UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Akhenaten]

how flat is that ?

That's a blimp!

 

[GeeMack]

how flat is that ?

That's a blimp!

See the H₁? That's hydrogen. It's not a military blimp or an advertising blimp. They would have been filled with helium and labeled HE₁.

 

[tsig]

Your assertion about 'thousands' of folk tales may be accurate- I am in no position to debate that.

I think though, that my assertion that ubiquitous belief of UFO/alien existence permeating the aeronautical threat assessment of professional pilots is valid.

Not only is it valid, but strong enough to cause them to report it.

I leave the military professionals to debate with you regarding your 'believe in nonsense' statement.

I think you're the one posting here not some nebulous "military professionals" so just making an assertion and then leaving it to "them" to debate it is absurd.

 

[Jocce]

I think that when you take the time to review the particulars in this incident, you will notice that 'smashed into something' was discounted by the automotive experts from Ford Motor Company, who were called in to examine the automobile in totality.

I do not understand why you believe you have the argumentative right to make such unsubstantiated claims as 'smashed into something' and not be called into account by other skeptics.

I would think that other skeptics would be concerned at your cavalier and seemingly cursory examination of the investigation.

I for one, am delighted.

I would be happy to review the particulars but that is darn hard when you don't deliver them. Could you please? Or am I supposed to just take for truth the few tidbits that are retold in that web article? Did you completely miss that that was the point I was trying to make? Sorry for being subtle then.

 

[Hindmost]

Mission accomplished, I found the aliens here.

So, this zombie thread should expire...

glenn

 

[fromdownunder]

Thank you for your posts on this thread Roger, and your support of UFOs. Especially ther Rogue River incident. Given the evidence pro/con for what it may have been, I was originally on the fence. I knew it was a UFO.

Now I am 90% convinced (NOT 100% THIS IS THE PART YOU HAVE EITHER MISUNDERSTOOD, OR GLAZED OVER) that it was more than likely a Blimp. The weight of evidence posted here has helped me to make a decision. There is no sufficient evidence for alien origin. So, Roger, one down (maybe) one to go. Thank you for your help. I am 90% convinced that Rogue River was a Blimp.

I will cross Rogue River off the "list". Next?

Norm

 

[Access Denied]

Look. This is ridiculous. Would you accept Phillip Klass as a source?

No, I asked you to show me the actual memorandum… you know, like from an official source, and in full.

And from Martin Shough:

“The principal source for this case is a memorandum-for-the-record prepared by Lt. Col. Olin R. Mooy, USAF, executive officer to the chief of the USAF section, Military Assistance & Advisory Group (MAAG), Tehran. The report contains information supplied by…”​

...McKenzie.

You’re still not getting it… it appears to be a circular reference of questionable provenance. The copy of the teletype that was "leaked" to UFOlgists in 1976 was redacted and didn’t reveal who actually wrote it. It wasn’t until the unredacted copy was released via the FOIA that we found out it was actually written by McKenzie, not Mooy as claimed. The portion of the teletype Maccabee shows in his article and attributes to Mooy is cutoff just before the line on the next page with McKenzie’s name and doesn’t show the earlier line showing that it was from the USDAO (United States Defense Attache' Office) in Tehran where McKenzie was assigned, not the MAAG. Also, as previously noted, the following sentence is missing confirming it was based solely on secondhand sources…

RO COMMENTS: [redacted] ACTUAL INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT WAS OBTAINED FROM SOURCE IN CONVERSATION WITH A SUB-SOURCE, AND IIAF PILOT OF ONE OF THE F-4S.

This has all been verified by McKenzie in his interview with Pratt. It would appear it was assumed (incorrectly, or as I suspect deliberately) by UFOligists that Mooy wrote the teletype (and therefore confirms the validity of the information within and attributed to him) because it was included (reportedly verbatim) in his memo. That’s why I want to see what this memo actually says… for all we know he merely attached McKenzie’s report to his memo like Evans did with his analysis.

What we ALSO know is that Col. Mooy sat in on the interviews with the pilot of the second jet because Jafari, the pilot of the second jet, tells us he did!

