn't too sure in this.According to him, the distancetraveled by the object from where itpicked up speed up to where it dis-appeared might have been from 700to 800 meters, although he isn't atall sure, since it could have dis-appeared maybe because of thedistance or because it was lost inthe horizon. Whatever the casemay be it is certain that it did it"like a fleeing star, like a sputnik."After presenting the story, the dif-ficult task remains for the investi-gator to interpret it. In this case,in the absence of physical evidenceand as the witnesses can't give adescription of the structure whichsupported the light, it is inevitablebut to accept as most probable theinterpretation that the object wasone of those rare and little under-stood atmospheric phenomenon,which generally take the shape ofrays in a globe or balls of plasma.Of course, in contrast to this calminterpretation, one should think inthe abnormal and cunous behoviorof this supposed atmospheric phe-nomenon, since at least theore-tically it shouldn't have behave sosystematic in its maneuvers, asit did that night in the fall of 1973.

1977MUFONSYMPOSIUMPROCEEDINGS

(166 pages)

UFOs: WHAT'S YOUR BALL GAME? by

Thomas M. Gates, Sunnyvale, CAIIf. MUFON

Consultant in Astronomy

FURTHER EVIDENCE OF UFO RADIATION

BY James M. McCampbell, Belmont, Calif.,

MUFON Director ol Research and Author or

UFOLOGY.

UFO INVESTIGATIONS by Bill Pitts, Fort

Smith, Ark. MUFON State Director for

Arkansas

WHY THE COVER-UP? by Richard Gottlieb,

Phoenix, Arizona Member of Ground Saucer

Watch (GSW, Inc.) Research Board

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF INVESTIGA-

TING UFOs by John L. Warren, Ph.D. Los

Alamos, New Mexico. MUFON Consultant

In Physics and State Director for New Mexico

FUTURE PHYSICS AND ANTI-GRAVITY by

William F. Hansel, Ph.D., Woodland Hills,

Calif., MUFON Consultant and State .Section

Director

MODERN IMAGE PROCESSING REVISITS

THE GREAT FALLS, MONTANA AND

TREMONTON, UTAH MOVIES by William

H. Spauldlng, Phoenix, Ariz., Director of GSW,

Inc., MUFON State Director for Arizona and

Photographic Consultant

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HYPNOSIS

OF IMAGINARY ABDUCTEES? by Alvln

H. Lawson, Ph.D., Garden Grove, CAIif.

MUFON State Section Director for Orange

County

SCIENCE FICTION, SCIENCE, AND UFOs by

Stanton T. Friedman, Nuclear Physicist, UFO

Lecturer, and MUFON Consultant In Nuclear

Physics

Price: $5.00 Poet Paid From:

MUFON

103 OLDTOWNE ROAD

SEGUIN, TEXAS 78139 U.S.A.

UFOs Collide Over Brazil! byO. Raymundo

A strange collision took place inthe skies of Icoaraci (Latitude1 degree 18 minutes South, Long.48 degrees 28 minutes West), aquiet village near Belem do Para,Brazil. All the villagers came out-doors to watch the unusual happen-ing, on the evening of May 17,1977.

For the highly supertitious it .meant the very end of this world,and many started praying and cry-ing. For the most skeptical, it wasthe results of a government orthe results of a government experi- r

ment or caused by some ardentfirecracker. But most of the eye-witnesses declared it was a dazzlingexperience, whatever they witness- -ed in their small village that Tues-day evening. •

The skies were dark and clean, •with no moon in the warm tropicalsky. At about 9:30-p.m., people inthe streets started hearing a steadydeafning loud sound,, like manycontinuous thunder laps. Peopleinside their houses came out and.joined the passerbys, all staring atthe skies in astonishment.

Two blazing balls, with no defin-ite outline, coming in North-Southopposite directions, crashed in thesky. According to the witnesses,the fiery object coming from thenorth was rose in color, and the onecoming from the south was green-ish. After the sudden collision, atremedous flash took place and apink smoke filled a large area inthe sky, dissipating about 20minutes after the collision.

In the local police station, theaffidavit of Chief Ronaldo Silva wasjoined by the opinion of Agent Trin-8

dade and three military troopers,all on duty that night. It was pre-sumed that the loud sound, pre-ceeding the huge collision, was pro-duced by the unbridled run of theUFOs one against another. Al-though the possibility of a crashbetween two small airplanes wastaken into consideration, no traceof wreckage or any debris wasfound in the area, after an immed-iate search by the authorities.

It was learned from official state-ments also, that the collision of theUFOs did not cause explosionwith debris but only a loud crack-ling sound, like the striking of light-ning. This fact was compared toanother weird happening in the1950's, when a bolt of lightningstruck a river, in a neighboringvillage, also leaving a reddish colorin the vicinity for severaldays.

According to other sources a fewdays before in the small village ofMoreni, town of Benevides (Pop.13,000), a fisherman known by thename Jango, saw on a clear after-noon, a strange object cruising thesky.

A few days later, this author wasfuther notified by a correspondentthat a contraditory note was pub-lished in the same newpapers,stating that some signal fireworkdevices were recently stolen from alocal fishing company, "which ledto the conclusion that the unusualphenomenon was clearly explain-able". Probably the usual debunk-ing pressure by the authorities wasput into effect, denying the extra-terrestrial theory.

Other opinions and discussions

headed this author to examine theball lightning phenomenon hypo-thesis, with no convincing resultseither. Being a very rare type ofnatural phenomenon and as yetunexplained by the science, balllightning is known to have somebasic peculiarities such as: a smallsize ball with luminous colors be-tween orange-reddish or yellowish;of very short duration; moving mostof the time horizontally; and some-times rising and exploding or pop-ing in the air. Indeed, it has neverbeen photographed! Conclusively,it can be said that there is no factualexplanation for the ball lightningphenomenon itself, and quite pos-sibly, no link at all with the bizarrephenomenon witnessed in Brazil.

