Review -- Frank Feschino On Paratopia!

Re: http://paratopiary.blogspot.com/


Just finished up the latest entirely free Paratopia, and I have to say this.

Bravo! Hosts Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni allowed —if still flawed— the most revealing telling of the entire Flatwoods affair yet! They did this respectfully revisiting the conventional wisdoms of the klasskurtxian and skeptibunky camps, and some of the more unusual ones at that! Who is allowed to drive oil spewing 1940's era pick-up trucks and where they are allowed to drive them, springs to mind. Answer: no one and not anywhere.

No, Feschino was able to rationally address every concern. "Rationally address," from fact, reader, not rationalize.

I don't think it is a stretch to report that the Paratopian Pair were impressed, even gobsmacked by the accounting.

Flawed? Yes. Interviewers are reluctant to face the provenance of the Monster and seem equally reluctant to inquire about it at all. True, Ritzmann, and Vaeni too, tried to pin Feschino down on Feschino's accounting as pointing to a hypothesis that is extraterrestrial in origin... or the currently abhorred, besmirched, and dreaded "extraterrestrial hypothesis": beings of an indeterminate biology, in other words, interacting with humanity in some manner outlining a way that might mimic our behavior, reader, if we, swapping shoes with the alien, were the extraterrestrials. Frank got it, folks. We've talked about it, frequently. The ETH is unfairly toxic territory these days, a decided magnet for premature derision and too hasty opprobrium. I point out that Paratopia did not engage in this.

Certainly, Frank Feschino, reporting the story he's pieced together over enormous hurdles for almost 20 years, is reluctant to go there for reasons obvious especially to the self-proclaimed critically thinking. In the first place he refuses to speculate on a provenance of something he doesn't know, in a manner which is unsupportable, regarding whether the "Monster" is crypto-zoological, trans-temporal, extra-dimensional, or para-psychological. How should he pretend to know that? He doesn't.

Feschino would prefer to stick with that which IS supportable! What is supportable is that the Flatwoods affair, again, is at the end of an enormous flap as it pertains to UFOs, reader, UFOs enjoying the consequences of the whole of a Military Aviation Arm of the United States operating in fact on standing orders to shoot them down!

These are the objects, reader —attributed to one six second Washington meteor— documented in 21 hours of continuous UFO sightings, mind you, as flying erratically, being on fire, dropping molten detritus, and making funny sounds... alien aircraft attacked and damaged?

Well, reader... Feschino will make no apology that this whole affair, even if it seems to be that obnoxious "extraterrestrial hypothesis...," is right in the reader's face... up close and personal! Though, why Feschino's reluctance?

He doesn't know what or who the Flatwoods monster is reader, in the first place, as pointed out above! Too, considering how ridiculously and inappropriately non-trendy the ETH is these days —this writer suspects— Feschino is loath to give a person any reason NOT to look at the massive data he has collected about, and get this, a secret Air and Sea War —against something decidedly odd— in which so many pilots, other persons, and aircraft were lost. Shoot Them Down is a fact, reader.

Closing, Ritzmann and Vaeni agreed the Flatwoods affair is ridiculous, their words. I caution the misquoting reporter; however, that they also made every indication that this ridiculousness actually credited the Flatwoods case. It did not remotely discredit it. See, we all agree that this UFO thing IS ridiculous as a portion of its part and parcel. It is ridiculous to the "conventional wisdom," reader, but I think we all might further agree that this says more about "conventional wisdom" than it does about Feschino's Flatwoods accounting of the Flatwoods affair.

Again... Well done Paratopia!

Read on.
 
 
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Flatwoods, Sandbagged By MonsterQuest

Folks, regarding the recent History Channel MonsterQuest episode of March 10th featuring Fred May, Frank Feschino, Stanton Friedman, and other witnesses from the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia: I was the bearded fellow, the only one, I think, associated with the Flatwoods segment exclusively. I wore the UFO Magazine hat. I was working with the Helium Balloon and assisting Feschino vis a vis the sighting at the hunter's camp in deep forest beside the spring fed stream. My one spoken line, used apart from where I actually said it was, "Frank, there's a hot spot up there...," or some such... all that said:

Folks? You can quote me!