Until we see the actual memo that’s hearsay that’s contradicted by Pratt’s account.

I maintain that if it became necessary, we COULD verify the source. It is not as if none are given and not as if the writer is unavailable for comment.

I think it’s necessary if you want to promote Maccabee as a credible source here. Go ahead and ask him to reveal his sources “Bob” and “Henry” and let us know how that works out for you…

What do you mean “not according to Mooy”? Do you have a first hand document citing Mooy on this?

My point exactly.

 

[Rramjet]

Why "alien?

RoboTimbo asked:
"What part of "unidentified" do you not understand?"

TjW asked:
"If you don't know what it was, how can you place it outside the boundaries of the blah-blah?"

I had asked:
Originally Posted by Rramjet
Ah yes, good, but WHAT was this UNIDENTIFIED Flying Object doing?

…and Stray Cat replied:
"It was having a nice cup of tea with a pink unicorn?
Or playing scrabble with an Iranian farmer who has since been gagged by the military?
Or... we simply don't know what it was therefore anyfurther speculation is just simply speculation.

'It' was unidentified... what it was doing is not known.

Then you are taking a blind leap into the murky world of unsupported speculation.

So how are you going to take your speculation and build a hypothesis which you can then prove?

Let's see a working plan as to how you will take future events using your prediction of alien origin and back them up with repeatable tests and observations."

Then let us see what the UFO WAS doing.

I contend the Iranian UFO is no mere UFO it is an “alien” UFO.

How do we know this?

“Pirouzi gave the binoculars to the others present and “they saw the object as a half-circle, in the same colors, blue, range, red and yellow.” The object seemed to change it’s shape. While Pirouzi over several minutes watched the apparent shape seemed to change from cylindrical, with blue ends and a red light going around the middle, to a fan like shape with drooping blades (“starfish” shaped) with fuzzy edges. The “blades” were dark orange near the hub changing to yellow at the tips. “The hub itself was made up of two concentric areas of color. There seemed to be a large green surface and then a smaller core which glowed like a piece of red hot coal.” One of the trainee witnesses compared it to an orange-red horseshoe with a blue area in the enclosed space of the horseshoe.”

(…)

Youssefi ordered him to close again to get a better view. This time, according to the Air Force teletype message (see below) of Lt. Col. Mooy, when he got to a range of about 25 nautical miles (about 29 statute miles; 1 nm = 6077 feet), he “lost all instrumentation and communications (UHF radio and intercom).” [Note: the intercom allows communication between the pilot in the front seat and the radar operator in the back seat of the aircraft.]

(…)


The plane tried to pursue the object while flying south of Tehran. According to Pirouzi the pilot reported that he couldn’t easily follow the track of the object because it would change its position very fast, appearing at one location and then suddenly at another location,

(…)

The pilot put the “pedal to the metal” and reached a speed of about Mach 2 (1,500 mph or 25 miles per minute) and still couldn’t catch it. He was flying toward the Afghanistan border, about 500 miles east of Tehran. Youssefi ordered him to return to Tehran if he couldn’t catch it, so he turned and headed back eastward. The object also reversed direction and began to chase the plane. In a short section of an audio tape recording (I presume made at the Air Traffic Control Center at Mehrabad) that was published in a local newspaper (see below), Jafari reported “something is coming at me from behind. It is 15 miles away…now ten miles…now five miles…It is level now…I think it is going to crash into me…It has just passed me by..missing me narrowly..” According to the newspaper report, “The disturbed voice of the pilot was clear on the tape. He then asked to be guided back to base.”

(…)

As the second jet attempted to close on the object it suddenly emitted a smaller bright object, and this object headed toward the jet. According to the Air Force teletype message, “The object and the pursuing F-4 continued a course that was south of Tehran when another brightly lighted object estimated to be 1/2 to 1/3 the apparent size of the moon, came out of the original object.