Past research and investiationinto similar UFO activity may leadus to accept more: that such lumin-ous display could be related tosome intelligent controlled devicesthat may have become out of con-trol and were intentionally flowninto each other.

The area of the incident (Belemdo Para' in the estuary of the greatAmazon River), has seen manymysterious objects in the skies—and some of them plunging into thewaters, too. South America hasbeen known to be one of the great-est areas of UFO activity in the lastdecades, and a close study mightlead the dedicated ufologist intomost interesting conclusions.

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UFOs Over TheWaldviertel Highlands By Ernst Berger

MUFON Central European Section(Edited by Richard Hall)

December 14, 1974, between6:45 and 7 p.m. (CET) Hans Pritz,22 year old compositor working atZwettle and living at Traunstein,started his car and left for Kalten-bach. Near the garage that was amajor reference in the October1973 sightings the road branchesoff to the right. The night wasstarry, even too starry. One es-pecially bright "star" seemed to beout of place, twinkling 4 degreesabove the horizon. Pritz turned thecar around and drove home to fetchhis 8 x 40 "Revue" binoculars witha field of 6.5 degrees. A fewminutes later he trained the bi-noculars on the "star." What hesaw was enough to cause him todrive 1.7 km further to the south-west and park his car in a field.

"Have you ever watched thebeacon light of a patrol car?,"Pritz asked. "It was very much likethat, a patch of light going roundand round." The object was asbright as Jupiter (about - 2 magni-tude), basically yellowish, butchanged colors a little. The'' beacon'' rotated continuouslyabout 1 revolution per second.Pritz compared it to a searchlightrotating counterclockwise behindthe object's rim so that only thebright glow was visible. (Mr. Len-nartz of Hochries hut, Bavaria,witnessed the same phenomenon,but rotating clockwise. See SKY-LOOK No. 87, Feb. 1975).

"Every time the light wouldreach a position at the lower left,10

Pritz said, "it would ge kind of apush and run again at its usualrate. (It would accelerate from thispoint-Ed.) With binoculars you'dsee clearly that the rotating lighteven cast a shadow or a faint lineinside the object's front side ata certain position, and it had maxi-mum brilliance there, and a fainthajo." The object also projected amotionless ray from the upper leftedge straight upwards to a pointabout two object diameters distant,where it ended abruptly.

The object hovered 5 degreesover the horizon with Mt. Jauerlingwhich has an important TV tower,and above some trees near the roadto Lugmuehle, but at considerabledistance. It was on a bearing of114 degrees, which .is nearly thesame azimuth obtained from thegarage point, so we couldn't fix thetrue distance. The fuzzy globe re-mained stationary for 5 minutes,then moved slowly and horizontallyto the west, stopped again at 126degrees azimuth for a minute, thencontinued westward. (Pritz thennoticed a carmine red "dot" in thebeacon's first position, but lower,flying eastward at moderatespeed. The "dot" was intermit-tently visible.--Ed.)

"The beacon object flew furtherto the west," Pritz continued, therewas ho sound at all the whole time,and disappeared behind a cloud."(At 140 degrees azimuth, 4 degreeselevation). - --

This report reached us by chance

and the witness, who chose toremain anonymous, is not acquaint-ed with the Pritz family. Mrs. Xlives in an isolated wooded valleywith scattered houses, south ofPoeggstall, which lies 15 km SSE ofTraunstein and 7 km W of theOstrong mountains. She is an oldcountry wife in her sixties, walkingwith a limp after a leg injury andwith reduced hearing, but im-pressive mental freshness and in-terest in natural phenomena.Her testimony was simple andhonest from beginning to end, weagreed after analysis of the tapes.

On a clear morning before Christ-mas 1974 (according to the weatherlogs it was clear at 7 a.m. on Dec.21, 22, 23, and 24) she entered theanteroom of her country house at6:30 a.m. After her first glance intothe dark north through the largewindow, she stood transfixed."What's going on out there,"she thought. "It was a globe,halfway up the mountain—it'scalled Mt. Mandelgupf—, and itwas swinging, and like a swordthrowing out sparks." The witnessdescribed it vividly while we wereat thw site. "I went back into thekitchen at once to get the time—6:30 precisely...And the sword waslike the globe, it all fitted together.'

Very low in the north, over ameadow in the valley and in front ofthe Mandelgupf slope, a globehovered in mid-air. It wasn'tmotionless, but swinging to and fro

(Continued on page 12)

AND UFQS by Jean Bastide, MUFONRepresentative In South France

The famous american UfologistJames M. McCanipbell has writ-ten that "when witnesses reporta UFO sighting involving an objectmoving near the surface of a bodyof water, they may describe a rippleeffect oh the water which appearsto have been caused by the object.The UFO researcher should beinterested in studying the possiblecause of this effect, and what thismay suggest about the nature ofUFOs" (1) We must bear in mindthat although no definite conclu-sions can actually be reached re-garding the means of propulsionand the effects of UFOs, sciencecan nevertheless be utilized toresolve the UFO phenomenon.As we now know, such ripples couldbe a key effect to explain morestrange effects.

In fact, on October 21, 1963 avery curious observation took placein Argentina, near the town ofTrancas. As written by Mr. OscarA. Galindez, "beneath the air-space where the object "f" (one ofthe 6 objects involved in this case)had been rocking to and fro, andwithin a circle 28 to 30 ft. in dia-meter, they (the witnesses) foundforming a perfect cone 3 feethigh, innumberable "little whiteballs" 1/2 inch in diameter. Nextday, they found similar little ballson the railway line (where the otherobjects had been seen), but not insuch vast quantity as in the gardenThe little balls crumpled undergentle pressure. The head of thechemical laboratory of the Institute

of Chemical Engineering in theUniversity of Tucuman, Sr. WalterGonzalo Tell, did an analysis ofthem, which showed that they con-tained 96.48% of calcium carbonatearid 3.51% of potassium car-bonate" (2) Now, the witnesseshave stated that this object "f" was"a solid body some 28 to 30 feet, indiameter, its surface appearing tobe of metal, resembling alumin-ium' ' and that the object was at lessthan 5 ft. from the ground, rocklingto and fro without revolving andthat "A Whitish Mist was comingout of its lower extremity", thewhitish mist "giving off a penetra-ting odor resembling the smell ofsulphur." (3)