I have no idea what that program was about! Why, apart from Joe Nickell who was decidedly true to form, I didn't even recognize who was involved in it!

This is _real_ irony, reader, given I was at Flatwoods for a week during the shooting —and I do mean shooting— of the MQ program. Moreover, I have an appropriate intimacy with all the principals shown on the Flatwoods segment and have better than a layman's understanding of just what occurred in and around Flatwoods that Indian summer night in 1952.

Ladies and Gentleman, let me digress to say that, entirely apart from what the Reader saw on a "flawed" MonsterQuest, THIS is what occurred on that one night in Flatwoods in Flatwoods: http://paratopiary.blogspot.com/

I remind the HONEST reader that this referenced map data is supported by Project Bluebook, named Newspaper reportage, and first person witnesses in that order of numeracy.

The History Channel, one finds, had the time, opportunity, and all the requisite data to produce a stunning program about the infamous Flatwoods affair. What the History channel did instead, reader, was to contrive to manufacture a senseless "mash-up" of two entirely unrelated cases from what could be most easily be "faux-discredited" in either of them. Suggesting this bogus relationship, one not even remotely tenuous, is the program's kiss of less-than-mediocre death.

Sincerely, none but those entirely honest with themselves dare call this very poor, contrived, and inauspicious telling of the Flatwoods story a blithering incompetence, a fatuous cluelessness, or a distorted propaganda! More irony is revealed given Feschino, Friedman, and I had to sign sworn statements indicating our contribution to the program was true as we knew it to be true. The History Channel reportage of same, paradoxically, was not.

See? Flatwoods was the tail end of the biggest UFO Flap in US History: The 1952 "Summer Of Saucers" chronicled by Frank Feschino, Wendy Connors, various other authors, and an un-sifted Project Bluebook. Reader! It was _not_ about "Lizard Monsters" allegedly lurking the woods for 60 plus years, and to this day. This is the distortion prosecuted by the History Channel.

And this! The intrepid MonsterQuest documentarians wrongly called the more honest Stanton Friedman a "doctor" and made the dissembling (to be kind) Dr. (degree immaterial) Nickell look "reasonable" in contrived comparison! Glowing eyes? Not before or since. Ground miasma? Not before or since! Mass hysteria? Not before or since! Noxious weeds? Not before or since! Roc sized barn owls? Not before or since! How could they have got things so canted and wrong!

I'm sick at heart and really ticked off... Feschino, who deserves better than this, was fit to be tied. See, he's telling the culture changing real story. Nickell and company shill for the guys insulting the reader's intelligence and obscuring real history. Case in point "Mass Hysteria" as touted by Dr. Nickell... is a clueless dodge.

Why? The witnesses at Flatwoods, a gang of playing children and a couple of young adults, presupposed a meteor, predominantly, on the Fisher farm in the hills above the school that evening. They'd heard about them recently in school. Nickell _dissembled_ when he reported they expected "monsters"... They did not run up a hill armed with only with a flashlight to look for "monsters," Reader! That only happens in the movies and Joe Nickell's facile imagination! They went up the hill to pick up pieces of a meteorite!

No, the Flatwoods story was not remotely told. The historical facts regarding the "Flatwoods Monster" incident are distorted, once again, by a soap-selling TV show.

Tune in to the actual story, cited above, to tune _up_, sincerely. See, it's not a story about a giant lizard in a "hover round" "attacking" a group of Flatwoods residents with a harmful gas. The gas, remember, was actually an exhaust emitted from pipes surrounding the lower torso of the body. The lower torso was part of the propulsion system of this giant "metallic" structure propelling it and causing it to hover. Moreover, apart from the gas, the "Flatwoods Monster" never made any aggressive or threatening maneuvers towards the witnesses during the encounter!

More crass inaccuracies?

