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Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume 1 Number 169
Info-ParaNet Newsletters, Number 169
Monday, March 5th 1990
Today's Topics:
Mystery Stalks the Prairie
Re: Is Cooper All That Crazy!?
Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
(none)
Re: Grist for Conspiracy Buffs
More on ETs and the atmosphere
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From: paranet!f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Michael.Corbin
Subject: Mystery Stalks the Prairie
Date: 5 Mar 90 03:55:00 GMT
I am looking for a copy of "Mystery Stalks the Prairie". Anyone
having a copy that they would loan, sell or whatever, please give
me a call ASAP. Doing research and need it.
Thanks,
Mike
--
Michael Corbin - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
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From: paranet!p0.f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Jim.Delton
Subject: Re: Is Cooper All That Crazy!?
Date: 4 Mar 90 06:53:00 GMT
>>Where is all this stuff coming from and why does no one do anything
>>about it.
It comes from our elected and appointed officals; lots of people read
about it, but hardly anybody gives a damn as long as they personally
aren't being hassled.
--
Jim Delton - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Jim.Delton@p0.f37.n114.z1.FIDONET.ORG
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From: paranet!f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG!John.Hicks
Subject: Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
Date: 4 Mar 90 19:49:00 GMT
> Alright, but where would I go? And what could I use for
> sources.
Well, I presume you know where Oviedo is.
I think the first step would be to find out if the Oviedo newspaper, the
Outlook, has any old stories on the subject. Also, you might try the Orlando
Sentinel. I know there have been news stories on the Oviedo Lights, but not
when or in what publications.
Also try talking with some of the older residents of the Oviedo area.
Supposedly strange lights were seen in the area many times over the years.
I really don't know very much about it.
jbh
--
John Hicks - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: John.Hicks@f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG
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From: paranet!Sandy.Barbre
Subject: Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
Date: 5 Mar 90 03:17:00 GMT
Thanks John!!! Interestingly enough, I have to go to Ovidea within the
next week working on a story that is not related, but while I'm
there.... You're get again thanks. Been a long time, where you been?
--
Sandy Barbre - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Sandy.Barbre@paranet.FIDONET.ORG
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From: paranet!Sandy.Barbre
Subject: Re: Sightings in Central Fl. area
Date: 5 Mar 90 03:18:00 GMT
Right on the Paranet Echo, I was just showing off my computer that day
to someone that didn't understand BBSing and I just left it, but here
we go!!!
--
Sandy Barbre - via FidoNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Sandy.Barbre@paranet.FIDONET.ORG
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From: ddrasin@well.sf.ca.us (Dan Drasin)
Subject: (none)
Date: 5 Mar 90 12:40:37 GMT
Shadowy Things
-+ From: paranet!Clark.Matthews
-+ Subject: Re: Lunar Anomalies
-+ Date: 4 Mar 90 03:42:00 GMT
-+ Hi Jim. The Japanese "Moonshadow" tape is a new one on me, too.
-+ Of course, any probe sent around the moon could create such a
-+ shadow, including our own Apollo missions and the many Russian Luna
-+ probes, many of which orbited the moon for some time if memory serves.
-+ Is this a "vintage tape" or is it relatively recent?
Clark, wouldn't an oribiting probe or spacecraft would have to be
*enormous* (say, thousands of feet in diameter) to cast a shadow on
the moon large enough to be resolved through an earth-based telescope?
-+ Gulf Breeze as a hoax
Jim, I have no strong opinions about Gulf Breeze, but the broad brush
with which these hoax allegations have been painted by Bill Pitts
raises several red flags for me. For example, I find it particularly
difficult to believe that Bruce Maccabee would have allowed himself to
be "bought." Can someone please be more specific?
Speaking of red flags, I note that as far back as Sept. 1988 Mr. Pitts
(director of the "New Project Blue Book"), in a letter to you and
Bryon Smith, went out of his way to characterize Gulf Breeze as
particularly unworthy of attention by his organization -- an
organization curiously devoted to "the older, classic cases" and, by
his own description, structured in so rigidly compartmentalized a
fashion as to completely preclude dialogue among its members. This
approach (to put it charitably) does not inspire my trust.