We can also quote the Galssboro(New Jersey, USA) landing case:the two teenage boys of Mr. WardC. Campbell-technically trainedand a prominent citizen of Galss-boro-were fishing in a pond in anoff-bounds orchard when they wereapproached by two tall men, bare-foot, and long-haired. The thinand blond young men impresedthe two teenagers by "their beauti-ful ("non-pimply") fair com-plexions". As related by Mr.Berthold Eric Schwarz, "this meet-ing was unusual for this time of theye'ar and place, for the ground wasgravel and broken glass (the menbeing barefoot). Also, in a smalltown everyone knows everyoneelse. This was before the .time ofthe "hippies", and the two youngmen were total strangers. Theyasked the teenage poachers about

UFOs and specifically wondered ifthey were interested in seeing one.The long and short of it is thatshortly afterward—almost beforetheir very eyes—there was a widelyobserved and documented (dis-counting a ludicrous cover-up)landing and the deposit of some"Whitish Powder-like Substancethat was originally The Size OfGolf Balls, but which shrunk down.When it was picked up by a police-man, he droppd it quickly, in sur-prise, because it was cold as anice cube. It retained the coldfeeling for at least 24 hours". Theteenagers were reluctant to reportto their straight-laced father whatthey had done, not only because ofthe weird, possibly UFO-relatedexperiences, but because of the factthat they were late in getting home,and they were fearful of beingscolded for fishing where they werenot supposed to be! (4)

One can make several importantremarks:a) in the two cases, the ballsseems to have always the same sizebetween them, as if a strictly-defined weight could not be ex-ceeded.b) in the two cases, the balls arewhitish; and crumbly, thereforeformed of powder.c) in the first case (Trancas, theballs formed a cone, as if they werecreated by a field of axial symmetrysuch a magnetic one.

The conclusions are quite simple:the UFOs can induce an anti-gravitational field, of axial sym-

11

metry, and greater in the centreinducing itself the formation oflittle spheres composed of soilpowder attracted and conglom-erated, by an effect roughly similarto the one known in outerspace, inwhich the particules conglomeratedthemselves into spheres, the gra-vitation being near to zero (inde-pendently of the well known effectof surface tension for liquids).The process could therefore beas follows:a) the soil powder begins to con-glomerate.b) the size limit (weight) beingreached, the whitish powder ballsdrop to the ground, being too heavyto be now attracted.

We can also think that thegravitational field is highest in thecenter, decreasing to the periphery,to be almost equal to zero outsidethe radius of the UFO, roughly.We can infer also that the fieldwhatever it may be exactly—isconstant, unchanged, during thisshort lapse of time, the UFObeing stationary.

Is it not strange that a few factscould have given so much in theway of concepts! We can add nowthat carbonates are very commonin terrestrial soil, being very crum-bly, to form an impalpable powder(by the effect of wind erosion).We can think, too, that the field ofthe UFOs can induce the formationof calcium and potassium carbon-ates with the calcium and potas-sium of the soil, combined withthe atmospheric carbon dioxide.

In conclusion, the question to beanswered first must be: why havethere not been more cases likethese? Probably, many conditionsmust be realized to obtain the idealconditions of atmospheric and soil12

compositions. We must hope thatfurther cases will bring us morefacts, which will, in return, streng-then this theory. We must note thecone may (almost) reach the object,being 3 ft. high, the periphery ofthe UFO being at 5 ft. high only.

(1) Skylood (now MUFON UFOJournal), no. 94, September 1975;James M. McCampbell, Micro-waves and water, scientific deduc-tion and UFO investigations; thewell-knwon book of Mr. McCamp-bell—UFOlogy—has been recentlypublished again (new edition) byCelestial Arts, 231 Adrian Road,Millbrae, Ca. 94030, USA.(2) Flying Saucer Review, Vol.17 no. 3, page 18; OVNIS, un desa-fio a la ciencia, Ano I, Noviembre-diciembre 1974, no. 4, page 7:"debajo del sitio en que se balanceaquel objeto, y dentro de uncirculo de 8 a 10 metres de dia-metro, comprobaron la existenciade inumerables bolitas blancas de1 cm. diametro"; in his book"Los OVNIs ante la ciencia", Mr.Galindez writes that the white ballsforms a perfect cone: "un perfectocone de un metro de altura"(page 89).(3) FSR Vol. 17, no. 3, page 16;read OVNIs, Ano I, No. 4, page 5:"la niebla comenzo a tornarseespesa, despidiendo un olor pene-trante, como azufre", the exactdistance from the ground being lessthan 1.50 meter (page 4: "apenas1,50 metres").(4) MUFON 1974 UFO SymposiumProceedings, Akron, Ohio, June 22,1974, page 92 (case 6).

(Continued from page 10)

gently, like a pendulum (the firsttime the pattern would appear inthe flap). At the same time itseemed to be moving slowly E ona straight course, towards the slopeof Mt. Hofkogel, S of Mandelgupf.Mrs. X continued: "First I said—for heavens sake, what does itmean? Is the thing going toexplode? ...It was like a sword,and it changed from left to rightalternately, but the ball remained.

But the most interesting to mewas the sparks, like a blacksmithhammering a red-hot iron, but onlyfor seconds." As soon as the swordwould extend to full length, lots oftiny sparks "like tiny stars" spray-ed up and down from a point in themiddle of the appendage, halfwayfrom the globe to the outer tip. Itextended to the left and thento the right reciprocally and withouta stop. The sparks seemed to bedependent on full extension of thepeak; for they never appearedoutside this period. The globe andextension were about 2 moon dia-meters in aparent size.