This second object headed straight toward the F-4 at a very fast pace. The pilot attempted to fire an AIM-9 (heat seeking) missile at the object but at that instant his weapons control panel went off and he lost all communications (UHS and intercom). At this point the pilot initiated a turn and a negative G dive to get away. As he turned the object fell in trail at what appeared to be about 3-4 nm. As he continued in his turn away from the primary object the second object went to the inside of his turn and then returned to the primary object for a perfect rejoin.”

(…)

. At this time the pilot was approaching the airport and Pirouzi and the others at the control tower saw this happening. According to Pirouzi, “I saw this light for the first time, though only for a few seconds” after it first appeared. As the plane went “screaming” over the airport Pirouzi and the others saw a dark rectangular form almost “sitting” on top of the jet. It was at about this time that the communications were lost, cut off in mid-sentence. The plane then went into a diving turn and it wasn’t until the plane and object were over Saveh, about 15 miles south of the airport, that communications were re-established. Then the pilot reported to Pirouzi that the second object had broken off the chase and was traveling within a few meters of the first. Then he reported that they had rejoined, as described above.

According to the Air Force teletype message, “Shortly after the second object joined up with the primary object another object appeared to come out of the other side of the primary object going straight down, at a great rate of speed. The F-4 crew had regained communications and the weapons control panel and watched the object approach the ground anticipating a large explosion. This object appeared to come to rest gently on the earth and cast a very bright light over an area of about 2-3 kilometers.” According to a newspaper report pilot estimated the size of this smaller object to be about 4.5 m in diameter.”​

(http://www.brumac.8k.com/IranJetCase/)

So we have shape-shifting ability, the ability to disrupt F-4 communications and weapons systems, the ability to “jump” locations, to fly at speeds above Mach2, to flee and chase the F-4s, to split apart and rejoin, and to land part of itself…

Now all THAT together is totally outside the limits of ANY known natural or technological “object”.

And while the object itself is technically an “unknown”, the characteristics are certainly KNOWN. And they describe, I contend, something completely “alien” to the natural and technological environment. Thus it is an “alien” craft.

Moreover, it might not have been “occupied” (there is no evidence to say whether it was or not), but it certainly exhibited intelligent control!

 

[Patricio Elicer]

If I may point to the more broad concept here- if there is so much to disbelieve about UFO/alien intelligence, and attendant observations of same, as the skeptics claim, how is it that these pilots made the jump from oil rig flares to UFO's in the first place? They clearly had some belief that the existence of intelligent, powered, flight devices out of their realm of understanding were not just possible, but likely to be seen.

That is the salient point here- that the body of UFO evidence, the sheer volume of it worldwide, had convinced trained military aeronautical professionals to 'see' UFO's where oil well flares were burning.

Yes, the sheer volume of UFO "evidence" has led many people, perhaps most, to believe in the reality of aliens visiting Earth. Likewise, a sheer volume of "evidence" led millions of people in the past to believe in the reality of dragons, witches, fairies and elves. See the analogy, right?.

It's the human hunger for mystery that makes people vulnerable to fall for weird things, tons of weird unsubstained things nowadays, UFOs being one of them.

It's the media misinformation, the people's misperceptions, the lies, the hoaxes, etc surrounding the UFO world that make people believe in little green men visiting us, without a single piece of hard evidence.

The skeptics may discount specific cases, but the evidence continues to pile up faster than it can be dismissed by accurate and dispassionate study, forcing skeptics to begin to dismiss UFO evidence 'out of hand' with increasing regularity.

What evidence are you talking about?.... ahh, I know, yes stories continue to pile up. The same kind of stories that piled up on Sir Artur Conan-Doyle's time about faires and elves.

And you are wrong about skeptic dismissing UFO evidence, in fact some of the most comprehensive UFO investigations come from skeptics. In fact it was skeptics on this very same forum who first solved the Campeche case, or at least advanced the solution on the right direction.

We can present case after case which has already withstood rigourous examination at the time of occurrence, or shortly thereafter, and has defied debunking attempts.

Can you name the "best case" that has defied debunking attemps?

Cases of UFO evidence continue to pile up daily, as more and more people come forward with personal experiences. Governments of several nations, in part as a response to the growing understanding of this volume of evidence, declassified their records of state sponsored investigations.