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From: Gary Knight <GARY@maximillion.cp.mcc.com>
Subject: Re: Grist for Conspiracy Buffs
Date: 5 Mar 90 18:18:54 GMT
This is getting pretty tangential to the main themes of ParaNet,
but in response to comments on my Sandia-industry metals consortium
posting, I offer this followup:
1) At the end of this posting, I've reproduced the full article from
New Technology Week. That should answer some of the questions.
2) On the inapplicability of the FOIA.
i) All businesses engage in what is called competitor
intelligence. This is necessary for economic survival -- e.g., if you're about
to sink $10,000,000 (or $10,000 for that matter) into a 2-year R&D
program, you would like to know if someone else started the same project a
year ago such that they'll be on the market a year ahead of you and you'll be
left holding a bag of cats. So everyone gathers competitor intelligence as
part of doing business. One way that companies keep track of government
R&D (and other activities that might affect their business plans) is to use
the FOIA. Most of the time this isn't necessary, but a large percentage of
FOIA requests are aimed at getting business-related information out of
government agencies.
ii) Forming partnerships with the government for
expensive R&D projects is a common and growing practice. They are
sometimes called strategic alliances. At MCC, for example, we feel that by
combining the consortium approach with strategic alliances, we can (A)
provide excellent leverage for R&D investments by both government and
industry, and (B) greatly facilitate technology transfer. Japan and Europe
have been doing this routinely for 20 years, and it probably will help our
competitiveness problem in international markets to take a similar
approach.
iii) BUT, no company is going to put up money for a
private consortium, or a government partnership, if they think that their
competitors can get a current status report on the R&D work just by filing
a FOIA request! What manager in his right mind would put money into R&D
knowing that when payoff time comes all his competitors will have access
to the same results for nothing? So, of course, part of the industry-
government partnership arrangement has to be that FOIA doesn't apply.
This provides industry participants with protection for their investment.
This is all well detailed in the legislative history of the FOIA and its
amendments, and is certainly a necessary provision if joint private-public
R&D is to flourish.
3) Now it may bother some people that the government and
selected companies are doing secret research. However, the government
could be doing secret research on its own and I guarantee you couldn't get
at it through FOIA if there were any kind of national security issue involved
(which there always is, right (-: ?). So what's new about providing the
same protection for businessmen who are investing their hard-earned
dollars in the future of the Nation? Granted, the system could work as a
cover for something outrageous like reverse engineering captured alien
technology, but my guess is that would just signify a fortuitous application
of existing law, not that the legal structure was designed to accomplish
that end.
And now, the full text of the article in question.
* * * * * * *
New Technology Week Vol. 4, No. 9 February 26,1990
DOE CONSORTIUM TO BOOST SPECIALTY METALS INDUSTRY
By: Lucy Reilly
The Department of Energy is recruiting eight major manufacturers
for an industry/government specialty metals consortium to be based at
Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. The consortium's
objective is to improve U.S. technology competitiveness by making the most
efficient use of the nation's existing know-how and facilities. Final
contracts for the proposed consortium are expected to be signed in the
upcoming weeks. The Energy Department plans to provide several hundred
thousand dollars, a minority portion of the start-up funds. Industry
participants are expected to contribute $50,000 each over the next five
years. After five years, DOE will relinquish its funding role and the project
will be funded entirely by the corporate partners. Through the consortium,
DOE will open up access to the corporate partners to conduct research at
Sandia. The consortium will pursue technology that the industry partners,
not DOE, believe will be necessary to ensure U.S. competitiveness five
years out. "Market-driven is the key," said a DOE official. "We're not trying
to push the rope, we've got someone on the other end pulling." The
consortium will use Sandia's unique vacuum-arc remelt consumable
furnace, which allows viewers to watch metals being smelted.
The idea of the consortium is that both parties will benefit by
using the other's resources. DOE officials declined to disclose the eight
domestic manufacturers who plan to participate in the consortium, but said
that several of the corporate partners are not U.S.-owned firms.