(Mrs. X went to her son's house,next down the slope, to see if hewas awake but he wasn't. Whenshe returned the ball was partlyobscured by trees. Only the uppershower of sparks remained visiblefor a while longer until the objectmoved away. Total time of obser-vation was 8-10 minutes. The in-vestigators calculated the size ofthe object to be over 5 meters indiameter, the height less than60 meters and more than 2060 meters and more than 20 metersabove the terrain. Mrs. X inquiredin the neighborhood, but no one/else reported seeing the thing//--Ed.)

A Response to Richard Hall'sCommentary by Ray Stanford

! fiantt

I wish to thank Dennis w. Hauck,MUFON JOURNAL editor, for thisopportunity to respond in depth tothe extensive statements of RichardHall (MUFON JOURNAL, Novem-ber, 1976) concerning himself,myself, and my book Socorro'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry.

Hall asks why I waited twelveyears "...to make a public issue ofthe Socorro case..." He also askswhy I did not protest and force theissue (of whether there was aNASA coverup of the metallicevidence) with NICAP. Hall musthave forgotten that I did, via twophone conversations with him.I urged him to consult experts intechniques of analysis, as I hadalready done (see pages 148 and149 in my book), and, thus, learnfor himself that in evaluating theX-ray diffraction test, for example,Frankel and his assistants could nothave mistaken mere silica to be azinc-iron alloy.

Concerning Hall's quandary as towhy I waited until now to tell of mySocorro investigation. It took meabout five years of careful checkingand cross-checking facts to 'as-semble all the data in Socorro'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry,nearly five hundred pages long!I tried for five more years to get apublisher to handle it. The answerwas always to the effect that, whilethe manuscript was the best-docu-mented one they had ever seenconcerning UFOs and very convin-cing, it was simply too long andfilled with too much "engineerese"

to be popularly published. So, inearly 1975 I finally found time toseverely edit it down-to size andremove the technical language.Only then did a small local publish-er, Blueapple Books, accept it.

Hall says I had an "...obviousdesire at the time to believe" thatI had "the conclusive physicalproof of UFOs." In the first place,no one in a balanced state of mindcould possibly believe that tinymetallic slivers—regardless ofhow 'strange—could be "the con-clusive proof of UFOs." Nowherein the book or elsewhere do I callthe Socorro metallic slivers "con-clusive physical proof of UFOs"which obviously they were not. Ifmy attitude during the Socorro in-vestigation and the reporting of itwas subjective as Hall now sug-gests, why did Hall write me (onNICAP stationery) on May 5, 1964,saying, "Your taped report arrived,and I found it extremely thoroughand intelligently done. We aregrateful to you for this job"?However, Hall may not be impug-ning my 1964 work on the case.Yet, as the importance of the Socor-ro case became more evident, mycaution and thoroughness, if any-thing, increased.

Hall complains that I mentionedon June 20, 1975, my forthcomingbook, but "...did not say that thebook would be highly critical ofme." Of course not. The book isnot highly critical of Hall. Wherehe and NICAP were negligent, Isay so, but I was never highly

critical of him.Hall refers to a report in my book

that "fused sand" was found at thelanding site. He says my sourcewas a letter from the late Dr. JamesMcDonald, to him, a copy of whichwas sent to me. That is true.Although I do not literally say thatthe letter was obtained from Dr.McDonald, changes made in a rushat the last minute before printingcertainly make it sound as if I amsaying that. (Reference to the Mc-Donald letter was inserted at thelast minute—when the initialnegatives for the printing plateshad already been made. Spacefactors were already defined and,hence, the material was much toocontracted.) Failure to acknow-ledge Hall as the source was a veryinappropriate and unfortunateoversight which will be correctedin any future editions. For itsoccurrence I duly apologize. Hall'shelp is acknowledged in the frontof the book, but, unfortunately, notwhere it should have been.

Another point Hall makes • ispossibly correct. My dating of theGoddard trip could have been offone week, since I have no reason todoubt Walter Webb's diary. Myerror, if it was such, must haveoccurred in my working back fromnotes placed in wrongly datedenvelopes before the book waswritten.

Hall makes a point of concernbecause copies of tapes and notes Isupposedly made, including a"tape...which he claims to have

13

made surreptitiously while ridingin the car with Walt Webb and meto NASA Goddard Space FlightCenter," were not sent to him asrequested on July 21, 1976. Thebackground for Hall's statement isas follows: When I called him afterher had read the complimentarycopy of the book which I had senthim, he vigorously, if not vehnem-ently,; denied that my account of ourconversations on the way to theGoddard Space Flight Center couldbe accurate. I felt on the phone thatHall's reaction to this account,which had been based upon carefulnotes, was purely an emotionalreaction. I decided to "smoke"him out as to his own self-assur-ance.

I asked him, "Suppose I told youI had tape-recorded our conversa-tions?" (I had not.)

Dick respdnded, "How could youhaye done that."

"Remember that big purplebriefcase I was carrying? I had atape-recorder in it," which in factI did. But, of course, it was not on.

Well, "smoke" Hall did, and infact, he has been "smokin" eversince. And it is time that this issuebe laid to rest. Dick, you havenever .been surreptitiously tape-recorded (at least not by me).

I did make careful notes to recordthe Goddard trip—written in theafternoon following the trip. SinceHall confesses he made no exten-sive notes on the contents of thetrip to Goddard conversation, andsince I did, the world is, admittedlyat the mercy of my accuracy.But, I was very careful about ac-curacy'in recording all that hap-pened.

As to sending Hall copies of myscribbly notes to prove what hap-14

pened, I ask WHAT WOULD THEYPROVE? Precisely nothing. Itstill is a matter of faith since onecan easily prepare spontaneous-looking notes long after the fact.Why waste my time and Hall's too?He is too cautious an investigatorto believe that mere notes fromsomeone other than himself wouldprove anything to him.

Hall asks why I did not tape-record the absolutely vital phoneconversations that "...he claims,prove a coverup." I told him whysoon after sending him a compli-mentary copy of the book. But 1shall repeat it because Hall raises itagain: At the time I had no tele-phone recording coil for use withmy recorder, and if I'd had one, Iwould not have used it withoutinforming the other party—whichmight have precluded candidness.Butvsince,,,Ha: llLraises the .issue, Imight'turn the tables and ask whydid NICAP or Hall not tape-recordthe pertinent conversations withFrankel in which Hall was reported-ly involved?