The nearly 60-years of "sightings" reported by the MQ show were not all "monster" sightings, as the over-edited Feschino and Friedman footage seemed to intimate, but were UFO sightings! This is what the two researchers reported on. _UFOs_, reader! Not _monsters_!

The "Flatwoods Monster" incident, the Snitowsky "Frametown Monster" incident and the Frametown Hunter incident are the documented entity sightings, reader. These, and other "monster" sightings... never occurred again! It's UFO sightings that are ongoing! This was the actual report and testimony of Friedman and Feschino!

Other "real" entities documented on record in the Flatwoods area are as follows:

Dec. 30, 1960. Hickory Flats, WV, Located in Webster County and just across the southern Braxton County border - Witness Charles Slover, 35 years-old, was driving a delivery truck and sighted a 6-foot tall hairy biped, man-like creature near the road. This was _unreported_ by the History Channel.

Dec. 7, 2005. Braxton County, 7-8 miles from Flatwoods. A wildlife trap camera took a photograph of an unknown entity that has been called the "Braxton Beast." This was _unreported_ by the History Channel. Meager and unrepeated stuff!

UFO sightings _abound_, reader, on the other hand... not "monster" sightings! A UFO sighting that occurred in Holly, Braxton County on Nov. 8, 1957 was documented by Jacques Vallee in his book "Passport To Magonia."

Holly is located near Flatwoods. In Case #437, Vallee reports that Hank Mollohan and eight other local witnesses saw an elongated object that was 12-metres long.

More UFOs! Frametown Area, 1990: A Frametown couple saw several UFOs over the area of the Middle Ridge area southeast of Frametown. When one of the witnesses walked outside of the house to get a closer look, one of the UFOs flew into the back-yard and shot a bright beam of light down towards the witness. This Frametown incident was documented and broadcast in 1990 by a national TV show of the time, Current Affair With Maury Povich.

In 1991, Feschino documented crop circle rings in Frametown, WV., which were recorded by Colin Andrews. Throughout the early 1990s, Feschino also photographed and videotaped UFOs in the same area of Middle Ridge southeast of James Knob.

OTHER MONSTERQUEST DEGLECTED POINTS

The Sept. 12, 1952 "Master Map" of UFO locations was not shown. The flight-path trajectory of the "Flatwoods Monster" UFO was not shown or mentioned. This was the Washington DC. to Flatwoods, WV UFO flight-path. Check the included link for same.

The Colonel Leavitt Interview was not shown or mentioned, nor was there any mention of the sizable West Virginia National Guard involvement in and around Flatwoods.

There was no reference that the USAF had heavily documented the Flatwoods incident.

The First person witness-journalist John Barker interview was not mentioned.

Well respected reporter and first person responder A. Lee Stewart, Jr., who broke the national story, was not mentioned. The drawings of the metal piece that he found on the farm were not shown.

There was no mention or reference that there were strange metal and black plastic-like pieces found on the Fisher Farm by the locals, shortly after the incident.

The five known drawings made by five of the boy witnesses who saw the "Flatwoods Monster" were not shown." Despite being separated by Stewart the drawings are astonishingly similar!

The "Flatwoods Monster" color illustrations painted by Feschino from eyewitness descriptions were not shown.

The 1996 Fred May pencil drawing of the "Monster" was not shown. It depicted the figure as "mechanical." This was a point errantly avoided by MonsterQuest!

The Flatwoods reenactment segment did not show the actual "mechanical" figure as described by Mrs. May and Fred May. The incorrect 1952 "We The People" mock-up, which depicted the arms and claws was shown instead... and then senselessly compared to the "Frametown Monster."

Finally, the Star child skull and the entities in Flatwoods/Frametown were errantly compared. These cases have no relationship to each other, what so ever, all respect to Lloyd Pye! I'm sure he would agree.

I'd hoped for the best regarding the History Channel. What happened?

"Hollywood" happened, reader... corporate manipulations apart from, and not interested in, telling the real story... These contrive a mash-up between two unrelated cases and, "highlighting" what was "explainable," work to "faux-discredit" both... actually. We were sand-bagged, imo.