An what has come out of the said declassifications?. The best case, please.

The Vatican sponsored a gathering of dozens of the worlds leading scientists in the nascent field of astrobiology, and presented to the world their belief that alien existence is possible.

Yes, alien existence is possible, nobody questions that possibility.

See where the wave is going? Paddle against it as you wish, but if you refuse to acknowledge the wave, and learn to surf, it may pick your beliefs up and smash you into the beach with pitiless force.

I refuse to acknowledge the nonsense UFO enthusiasts promote, that's it! And of course that I acknowledge the wave. But it doesn't speak in favor of the UFO reality as alien ships, but in favor of the reality of sociological and psycological human traits.

 

[Stray Cat]

Again... The dodgy testimony with no real conclusive provenance isn't really anything to point at when trying to convince anyone that this event happened as it has been distorted errr... reported to have happened.

All we have are some (at best) second hand accounts from people who didn't know what they were seeing (hence the classification UNIDENTIFIED).

If you wish to take that and speculate on it... that's fine for you, but if you wish to convince anyone here, you are going to need a lot more.

I think the "Having a cup of tea with a pink unicorn" is a much nicer speculation about what it was doing personally. But before you can project any intent/motive or action onto it, you first have to prove it was really what it was described as being and it was actually moving in the way it was described as moving.

If you could do that... only then could you start to posit a hypothesis of alien origin.

 

[Rramjet]

No, I asked you to show me the actual memorandum… you know, like from an official source, and in full.

We have absolutely NO reason to doubt that all the investigators in this case including Klass (who you must admit was NO UFOlogist) were either lying or unwittingly hoaxing us. After all, we DO have the routing slip sent by (and now you admit) McKenzie (who, yes was the defence attaché). And THIS was considered by the DIA (Evans) as confirmed, reliable, valuable information.

And we DO have first hand accounts. We have Jafari for example, the pilot of the second jet recounting the story AND telling us Mooy WAS in the interview with him. THAT is about as first hand as you can get! A point you seem to completely miss. Here for example: Parvis Jafri interview
(http://www.iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/parviz-jafari-2) and here: Jafari speaking at the National Press Club, Nov, 2007
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJydT3AZ370)

You quote the line in the “routing slip”

”ro comments: [redacted] actual information contained in this report was obtained from source in conversation with a sub-source, and iiaf pilot of one of the f-4s.”​

But you read a meaning into it that is simply NOT supported by the evidence. The actual meaning is not at all clear. What we DO know is that Mooy was in the interview with Jafari and that McKenzie must have talked to Mooy, who then gave McKenzie his written assessment for McKenzie to then pass on. Then Evans later wrote the DIA assessment of the case.

The following précis sums it up in detail:

”The principal source for this case is a memorandum-for-the-record prepared by Lt. Col. Olin R. Mooy, USAF, executive officer to the chief of the USAF section, Military Assistance & Advisory Group (MAAG), Tehran. The report contains information supplied by Iranian officials in addition to details obtained in a debriefing of one of the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) aircrews involved, which was attended by Mooy and Colonel J. R. Johnson, USAF, at the invitation of Iranian officials. The debriefing was also attended by, amongst others, Lt. Gen. Abdullah Azerbarzin, IIAF Director of Operations. The debriefing took place on September 19, the day of the incident. Mooy's report was distributed to several US agencies, and copies classified CONFIDENTIAL (some with minor edits in prefatory paragraphs) appear in the files of the State Department, CIA, USAF and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), the latter with an appended Defense Information Report Evaluation.’​

(http://www.narcap.org/reports/006/narcap_radcat_textwebsite_MShough_12-8-02.pdf)

Now you are contending that Mooy did NOT write the words in the “Routing Slip” but that McKenzie did? I think you are misinterpreting the section in that document where McKenzie’s name is supplied as the person who sent the document. THAT is not enough to show WHO wrote the words in the document. All it indicates is that the document CAME from McKenzie… and if Klass was satisfied with the provenance, you can be damn sure the provenance WAS good! If he was in ANY way unsatisfied with it…HE would have been the very FIRST to make a big fuss about it. He was committed to “debunking” UFO reports with whatever means were available to him and he stopped at nothing to make sure any case he investigated was as thoroughly discredited as he could make it. The line of attack you are taking is simply misguided. There are simply too many high profile people involved in this case, who have thoroughly researched the evidence and provenance for us to begin suspecting it now. Your is simply not a reasonable line of attack.