Hall says he will testify beforeany Congressional committee that"...neither Dr. Frankel nor anyoneelse at NASA ever suggested to methat they were leaning toward anextraterrestrial interpretation.''Hall seems to be suggesting that Isaid that Frankel told me he"leaned" toward such an explan-ation. My notes, made during andimmediately following the phoneconversation with Frankel, showthat he told me—and I will stickto it in any government hearing—""...there is something that is ratherexciting about the zinc-iron alloy...Our charts of all alloys known to bemanufactured on Earth, the USSRincluded, do not show any alloy

of the specific combination or ratioof the two main elements involvedhere. This finding definitelystrengthens the case that might bemade for an extraterrestrial originof the Socorro object." (See page139.)

Frankel told me he had alreadycalled Dick Hall and told him thesame thing. Frankel added thatHall "...was very interested."Hall verified that Frankel had doneso when I called him soon there-after.

Hall, upon first reading my book,did not remember that Dr. Frankelhad reported a zinc-iron alloy, buthis own notes at NICAP did at leastprove that to him. He then readilyacknowledged it.

I suspect Hall's memory is sim-ply not serving him accurately onother pertinent facts of which hemade no notes. I only wish he hadrecords of disputed matters—re-cords he could accept. I can easilybelieve that Hall is correct in hisrecollection that Frankel said tohim that the zinc-iron alloy remind-ed him of "a zinc pail," but I wouldpoint out that a zinc-galvanizediron pail (which is to what Hall's"zinc pail" probably refers) wouldnot leave a zinc-iron alloy if scrapedonto a rock—it would leave, at best,zinc and iron mashed together.Since the first test done at NASAwas X-ray diffraction, a zinc-ironalloy would reveal a very differentdiffraction pattern that would amere physical mixture of the two.And, it was an alloy which Frankelreported by phone to both me andHall that he found. Hall says,"...when Dr. Frankel talked to meabout the tentative findings of azinc-iron alloy..." So, Hall admitsthat Frankel reported that the two

metals were alloyed, even thoughHall adds the word "tentative."Frankel never used that word tome. He merely said that anothertest was needed, "...to get somereadings on some of the elementsthat are present only in smallpercentages."

I have suggested by phone thatHall check for himself with expertmetallurgists in order to verify mystatement that the scraping of agalvanized bucket could not appearin X-ray diffraction to be an alloyof zinc and iron, but to my know-ledge he has not done so.

Hall says, "A major myth pur-veyed by Stanford is the impressionhe leaves that I more or less twistedhis arm to have the analysis doneby Dr. Frankel at the NASA fa-cility..." Nowhere do I either stateor imply that he twisted my arm!The loss of the potentially valuableevidence was the responsibilityof both myself and Hall. If therewas no coverup on NASA's part,why does Hall try so hard to assertthat I chose NASA (Goddard)when, as my correspondence withHall clearly shows, it was Hall whofirst brought Goddard and Frankelinto the candidacy as the place touse for the analysis, and highlyrecommended them. (WitnessHall's June 25, 1964 letter to me inwhich he says that Frankel "...isvery strongly against suppressionof information." Hall went on todescribe what fine equipmentFrankel had at Goddard and tohighly recommend him. 1 (See page117 in Socorro 'Saucer' in a Penta-gon Pantry for details.) I think thatmaybe Hall really knows, at one

(Continued on page 20)

By Walt Andrus

Columbia Pictures forthcomingUFO motion picture, written anddirected by Steven Spielberg,starring Richard Dreyfuss withFrancois Truffaut as Lacombe,will premiere at the ZiegfieldTheater in New York City and theCinerama Globe in Hollywood on orabout November 1. On December15, 1977, this movie is scheduledto open in about 400 theatersacross the United States. Some ofus had the privilege of viewing apromotional film for "Close En-counters of the Third Kind"in April at the First InternationalUFO Congress in Acapulco, Mex-ico. It featured Dr. J. Allen Hynek,who served as scientific consultantfor this Phillips Production.Columbia Pictures, in their bro-chure, has stated "millions ofpeople will experience the mostbeautiful, frightening, and signi-ficant motion picture adventure ofall .time". Considering that"Jaws" cost 9 million dollars toproduce, "Close Encounters pf the.Third Kind" has a budget of 20million dollars.

Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.,Research Scientist and Consultant,in a letter to MUFON feels that thismotion picture will strongly influ-ence UFO witnesses descriptionsand may possibly ''contaminate"our efforts to obtain as unbiasedsighting data as possible. Hiscentral concern has been the devel-opment of techniques to help makeeye witness reports as reliableand faithfully representativeof the original sensory event as

possible. Dr. Haines has suggestedthat MUFON investigators becomeprepared for the possible influenceof this movie upon the Americanpublic and their subsequentreporting of CE-III. Our actionsnow will lead to greater under-stading of the influence of thismass presentation upon our data.He has outlined some suggestionson how we should deal with thispotentially biasing media event.(1) Each member should take theinitiative to contact the managersof all local theaters who plan toshow this movie. Try to obtain anagreement that you will be giventhe approximate attendance fig-ures, and starting and final show-ing dates of the film in your localtheater. These data may then becorrelated later with the frequencyof CE-III type reports in your area.(2) MUFON members should seethis movie so as to become familiarwith its details. Such ultimatefamiliarity will make subsequenteye witness interviews more sen-sitively aware of similarities anddifferences between a reported CE-III encounter and the movie.(3) Investigators should adhere tothe following advice when inter-viewing witnesses and investiga-ting cases. One of your questionsmight be "What can you thinkof that is anything like the closeencounter you have just had?"Under no circumstances should theinvestigator mention the name ofthis movie or its contents until theinterview is almost over. Alwayslet the eye witness raise the issue.