The only good thing... the Flatwoods story was broached, at all, in a no-nonsense manner by Frank Feschino, Freddy May, John Barker, and Stanton Friedman! People are eventually going to wonder where the "lizard monster" (sheesh!) came from and how it came to be in Flatwoods at all. That story? Again, right here: http://paratopiary.blogspot.com/

I personally apologize to the people of Braxton County, Frametown, and the town of Flatwoods specifically, that the story was not portrayed as it was related to the production company. We regret their time was wasted. It's not Frank Feschino's fault that the creative control was well out of his capable hands... as it will be on _all_ these programs. You pays yer money and takes yer chances. We all got burned. All the credible stuff went to the cutting room floor.

Rest assured, though, MonsterQuest at least showed enough to get interest kindled in _other_ quarters. There's a lot of life left to tell the story, still! You can bet Frank Feschino will be banging the Flatwoods drum, verily!

I remain firmly in his corner! There are many rounds left in this fight. Frank is strong and as focused as he ever was!

Closing, Flatwoods and Frametown residents write to tell me that the James Knob site east of Frametown is still ufologically active. Right _now_ reader.

Well, I suspect that if ET had swooped in and landed on the pasture that night while Friedman, Feschino, and myself were all up there on James Knob - and the Monster Quest people had shot miles of film of it? THAT footage would have languished on the cutting room floor with all the other pertinent material, too.

Tha MonsterQuest program regarding Flatwoods was a dissembling hypocrisy... and a shame!

One last point, in the dodgy MonsterQuest "cooked" portrayal, Fred May, Stanton Friedman, and Frank Feschino seem to indicate that Big Lizards in "hover-rounds," plus other monsters, still lurk dangerously in the West Virginia mountains around Flatwoods. No reader. They are not. Nothing these men actually reported to the film crew made that indication.

Sincerely, be disabused of the notion that dangerous monsters haunt your hills and forests! Fred, Frank, and Stan made _no_ such intimation. I was _there_. I _know_.

Follow the Mystic Orb on UFO Mystic . . .

I am so jazzed and honored to announce that I'm now blogging at UFO Mystic, along with two other newer bloggers over there -- Lesley Gunter and Scott Corrales -- and of course, Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern and Craig Woolheater.

My first post over there is on those strange beams of light being reported: Beams of Light.

Frank Feschino's Flatwoods Monster

Check Your TV Listings for the MonsterQuest Program On The History Channel March 10, 2010 at 9:00 PM EST (21:00 Hrs)! At Long, Long Last Frank Feschino's Flatwoods Monster Story Is Told And A Whole Town of Good People Are Vindicated!

Gray Is The Word...

• Kevin Randle discovers proof of ubiquitous and rampant Major Flaws likely in "Official Records"!

A revisit of one victim of "The Official Record" is begged...
Gray Is The Word...
UFO Magazine, September 2007 
by Alfred Lehmberg


Major Jesse Marcel, principal made patsy at Roswell, is a clueless doof and blustering confabulator based on an "exhaustive" review of the "official record" according to one Robert Todd? Crap-cakes.

I'll have the whole story, thank you. A single spurious swag concerning tortured interpretational stretches of alleged facts, reader, is not remotely enough to sway this writer. Especially true, friends and neighbors, when what Mr. Todd cow-floppingly propounded about Jesse Marcel is an "ostensible" officiality only. That's right, ostensible, only. That's not enough to secure my agreement, enlist my support, or command my respect. Eyes askance. Arms akimbo.

To wit: Robert Todd's presumptive, ungracious, and line-crossing attack on Jesse Marcel is without validity, lacks sentience, and is finally a non-progressive journalistic profanity. In other words? Robert Todd's man of straw, additionally, had feet of clay.

Though, it remains Mr. Todd may presume the unquestioned veracity of 'official' records — even as these records have a strong potential for being flawed on many levels. I may discount the veracity of records which have that same strong potential for being flawed on many levels ... The reader sees how this works. Gravy for goose and gander should have a certain similarity or consistency beyond mere taste. Todd's overreaching and self-aggrandizement, therefore, shall not escape me.