"Mooy's memorandum-for-the-record was not even classified (that is, stamped 'Top Secret') in the MAAG files. Later, when a copy was sent back to the U.S. and distributed to a number of agencies . . . [it] was classified "Confidential" - the lowest security level. There was no followup investigation of the incident by the USAF or MAAG personnel, according to Mooy. Nor were there any further MAAG dispatches on the subject from Tehran, although the incident was widely publicised in Iranian newspapers.”​

(Klass, P., "UFOs, The Public Deceived", Prometheus Books 1983, chapter 14. p.113)

Notice first Klass attributes Mooy, and second, the ONLY line of attack Klass could come up with was that the document was (seemingly) NOT classified at a high enough level for the purported information it contained! If that was the best he could do, then you can be damn sure that WAS the ONLY thing he had on it!

Besides, all this talk of yours about the “Routing Slip” is merely so you can make a spurious point about whether it represented a firsthand source or not. We don’t even have to go THAT far…as I have pointed out to you MANY times…we have the pilot of the second jet (Jafari) providing us a FIRSTHAND eyewitness account that directly supports the historical record.

 

[TjW]

See the H₁? That's hydrogen. It's not a military blimp or an advertising blimp. They would have been filled with helium and labeled HE₁.

It's the experimental German blimp Loudenboomer. Fueled by monotomic hydrogen, lifted by normal H2 hydrogen, and carrying small SUVs.

 

[Rramjet]

Yes, the sheer volume of UFO "evidence" has led many people, perhaps most, to believe in the reality of aliens visiting Earth. Likewise, a sheer volume of "evidence" led millions of people in the past to believe in the reality of dragons, witches, fairies and elves. See the analogy, right?

You seem to have an extraordinarily narrow and misguided belief in what people actually believed about the things you mention. You seem to have no concept of the history of mythology. You mistakenly confound mythology with religion, folklaw and legend. You also confound the types of people who “believe” in such things, and the historical context of the “belief systems” surrounding such things as you mention.

You lump it all together as if it formed a coherent whole…which it does not. The elements of each of the things you mention have widely disparate origins and histories and then to try and compare that with modern evidence based belief in UFOs is utterly misguided. Even the “belief” in UFOs has different origins and historical precedents. There is a radical difference for example between a “conactee” and an evidence based scientific belief. Yet you confound this type of distinction also.

The way you state things is akin to lumping Astrology into the same discipline as Astronomy - merely because the subject matter is the same. THAT is a BIG mistake and you need to become more sophisticated in your approach if ANY understanding of the subject matter at hand is to be forthcoming. The only way we EVER understand the true nature of the world is to rise above such simplistic assessments as yours and to apply a more sophisticated approach to the subject.

 

[Astrophotographer]

[

“Pirouzi gave the binoculars to the others present and “they saw the object as a half-circle, in the same colors, blue, range, red and yellow.” The object seemed to change it’s shape. While Pirouzi over several minutes watched the apparent shape seemed to change from cylindrical, with blue ends and a red light going around the middle, to a fan like shape with drooping blades (“starfish” shaped) with fuzzy edges. The “blades” were dark orange near the hub changing to yellow at the tips. “The hub itself was made up of two concentric areas of color. There seemed to be a large green surface and then a smaller core which glowed like a piece of red hot coal.” One of the trainee witnesses compared it to an orange-red horseshoe with a blue area in the enclosed space of the horseshoe.”​

Hmm....this sounds very familiar. These descriptions sound a lot like the reports of stars and planets by various witnesses in Hendry's UFO Handbook (Sphere edition):