15

Lucius Foriih

In Others' WordsThe August 2 issue of NATIONAL

ENQUIRER featured two articlesof Ufological interest. The firstreport dealt with the large tri-angular UFO seen by police officersover Memphis, Tennessee on May17, 1977. The second feature gavedetails of some cave paintings inBaja California which seem to lendcredence to the ancient astronautstheory, although these examplesof artwork are not too impressivein the photographs included withthe article.

THE STAR for July 26 rehashesKenneth Arnold's opinions ofUFOs and mentions his participa-tion at the recent FATE-sponsoredUFO Congress in Chicago.

The August issue of SCIENCEDIGEST has an interesting articleby Don Berliner on the omissionsin the Project Blue Book files.Researcher Barry Greenwood,who is obtaining microfilm copies ofthe complete Blue Book files,verifies Berliner's contention thatimportant information (and, insome instances, complete cases)has been "sanitized," i.e. deleted.Berliner's article is excerpted froma forthcoming book and additionaldetails concerning this volume willbe presented in a later column,hopefully.

UFO REPORT for Septemberincludes interesting articles by B.Ann Slate, Robert A. Goerman,and others, along with the usualamount of rehash.

Although I tend to concentrate onnewsstand magazines in thiscolumn, it seems only fair to give16

equal time to some of the smallerUfological publications whichcontain good material. One suchexample is the PAGE RESEARCHLIBRARY NEWSLETTER, editedby Dennis Pilichis; You'll normallyfind a potpourri of news items,letters from readers, news of newbooks, etc. Dennis also sends out

. PRL catalogs of new and used UFObooks and magazines. If you havespecific wants, you'll find that the$2.00 for 4 issues of the NEWS-LETTER and catalogs is well worthit. The address is: 6708 ColgateAvenue - Cleveland, Ohio 44102.

Michale Hervey's UFOs OVERTHE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE isa revised edition of his previouspaperback of the same title. Begin-ning with introductory material onUFOs, Hervey then relates pressaccounts and first-hand sightingreports from all areas of Australia,New Zealand, and Tasmania.The incidents generally extend backto the early 1950's, although thereare some historical (pre-1947)reports scattered through the book.For anyone not acquainted withUFO happenings "down under,"this might prove a useful referencevolume. It is available for approxi-mately $7.00 from Robert Hale& Co. - Clerkenwell House - Clerk-enwell Green - London EC1 OHT,England.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek's Dell paper-back, THE BLUE BOOK REPORT,has been postponed again. Rumorhas it that it will now be out inSeptember, but this has not beenconfirmed by the publisher.

Those of you who look forward toeach issue of Canadian UFOReport (as I do), will be pleased toknow that the REPORT'S editor,John Magor, has had his firsthardcover book published. EntitledOUR UFO VISITORS, it is largelya review of the UFO activity whichhas occurred in Canada's WesternMountains and Rocky MountainTrench areas. In 1967-68, thisregion was subject to a UFO "in-vasion" and Magor provides thedetails of many cases from thatperiod. While it is true that a goodportion of the material has seenprint in previous issues of theREPORT, it is well worth re-reading(for those familiar with it); for new-comers, it clearly shows the vastamount of UFO activity whichCanadians have witnessed in recentyears. Magor has some good pointsto make about the testimonies oflone witnesses: "If a researchernever passes the point where hebelieves the word of a single wit-ness can be sufficient at times,I think he is wasting his time. Hehas come to a halt because hecontinues to put skepticism beforeinquiry. He is trying to reducethe problem to his own terms, whichhe will .never do." OUR UFOVISITORS has an excellent selectionof photos and illustrations, plus anindex and bibliography. It isavailable from Hancock HousePublishers, Inc. - 12008 - 1st Ave.South - Seattle, WA 98168. Theprice is $8.95 and it certainly hasmy recommendation.

UFO Enigma by Stanton T. Friedman31628 Trevor AvenueHayward, CA 94544

THE UFO ENIGMA: The Defini-tive Explanation of the UFOPhenomena Donald H. Menzeland Earnest H. Taves. Doubleday& Company, 1977 $8.95. 297pages.

Dr. Menzel, who died just a fewmonths before this book was pub-lished was one of the outstandingAmerican astronomers of the pasthalf century. Dr. Taves was a closepersonal friend of Dr. Menzel, wasa practicing psycho-analyst and isan active writer of science fiction.Despite the authors' outstandingprofessional backgrounds, the bookin no way lives up to the subtitle.The tools used here are not thoseof science. Instead they arecharacter assasination, positive andnegative name calling, selectivechoice of facts, misrepresentation,erros of omission and the othertechniques of the propagandist.

Much of the book is not aboutUFOs at all but is textbook materialabout sundogs, moondogs, rain-bows, meteorological optics, etc.Of the 33 photos and drawings twowere intentional hoaxes, two wereof a hoax exposed first by a UFOgroup of Pittsburgh (though thegroup isn't acknowledged), and onedealt with the Hill abduction. Theother 28 had nothing to do withUFOs. The 21 chapters have a totalof 129 footnotes. Eleven are tobiblical sources, and twenty-oneare to pre 1940 sources. Yet thereis no mention of the 247 page UFOSymposium Proceedings publishedfor a congressional committee afterofficial hearings on UFOs and con-

taining the testimony of 12 scien-tists—including Dr. Menzel. Thereis no mention of the 310 page book"UFOs: A Scientific Debate"published by Cornell UniversityPress and edited by two astron-omers with papers by 16 scien-tists—including Dr. Menzel. Thereis no mention of Project Blue BookSpecial Report Number 14, a 300page volume and the largest of-ficially sponsored, scientific in-vestigation of UFOs ever publish-ed. It has categ orizations, qualityevaluations, statistical cross com-parisons of over 2000 UFO sight-ings by professional persons atBattelle Memorial Institute inColumbus, Ohio. According to theBlue Book files Dr. Menzel had acopy. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astro-nomer and dean of American ufo-logists is mentioned several timesbut this book "The UFO Exper-ience" is not. None of the 4 PhDtheses that deal with UFOs arereferenced. No mention is made ofcompilations of UFO landingsthough one covers more than 800such cases from 39 countries. The1966 Gallup Poll on UFOs is brieflynoted but the 1973 Gallup Poll andseveral others are not. One won-ders if Drs. Menzel and Taves areunwilling to face up to the factsprovided by these polls—especiallythe fact that the greater the educa-tion of the individual the MORElikely to accept UFO reality and theolder the individual (Menzel was74 and Taves 61) the less likely toaccept UFO reality.