Blithely, reader, and with a degree of uncalled for rancor... as if capering gleefully like a demented imp before that acrid-smelling bonfire made of a hero's memory... Todd propounded additional assumptions I would be cautious of at the least, and am, in fact, scandalized by!

See, Todd assumed a flawless integrity of "official government records," mind you, from that self-same government clearly riddled with a lack of critical oversight extant, anyway, and wasting millions of dollars every second to kickback, scandal, or gross inefficiency. That's before, during, and now, reader. I suspect all that's really beyond debate at this point. The Military recently lost track of ... trillions, was it? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, always.

Moreover! Todd assumed a lack of integrity, an abundance of gullibility, and the questionable mental health of anyone who suspects UFO's might be piloted by an *outside* intelligence, at all! He assumed interpretations of fact in a cold harsh light of a "black" or "white"... indeed casting more shadows than he is willing to admit, for, drowning in errant presumption, he allowed not the tinniest shade of ubiquitous gray to feature his misrepresentations. Let's explore that a little bit. Why?

Plainly, Todd's presumption is not remotely realistic then or now, follow? See? One has to allow gray, reader. It's required, essential, and logical. Everything is "gray," reader, Color, indeed, is just a more fully featured *gray* on infinity's color wheel.

Watch! Pure "black" and "white" is a myth, a fantasy — fulsome shadows on the walls of Plato's cave! The extreme outside rims of Bell curves. Personified, shape-shifting monsters themselves in actuality! They are Concepts and Ideologies not existing in a real world except as ideas!

Watch! There are different KINDS of even black and white in the real world, 180 degrees out from one another! Consider the "blacks" of a computer monitor against the "black" of a traditionally printed page. Consider the "whites" of same? ...Kind'a twists your head off, doesn't it! ...To get to the same place doing opposing things... curious at the very least!

Unmistakably! An informed and sensible or imaginatively flexible person acknowledges and appreciates "gray," reader! She has a gray *basket* that is expansive and open minded... friend. He is organized and objective whereas she is constructive and comprehensive, folks! Alternatively they are flexible, acceptable, and specific, fellows, and together are we not made more thoughtful with regard to an infinity of varied grays tinged only by every combination of an ultra/infra!

Gray, not grease, is the word.

Mr. Todd, as it turned out, will endure as none of the preceding! Indeed, he will be remembered, I suspect at best, as a kind of ufological Ptolemy, insisting on an Earth at an errant system's center! At worst?

He was a minor priest of a dark discipline and given to turgid and reactionary reductionisms — thoughtless supports of corrupted cultures. He was a facilitator of the passion destroying "information void..." ...like co-facilitator Kal K. Korff, a booster of the deceased Mr. Todd, without the remotest qualification, I add, but I digress, distastefully.

Coming up, then, is an example of the way our Mr. Todd worked. Revealed, reader, is the *wonder* that was Robert Todd's singular investigative acumen:

Let's say I unblinkingly report to you that I had "...more than 40 Air Medals," earned as an Army helicopter pilot flying combat missions in Vietnam circa 1970.

These "Air Medals" were awarded for aerial combat operations, ostensibly — though rules changing slightly (in interpretation) between units..., again, for all the procedures clearly outlined in awards and decorations regulations for the time... and from which our Mr. Todd's purloined a copy — considering it bosomed in non-errant stone! Anyway, these regulations established, generally, that for every 5 hours of combat flying, or every 25 hours of flying in direct combat support (my recollection now) an air-medal was "awarded."

My very sloppily kept official records of the time were maintained by the admin section of the 135th Assault Helicopter Company (EMU). This was a half Australian, half American aviation hybrid, an experimental unit engaged in daily combat directed operations since its inception. My very hastily maintained "official" records of this international aviation mash-up indicated that only one Air Medal was ever awarded!  One!

