The monthly report
ET Sample?
An individual provided a small metallic specimen to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell,NM. He claimed that he was given it by another party who had been given it by a soldier who had picked it up at a crash site near Roswell. The middle man is afraid of being killed. The original collector of the specimen has not been interviewed and may not be alive, so no direct link has been established between a crash and the small sample which had been kept in a frame under glass.
A very preliminary test done at a NM university established that it contained mostly silver and copper and some impurities. There seem to be raised lines on the very thin material as well. These tests certainly provide no reason for claiming that the specimen is of ET origin. However, they do rule out conventional iron, aluminum, nickel, alloys, etc.
I have been in touch with the museum and provided a paper about what to do with a possible ET artifact. Rule #1 is don't go to a University . DO go to a licensed commercial testing lab with experience at performing a very wide range of tests, and substantial involvement in forensic testing especially in court cases involving failure of expensive systems. Universities often won't let names be used, usually can't keep secrets and are much less experienced than commercial labs at finding out important practical properties such as strength, hardness,properties at high temperatures etc.
It appears that testing will be done at a top lab in the near future. No sign to date that the material is very flexible hard or very strong. The press coverage to date has been without much "giggle factor" although it is not always accurate. Tune in next month for more progress and hopefully a photo.
Clementine and Hoagland
Richard Hoagland, author of "Monuments of Mars" has again proven adept at getting publicity. A very highly touted press conference was held at the Washington Press Club on March 21 with Richard promising:
- to provide proof that there are a variety of artificial structures on the moon,
- that the Apollo astronauts saw such structures and were photographed with them,
- that the recent Clementine spacecraft pictures of the lunar surface have been withheld to cover things up. etc ad nauseum...
Someone who was there told me it was a disaster though very well attended. Richard, who is NOT a scientist and has often made claims that he couldn't back up in the past, didn't make his case. A Washington Post article is headlined "Green Cheese and Baloney" and calls Richard a pseudoscientist.
I did a lot of checking on Clementine, a DOD high tech satellite which took more than 1.8 million lunar images from its elliptical polar orbit.These are available on 88CD-Roms. Articles have been published in the scientific literature. There is a load of stuff on the World Wide Web. Scientists will be busy for at least 5 years analyzing the information from almost a dozen sensors. The resolution is NOT as good as that of the Apollo cameras, but certainly provides interesting data especially about a South pole area that is a deep basin in perpetual darkness and possibly containing frozen water.
I could find no basis for Richard's claims that the unclassified Brookings Institute Report of 1960 established NASA's space exploration policy. As pointed out by Michael Lindemann, (ISCNI Web page). Richard makes no mention of a 1968 NASA report noting over 500 lunar anomalies.It would be nice if people making extraordinary claims would back them up with extraordinary evidence.
SAGAN Strikes again
Another individual who has made a host of extraordinary unsubstantiated claims is Carl Sagan. For over 30 years he has claimed that there is intelligent life all over the galaxy, that the use of radiotelescopes is the way to find them, and that there is no evidence that Earth is being visited by ETs. He has never studied the huge amount of readily available evidence indicating that SOME UFOs are indeed of ET origin and that the subject is a kind of Cosmic Watergate.
His new book "The Demon Haunted World" attacks pseudoscientific claims about UFOs and then proceeds to use the techniques of pseudoscience to attack UFOs, misrepresenting the facts in the Betty and Barney Hill case, in the Roswell and MJ-12 stories, about abductions, etc. Rather than referencing the many scientific studies, his primary source, believe it or not, is the tabloid "Weekly World News"!
I wrote a detailed critique of the book as a last minute addition to my new book "TOP SECRET/MAJIC" due out soon and will publish more. I also intend to renew my challenge to Carl to a UFO debate which I made after the October 1,1994 Larry King show, (but did not press after I found Carl was getting bone marrow transplants). Now that Carl, my classmate for 3 years at the U. of Chicago, is apparently much better, I will step up the challenge. Almost never has Carl agreed to appear with somebody who is ready to challenge him.
Anybody want to sponsor a debate between us?
Roswell Debunking
Quite a fuss has been made by another group of Roswell debunkers claiming that a comment in the minutes of a late 1940s meeting of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board about the absence of a crash proved there wasn't one. The minutes are only classified as SECRET and there is no indication all the board members would have had a need to know for the undoubtedly TOP SECRET plus information. But as with Sagan, why let the facts get in the way of an emotional attack?
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