The primary investigativetechnique used to "identify"

almost every case discussed seemsto be arm chair theorizing. Fieldinvestigation, witness interrogationchecking with the weather records,quantitative calculations allappear to be practically nonexist-ent. The reasoning seems to bethat if one can find a possible ex-planation for a particular sighting,the fact that it doesn't fit severalimportant aspects of the sightingdoesn't really matter.

The October, 1961, Salt Lake CityUFO sighting witnessed by the pilotof a small plane and seven otherwitnesses on the ground at mid-day with 40 mile visibility in clearskies is dismissed as a sundog.The facts of the sighting are grosslydistroted; no mention is made ofthe facts that the pilot saw the UFObetween him and a mountain, thatthe UFO was observed to tilt backand forth while hovering, had alenticular shape, rose straight upextremely rapidly for about 1000feet, stopped and then moved offat high speed. The famous seriesof photos taken near the islandof Trinidade in 1958 by a Braziliannavy photographer is dismissed asan "obvious hoax" though compu-ter enhancement techniques do notsupport this view nor does the test-imony of the others present at thetime the pictures were taken. Nosource is given for the statementthat the photographer was a"known hoaxter". As is the casethroughout the book holier—than-thou statements are made to takethe place of solid facts.

Much effort is spent in explain-ing away the famous abduction of

17

Betty and Barney Hill and MarjorieFish's detailed efforts to recon-struct in 3 dimensions the 2-di-mensional star map drawn by Bettyunder posthypnotic suggestion.She had earlier described this mapas having been shown her on boarda UFO. Menzel and Taves wereable to show, as anybody would ex-pect, that if one throws 47 seeds ona two dimensional flat area and se-lects 15 seed positions to find thebest fit with a preselected pattern,namely Betty's map, one can finda pattern that more or less matchesthe given pattern. The number 47was selected because that is thenumber of sun-like stars in ourclose galactic neighborhood. However, Ms. Fish did NOT restrictattention to only the sun-like stars.One of her models, for example,included all 252 stars in the volumetaken up by that model. The starsin our neighborhood are NOT dis-tributed at random like seedsthrown on a table. They are wherethey are. The pattern found byMs. Fish was the only one ofthousands considered which match-ed reality and made sense. If hersolution was just a random guess"hit", why was it not found untilAFTER the release of the 1969Gliese catalog of nearby stars withits updated distance data? Whydoesn't Menzel deal with, or evenmention, the very special featuresof the base stars, Zeta 1 Reticuliand Zeta 2 Reticuli, found byMs. Fish? Is it really just coin-cidence that they happen to be notonly suitable for planets and lifebut are also the closest to each .other pair of such stars in ourentire neighborhood being only3 light weeks apart?

That Drs. Menzel and Taves haveno real concern with a scientific18

approach to UFO investigations isclear from the statement "PhilipKlass, author of several books onUFOs has been the one otherinvestigator (in addition to DHM)who has adopted an unfailingly sci-entific approach in his inquiries".A study of both books by avionicswriter Klass and the cases ex-plained therein shows that he usedthe same unscientific techniques asMenzel and Taves. The facts insighting after sighting are misre-presented, positive and negativename calling abound, there aresignificant errors of omission whichthe reader has no way of knowing.Kalss did do far more in the way ofactual rather than armchair in-vestigation but the bias is equallyclear. In short The UFO Enigmais a good book for those interestedin atmosphereic physics andIdentified flying objects. It is def-initely NOT the definitive explan-ation of the phenomenon ofUNIDENTIFIED Flying Objects.

(Continued from page 4)

More detailed information aboutthis case is to be found in therecords of the UFO section. Theinvestigated case that we investi-gated as the active members ofUFO section is interesting for itleads to pressumption that the twoeye-witnesses spotted the objectfirst as it was making its pre-paration for landing. This is alsoconfirmed by the shine, that was tobe seen behind the forest and whichthe eye-witnesses interpreted asthe result of a fire. Still therewere to be found no traces of itspossible landing.

Everything points to the fact thatthe UFO spotting in Velika wasa very real one, but for the presentthe origin is unknown.PS: I wish to thank our activemembers Franci Bricelj and KristanBranko for their excellent work inthe field.

MUFON AMATEUR RADIO NETS (weekly)

DAY FREQUENCY NET TIMEC.D.S.T.

SAT 40 meters 7237 KHZ. 0700

SAT 75 meters 3075 KHZ. 0800

SUN 20 meters 14,284 KHZ. 1300

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DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE byWalt Andrus

Through the fine efforts of El-mer A. Krai, Central RegionalDirector, Glenn Underhill, Ph.D.has accepted the position of StateDirector for Nebraska, replacingElmer in this post. Dr. Underhillteaches physics at Kearney StateCollege in Kearney, Nebraska68847. He may be contacted bytelephone at his home 308/893-2401 or at the college on 308-236-4139. Glenn is also an amateurradio operator with the call lettersWRSM. Elmer Krai will assitsassistDr. Underhill in his new role asadministrative assistant.

New State Section Directorsappointed during July include thefollowing: Raymond Jordan,3831 North Paradise Road, Flag-staff, AZ 86001 for CoconinoCounty; Christopher S. Centi,P.O. Box 142 Jamestown, NY14701 for Chautauqua and Cat-taraugus counties in western NewYork State; and Thomas P. Deuley,Route 2, Box 323, Moyock, NC27958 to cover Currituck, Camden,Pasquotank, Perquimans and Gatescounties in North-Carolina.