Remember please that my documented hours flown in a combat zone are recorded to be 1086, and by definition the hours flown in a combat unit in a combat zone are "combat" hours or hours flown in "direct combat support." See how that works? ...Pretty cut and dried.

Flying ONLY in direct combat support would net 43 air medals, follow? I flew in combat, too, reader... I had more air-medals than 43... My *Official Records*; however, indicate only the one.

Ah-ha, Mr. Todd triumphantly concludes! His impish capering begins! Alfred Lehmberg, it is reported, is a craven liar, a person not to be trusted, a person without credibility, and a person beneath the concern, consideration, and contempt of all who behold him or remotely consider his explications and expressions! Whew!

CSICOPian darling... klasskurtxian commando, and Crap-shooting bastard!  No respect for dead sons of bitches here. It's the evil lives on and on; the good is interred with bones, remember. Todd erred in judgment, spirit, and injuriousness. There should be consequences and the preceding is such.

Back to Todd, his unjustified and narrowly conceived character assassination begins in earnest, then, and is unrelenting for the remainder of his days. Forget that I EARNED over 40 air-medals by the freaking book! No, Todd's myopic and self-serving narrowness... his "square peg" forced into a "round hole"... his insistence on an inerrant "Black" and "White"... has inflated facts facile to begin with and scourged another otherwise spotless reputation! Why? For an unjustified feather in a simplistic klasskurtxian cap? He misrepresented the facts, such as they were, and spun them to discredit UFOs in the aggregate with his hatchet job on Marcel as a... confabulating boob.

But to the contrary! Major Jesse Marcel was a man handpicked from hundreds of qualified individuals for his courage, intelligence, and unblemished record; he was chosen to do a job of critical importance in the interests of the HIGHEST levels of a National Security, perhaps even justifiable at the time! Forget all that!

Robert Todd would! Robert Todd did!

Revealed, exactly what Robert Todd did to Jesse Marcel, reader, and a pelican-pumping "peanut-gallery" celebrates him for it, still! Todd thoroughly ignores the fact that Marcel's integrity, character, and reliability must have been appreciated quite highly at the TIME of his erstwhile paranormal involvement... as the top kick intelligence officer for the worlds ONLY aviation group capable of delivering the atomic bomb! That's right. Reader, do you think a cluelessly inexperienced doofus had the tiller on that very high-profile / high-visibility job? We're otherwise so fond of evoking a too often bowdlerized Occam, eh? Let's do it here!

As to criticizing *bravely* when Mr. Todd can't defend himself; that's so much klasskurtxian crap — shat sloppily slung at par! Let's count among the conflicted amongst you, shall we, who would criticize me for criticizing him. Step up!

There's no lack of defense, is there, against my presumed errant disparagement of the right honorable Mr. Todd's legacy such as it is? That *defense* would be, I submit, Todd's aforementioned evil living on and on, remember. No apologies here.

By the way... that son of Jesse Marcel alluded to earlier? ...Active Army Bird Colonel, Aviator, Medical Doctor, and a military flight surgeon, just returned from combat operations in Iraq! He held a bit of starship in his hands, too, perhaps. He's written a book in that regard, in consideration of his "hero" father, and in consideration of the truth; a truth though heavens fall!

Perhaps some of the damage can then be repaired. Perhaps destiny is to make a true hero of Jesse Marcel, once again. Perhaps some good lives on after all.

Restore John Ford... and Jesse Marcel! Read on!

Lehmberg: "Mal-Inculations"

Mal-Inculcations by Alfred Lehmberg.

My New Blog: Alien Art Genre

Started a new blog: Alien Art Genre. Drawings, paintings, etc. of aliens, entities, UFOs, and other strange things experienced by artistic witnesses.

Clebrune, Texas UFO (and MUFON Is ...?)

News of a UFO seen in Texas over Christmas; Kithra at the Krystal Kave blog has a personal connection to the sighting: UFO Over Clebrune, Texas on Christmas Night.

