Your “trick” here of setting up negative association in the reader’s mind by utilising a “strawman” argument shows, in my opinion, the baseness to which members of the JREF are willing to sink to discredit anything or anybody associated with the topic of UFOs. Your “stupid hicks” comment is one that has sprung purely from associations within your own mind. Perhaps aided by Stray Cat, who first introduced this type of slur on the Trent’s status with his comment. You did not question his use of such a term at the time (and now we know why). Yet when I referred readers of this thread to the analysis of Dr Maccabee here (
http://brumac.8k.com/trent2.html) and stated , you immediately set up the strawman to the effect that I had somehow claimed a derogatory term in relation to the Trents (Is this enough to demonstrate hypocrisy on your part? In my opinion it is). I was actually referring to the
results contained within Dr Maccabee’s analysis (which clearly you had not read): That is:
In many conversations (by phone) with Mrs. Trent I asked her questions which, I believe, she had never been asked before, at least not in relation to the UO photos. Some of these questions had to do with the daily activities of the Trents. Her answers were quite consistent during the three year period of our conversations. According to Mrs. Trent, she was "out feeding the rabbits in the yard alongside the garage" (9) just before she saw the object. (She said the same thing to Hartmann.) I therefore asked her, in several different conversations and in different contexts, when she fed the rabbits. She replied that she fed them in the morning before going to work (i.e. , before 8:00 AM) and in the evening. I also asked her what their usual morning and evening activities were "back in those days." She recalled that she and her husband would arise about 4:30 AM and take care of the animals in the barn (cleaning, milking, etc.). After finishing these chores and eating breakfast Mr. Trent would drive a truck from farm to farm collecting milk for transport to a local dairy. His "milk run" began between 5:30 and 6:30 AM, and he usually did not finish until after 10:00 AM, depending upon the number of farms he had to visit. Mrs. Trent pointed out that this milk run took place daily except under unusual circumstances (sickness, very cold weather). In the afternoon Mr. Trent worked at the Alderman berry farm . He would have been home in the evening after about 6:00 PM. (10,16,17,18)
Besides the farm chores, Mrs. Trent had to take care of her children (whom she left with her mother-in-law who lived several hundred feet west of them) before going to work at about 8:30 AM with a friend. She worked at a chicken cannery until late in the afternoon. Thus the daily schedule of the Trents strongly suggests that they would not have had time for perpetrating a photographic hoax in the morning. Moreover, their schedule indicates that Mr. Trent would not even have been home in the time frame suggested by Sheaffer.
Consider the following question: if it was a hoax, why did they do it at a very inconvenient time during the morning of a weekday when they had many other things to do in the morning? If it was a hoax they could have made the photos at any convenient time such as, for example, the evening.
Clearly the Paul and Evelyn were very busy people in those years. They had plenty to do besides thinking of ways to create a photographic hoax to "prove" the Mrs. Trent had actually seen "flying saucers" three times before, as suggested by Klass(2). (Note: her previous sightings might have been misidentifications, as are the bulk of UFO reports. She also said she had seen some UFOs in the years following the photos but they were much farther away. Of course, if the original sighting had been a hoax, a very successful one at that, they might have easily taken more photos in later years, but they didn't.) If the Trents had publicized their photos widely and had tried to capitalize on their success one might be tempted to think that they had created a hoax for monetary gain. However, as pointed out by Hartmann, there is no indication that the Trents ever received any money for their photos, nor is there any indication that ever even tried to capitalize on their photographs.”
(
http://brumac.8k.com/trent2.html)
The point is that given the honesty of character and lifestyle of the Trents, as derived from interviews and other information supplied by people who knew them well - or interviewed them (including Hartmann!), there is no evidence that the Trents would be likely to hoax anything, UFO sighting or otherwise. Of course supposedly "honest" people have been known to do foolish things, but that would definitely seem to be "out of character" for the Trents.
In my opinion, your own and other JREF member's resort to such "slurs" on the characters of (most likely) innocent people (including people who post opinions in opposition to your beliefs) actually reflects badly on the JREF and its members, and particularly on Randi, for implicitly countenancing such behaviour by not applying the requirement for "civility" as outlined in the JREF Forum rules.