Two new Research Specialistshave volunteered their services tohelp in resolving the UFO phe-nomenon. They are Willard D.Nelson, 18302 Montana Circle,Villa Park, CA 92667, specializingin aerospace structures and mater-ials; and Michael Fling, 79A-6Broadmeadow St., Marlborough,

MA 01752 in propulsion methods.Michael has his Masters Degreein Mechanical Engineering.

MUFON's professional stature isfurther enhanced by the appoint-ment of two talented gentlemen toour Board of Advisory Consultants.Harold E. Roland, Ph.D., 6504Via Siena, Rancho Palos Verdes,CA 90274, a professor at theUniversity of Southern California,will apply his expertise to aero-dynamics. He has 22 years of ex-perience as a military avaitor. Inthe medical field, Howard N. Kan-dell, M.D., 6050 North 23rd Place,Phoenix,AZ 85016 has volunteeredhis services as a physician, special-izing in the medical aspects as re-lated to abductees and contactees.Dr. Kandell conducted a physicalexamination of Travis Walton,as an example of his work. Dr.Kandell attended the recent 1977MUFON UFO SYMPOSIUM inScottsdale, AZ on July 16 and 17.

The August issue of THEMUFON UFO JOURNAL will con-tain an overview of the "1977MUFON UFO SYMPOSIUM",specifically for those who wereunable to attend. At this time,the MUFON Board of Directorswould like to congratulate the hostsfor the symposium—MUFON/GSW for this educational, enlight-ening, and enjoyable event. Itwas planned in detail and imple-mented in a professional manner,with outstanding prior television,

radio, and newspaper publicity.Special thanks for hosting thisaffair is extended to WilliamH. Spaulding, Director of GSWand his very able associates.Richard Gottlieb introduced thespeakers and served as the masterof ceremonies. The success of the

*symposium must be attributed tothe dedication and work of GSWcolleagues such as Bill and Rose-mary Baum, John Schaefer, SusanSpaulding, and Lori Field, just tomention a few, knowing that therewere many more who contributedtheir time and efforts. This in-cludes the young folks associatedwith the "Junior Sky Watchers",who constructed an immense"welcome" banner specifically forthe symposium.

All of the papers presented,plus two additional publishedpapers are now available in aone hundred and sixty-six pagesoftback book titled "1977 MUFONUFO SYMPOSIUM PROCEED-INGS". A copy may be secured bywriting to MUFON, 103 OldtowneRoad, Seguin, TX 78155 USA andenclosing a check or money orderfor five dollars (postpaid).

MUFON103 OLOTOWNE RD.S E G U I N , TX 78155

19

RECAPPING AND COMMENTINGBy Richard Hall (MUFON International Coordinator)

(Comments in this month's columnare based, in part, on articlesappearing in MUFON UFO JOUR-NAL No. 112, dated March 1977).

In our search for meaningfulevaluations of UFO data, we mustavoid the tendency to think thatmachines—modern technology—can provide "magic" shortcuts totruth. Computer photo-enhance-ment programs, polygraphs ("liedetectors"), the psychologicalstress evaluator (PSE), and the likeall can be useful tools and aids toevaluation, in the proper hands.All, however, are programmedand operated by human beings andcan be operated with more or lesssophistication and training. Noneof these can tell us unequivocallythat a report—or photograph—istrue or false simply by beingapplied. Both the application andinterpretation require considerableknowledge and care, and both needto be scrutinized closely by otherscientists or technicians to assurethat proper techniques have beenused and proper principles appliedin the interpretation. Withoutthis kind of cross-checking, ap-plication of these devices cannotbe termed "scientific."

The same applies to the increas-ing use of regressive hypnotictechniques with UFO witnesses.This is even more of an art than ascience, but unquestionably hastremendous potential—properlyapplied—to help witnesses recall

details that they otherwise wouldnot be able to do from consciousrecollection. However, it is naivein the extreme to conclude from thefact that a witness under hypnosistells a story of being abducted byspacemen that it really happened.In the course of my six years'employment by the AmericanPsychological Association, I hadoccasion to read numerous articlesabout hypnosis and hypnotic re-gression, and it is clear to me thatimproperly questioned witnessescan and do fabricate stories thatbear no relationship to reality.

Many people can perform hypno-sis, but relatively few have thebackground and training to inter-pret the results they get. In generalclinical psychologists who usehypnosis in the course of patienttherapy, and who are professionalswhose work is under constantcheck by their peers, are bestequipped to evaluate when thestories they get are "truth" ratherthan artifacts. In some appliedsettings, such as law enforcementwork, experienced hypnotists mayalso have the kind of practicalexperience with a large varietyof subjects that would allow themto be good judges of "truth."

The key in this, as in so manyother aspects of UFO research,is the critical examination andcross-checking of methods and ofprinciples of interpretation whichgo by the name of "science."Any result or finding, if it is valid,ought to be able to withstand

critical review, and without thisprocess it can hardly be called"truth."

I am convinced that, on thebasis of strong circumstantialevidence, all of these devices andmethods need to be applied to UFOcases by the best practitionersavailable, and that their resultsneed to be minutely examined by allinterested scientists and specialists.Then and only then might we beginto think of "ufology" as deservingof being called a science. In part-icular, I am convinced that we needthe help of the best clinical hypno-tists before we can begin to makeany sense at all out of the plethoraof "abduction" stories. Takingthese stories at face value is totallyunjustified. However, rejecting thestories out of hand, without examin-ation by the most knowledgablespecialists is equally unjustified.

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level, that there was a NASA cover-up and wants to escape any guilt. Icannot say I would react otherwise.But we are both to blame for a badfinal judgement of where to takethe Socorro metallic slivers. Hallcertainly did not twist my arm, andI definitely did not twist his. YetHall says, "For reasons of his own,Stanford chose (actually, I conced-ed to Hall's suggestion!) to havethe analysis done at Goddard..." Iam disappointed at Hall's failureto present both sides of thequestion.