Related to this news is what I heard the MUFON representatives Mark Easter and Chuck Reever, on Coast to Coast say last night about UFO sightings in Texas. Host George Knapp asked about any updates on the Stephenville, Texas UFO sightings. Angelia Joiner, the reporter who broke the case and has her own UFO radio show, was cited. But the MUFON researchers said there isn't anything new going on in Texas, UFO wise. Unless I missed something -- and I do have a habit of drifting in and out when listening to C2C at night -- I wondered how it could be MUFON seemed to be so ho-hum about UFO activity in Texas? Stephenville has died down but there have been reports coming in from that area, and other areas in Texas as well, ever since.

Speaking of disatisfaction with MUFON, Joseph Capp at UFO Media Matters discusses his issues with MUFON in MUFON's 600 lb Gorilla: Common Sense.

On the other hand, all these organizations, Peter Davenport's NUFORC, MUFON, and so many more, operate only because of the dedication of those who run these groups. Very little, if any, money is made, and what money is made, goes to research and costs of running the thing. Investigators do what they can; after all, there's no pay, it costs money to travel to sites, and then there are the realities and responsibilities of family and the day job. 

These groups contribute what they will, and we get the benefit of more data. That's not to say that's all the data, or the research was the best, or that even denial or rejection of reports occur, based on personal bias or agenda.

We get stories, and as we know, there are more stories behind the stories.  

C2C: UFO Review

Sunday, December 27th, Coast to Coast has host George Knapp, who will review the year, UFO wise, with a variety of to be announced guests.

---

Report, Damn It! And Do It Like This!

At the  McMinnville UFO Festival in Oregon last spring, the Bales brothers gave a simple, yet on the edge of your seat presentation about their giant triangle sighting in Idaho. During the Q & A one man chided the brothers for not being more involved in UFO research. He expected them to be sudden experts, with a mission and message of spiritual alien based insight. An astoundingly arrogant and condescending comment to make. After a slight pause, one of the brothers, who looked a bit confused at the comment, simply said "We're here, aren't we?"


Peter Davenport, who provides us with a much needed database of UFO reports, is perennially irritated at people who won't "take ten minutes" to write a UFO report in "black ink on white paper." His frustration is understandable, but not everyone feels comfortable putting such experiences down on paper. Treating UFO witnesses like stupid school children discourages people from making UFO reports.


I've been involved in a few local UFO minded groups through the years. The seeds of such gatherings are simple: people getting together to talk about UFOs. The purpose of these groups is  to have people with experiences to share with others,  but I've found there isn't much honesty happening in these groups. Because as soon as you have the "leaders" of such groups state what will, and what will not, be accepted, you are being dishonest. Telling witnesses to keep things positive -- in other words, don't talk about the scary, negative parts of your experience -- is a type of control. Creating a forum of only what you want to hear, in the form you want to hear it, is being dishonest. It sets up false forums of data; if you are continuously rejecting accounts you don't like based on your biases, you're not after genuine UFO experiences.


None of these methods consider the individual's experience. We listen and decide they're too negative, or not spiritual enough, or not literate enough, or are too lazy because they won't write something down, or . . .


And maybe they are some of those things, sometimes. Maybe some witnesses are too lazy or incompetent to write a report. Maybe the witness is still experiencing trauma from their encounter and are stuck, for the time being, in a dark place. Maybe their paranoia and fears, their nervousness and confusion, is part of the process and where they need to be for awhile. Making witnesses feel bad, lazy or stupid -- or crazy because they're depressed or anxious -- pushes them away.


All we can expect from people who have decided to come forward in whatever small way with their UFO experience is honesty. Negative, positive, spiritual, literate, sloppy, bad spellers, -- doesn't much matter, if they are being honest.

Notes
BOA interview: Tim Binnall interviews Peter Davenport
http://www.binnallofamerica.com/boaa12.9.9.html

Peter Davenport: National UFO Reporting Center
http://www.nuforc.org

McMinnville, Oregon's UFO Fest.com: annual UFO Festival in May
http://www.ufofest.com/ufofest07/