In other reports, however, witnesses claime they could see a shape even though they described the apparent size of the star as normal. Included among these shapes are: discs and discs with domes ("like two plates put together - case 332; "elongated, big as a distant plane"- case 377; "dome on top and bottom" - for one and a half hours in case 332), domes, "a plate with a hole in the center," vertically oriented small triangles, ovals, a football...even "teacups", "Mexican sombreros," and "bannanas as large as the moon, shrinking back down to a star." Peoplae have seen "spikes," "beams," "appendages," and sparkles shooting out in all directions from bright stars. In case 602, a woman kept in touch with a sympathetic controller for hours at the local airport as she watched stars forming shapes like the letters "V" and "M." The controller could not see the shapes, but a pilot in the area confirmed that there were unusual atmospheric conditions. In two cases, one star was seen to split up into two (and three) close lights and rejoin again. (Hendry - The UFO Handbook page 28)

Oh, but they were using binoculars:

Binoculars, working in conjunction with the atmosphere, created shapes out of star in many of the reports. IFO case 26 was based on a star viewed for forty minutes yet through binoculars the light looked like a "dome" shape, changing red, green, blue, and yellow. In case 51, a star seen in Des Moinse was turned into a "cup and saucer" through binoculars. A star that was watched for three solid hours became a mushroom shape. Venus became a "domed disc" and other stars became "pentagons," "cones," "triangles," and so on.... (Hendry 196-7)

Oh, but they were trained air traffic controllers:

Even FAA controllers are from from perfect. One was startled in case 838 by scintillating stars which he guessed at 12-20,000 feet. I was once told by a member of the FAA control at the Detroit metropolitan airport, "Do you know how many times we have cleared Venus to land?" (Hendry 102)

Just to let everyone know that the bright star Capella was low in the Northeast when this all began. Which remains of another case:

And another sighting - in Northern Michigan - on July 29 of last year, a pilot chased a brilliant multicolored object close to the horizon, and due north. He flew at 21,000 feet, followed the object for over a half-hour but could not gain on it. Radar operator [in the aircraft] reported contact with the object for about thirty seconds. And ground control interceptor station reported blips too [on its radar]. In this case, it seems certain that our harried pilot was pursuing [the star] Capella! Capella was at lower culmination, that is, at the lowest point of its swing around the pole just skirting the horizon. I have seen it at that position myself in Canada, and can vouch for the fact that its blue, yellow, and red twinkling can be spectacular. (Klass UFOs: The public decieved p. 78).

BTW, this was not Klass, it was Hynek writing for the Journal of the Optical Society of America in April of 1953.

As an additional note the bright planet Jupiter was also visible in the ENE.

Were some of the observations made of stars? It certainly sounds like it. Does it mean the entire case can be explained by stars? No, but one has to consider the idea that they may have played a role in starting the events.

I doubt RRamjet will even listen and proclaim all sorts of things that prove me wrong. However, I am just trying to point out possibilities to consider. More objective readers might pay attention to this information.​

 

[Rramjet]

Again... The dodgy testimony with no real conclusive provenance isn't really anything to point at when trying to convince anyone that this event happened as it has been distorted errr... reported to have happened.

Dodgy testimony? Just because you say it is does not make it so. What evidence have you that would refute the facts in the case as described by the eyewitnesses? Of course ...let me guess… you HAVE no evidence to support your assertions – because there IS none! You are merely making unfounded assertions that are NOT supported by the evidence.

All we have are some (at best) second hand accounts from people who didn't know what they were seeing (hence the classification UNIDENTIFIED).

No, we have first hand accounts (eg; Jafari speaking at the National Press Club, Nov, 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJydT3AZ370).

If you wish to take that and speculate on it... that's fine for you, but if you wish to convince anyone here, you are going to need a lot more.

I have the evidence. See for example the following post:

(…)

You have in support of your own claims … let me guess …precisely zip!

I think the "Having a cup of tea with a pink unicorn" is a much nicer speculation about what it was doing personally. But before you can project any intent/motive or action onto it, you first have to prove it was really what it was described as being and it was actually moving in the way it was described as moving.

If you want to hypothesise Unicorns and cups of tea then that is a legitimate thing to do. However, unless you can support your hypothesis with EVIDENCE we are entitled to dismiss it.

I have provided the evidence pertaining to the case. If you want to merely stick your head in the sand and ignore that evidence then be my guest, but such an approach convinces no-one.

 

[Patricio Elicer]

You seem to have an extraordinarily narrow and misguided belief in what people actually believed about the things you mention. You seem to have no concept of the history of mythology. You mistakenly confound mythology with religion, folklaw and legend. You also confound the types of people who “believe” in such things, and the historical context of the “belief systems” surrounding such things as you mention.

Yes, and Ufology is a modern mythology.

You lump it all together as if it formed a coherent whole…which it does not. The elements of each of the things you mention have widely disparate origins and histories and then to try and compare that with modern evidence based belief in UFOs is utterly misguided. Even the “belief” in UFOs has different origins and historical precedents. There is a radical difference for example between a “conactee” and an evidence based scientific belief. Yet you confound this type of distinction also.

Sure, they have different origins, different historical context. But one important aspect in common: all of them are unsubstained beliefs.

The way you state things is akin to lumping Astrology into the same discipline as Astronomy - merely because the subject matter is the same. THAT is a BIG mistake and you need to become more sophisticated in your approach if ANY understanding of the subject matter at hand is to be forthcoming. The only way we EVER understand the true nature of the world is to rise above such simplistic assessments as yours and to apply a more sophisticated approach to the subject.

But not as simplistic as your assessement of the alien nature of UFOs based on anecdotes and stories.

Why would anecdotes and stories about UFOs today be more firmly based than anecdotes and stories about fairies and elves on Conan-Doyle's time?

 

[Access Denied]

I think you are misinterpreting the section in that document where McKenzie’s name is supplied as the person who sent the document. THAT is not enough to show WHO wrote the words in the document. All it indicates is that the document CAME from McKenzie… and if Klass was satisfied with the provenance, you can be damn sure the provenance WAS good!

So basically yet another long drawn out post designed to tap dance around the fact that you really don’t have any documented evidence from an official source that Mooy interviewed the pilots and wrote the teletype despite McKenzie having gone on the record stating he was indeed the one the wrote it based on secondhand information from various sources including (mostly) the newspapers and not the pilots firsthand… okey dokey.

Why am I not surprised?

 

[SnidelyW]

I would be happy to review the particulars but that is darn hard when you don't deliver them. Could you please? Or am I supposed to just take for truth the few tidbits that are retold in that web article? Did you completely miss that that was the point I was trying to make? Sorry for being subtle then.

I'll be glad to post links to the relevant material and allow you to familiarize yourself with the facts, and when you feel you are suitably informed to debate the incident, we can restart.

For persons just joining, I am referring to a UFO/alien contact incident of August 1979, in Marshall County, Minnesota, whereupon

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Val_Johnson_Incident_1.jpg

This provides a relatively thorough synopsis of the event, I believe;

http://ufologie.net/htm/marshallcounty79.htm

 

[Rramjet]

So basically yet another long drawn out post designed to tap dance around the fact that you really don’t have any documented evidence from an official source that Mooy interviewed the pilots and wrote the teletype despite McKenzie having gone on the record stating he was indeed the one the wrote it based on secondhand information from various sources including (mostly) the newspapers and not the pilots firsthand… okey dokey.

Why am I not surprised?

We DO have the pilot's first hand account telling us that Col. Mooy was in the interview with him. Here: Jafari speaking at the National Press Club, Nov, 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJydT3AZ370)

That is about as firsthand as it gets. "okey dokey"?

I ALSO think that you implying that Klass was either incompetent or a liar (in attributing Mooy as the source) is a hoot in this context. Perhaps your fellow JREF members might have a thing or two to say to you on that score! (you do realise that (in my opinion it seems) Klass is a practically a god to these people).

 

[RoboTimbo]

To be fair, Robo, I am not a UFO researcher, and others here are far more qualified to submit best cases. I am not dodging the question in the least, but I will review and reply asap

Rramjet is having it handed to him so you may want to take over for a while. Let me know when you find a best case.