Consequently, protective provisions are being included in the final
contracts that will ensure proprietary benefits of the collaborative work
will accrue back to the United States and not to foreign competitors.
Negotiations between government and industry officials have picked up in
recent weeks as a result of bill S-550 which passed last December, giving
government-owned, contractor-operated labs the same flexibility and
responsibility of government-owned, government-operated labs. Moreover,
the legislation stated that if a government lab is involved in a cooperative
venture with private industry, it is not required to respond to a Freedom of
Information Act request. Such requests often are filed by competitors
seeking to gain insight to a technology.
The seeds for the specialty metals consortium were planted about
18 months ago, when DOE's Defense Programs division started to target
technology transfer. DOE officials proposed the specialty metals
consortium and several other pilot projects in a briefing on technology
transfer to Secretary Watkins last summer. Watkins gave his lieutenants
the thumbs up to pursue an aggressive technology transfer program in the
Defense Programs division. In recent weeks, Watkins has spoken with
several other agencies' officials regarding technology transfer, including
Department of Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher. Commerce
Department officials, who have their own small-scale commercialization
program, were invited to advise the DOE on how to set up an effective
program to hasten the process of internal technology commercialization.
The interest in commercialization has risen in the last year as the
issue of U.S. competitiveness has netted increasing attention from industry
and Capitol Hill. Since President Bush's State-Of-The-Union speech earlier
this month, his administration has begun to address the issue of technology
competitiveness as a top priority. The push has been particularly strong at
DOE because of its role with the national laboratories. "The political
hierarchy has given the order to the DOE to put the meat on the bones" and
obtain the best return on investment from the labs, said a Commerce
Department official. The specialty metals consortium is a pilot for other
potential DOE programs in conjunction with the national labs. Already, DOE
officials have begun to work with industry to put together the Advanced
Manufacturing Technology Consortium. The manufacturing consortium's
mission is to promote the development of quality advanced manufacturing
techniques less expensively. The manufacturing program would make much
more extensive use of the DOE's nuclear weapons complex than the
specialty metals project.
-End-
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From: Gary Knight <GARY@maximillion.cp.mcc.com>
Subject: More on ETs and the atmosphere
Date: 5 Mar 90 20:03:34 GMT
Thanks for the responses to my inquiry about ETs and the
atmosphere. I'm not convinced, though, so I'll try again. First, some data.
The composition, by volume, of the Earth's atmoshere is:
Nitrogen = 78.08%
Oxygen = 20.95%
Carbon Dioxide = 0.03%
Ar, Ne, He, Kr, Xe, H2, CH4, N2O = traces
So basically we're dealing with a 78-21 nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere (why
does everyone refer to it as an "oxygen" atmosphere? If you're only going to
use one word, it's a "nitrogen" atmosphere isn't it?).
1) At extreme altitudes, although the composition remains the
same (78-21), the quantities are reduced slightly. Yet even that slight
reduction in quantity causes marked changes in human physiological
response and, over time, in human physiology. Sea level types in the Andes
manifest rapid, shallow breathing and show other observable signs of
discomfort.
2) Most organisms are very finely tuned to the environments in
which they evolve. A slight change in the environment results in their
being selected out (sometimes in favor of an organism that is better
adapted to the environmental change). For example, one variant of moth
which is selected in because of its coloration (blending with habitat) will
become extinct very quickly if there is a slight change in the background
(environment) coloration, while another variant could easily be selected in
by this process.
3) When organisms are moved from one location on Earth to
another, the change in habitat (though seemingly similar) can have
devastating effects on the life forms. In short, you don't do well in places
other than where you evolved (unless you carry your entire environment
with you).
4) When you couple atmospheric composition with potential
toxicity (we seem to be immune to the trace of Argon in the atmosphere,
but would another species from another planet be so immune?), I find it
hard to accept that living things which evolved in a non-Earth environment,
whether carbon-based or not, would be anywhere near adapted to Earth's
atmosphere -- certainly not so that they could walk around in it for a hour
or two with no adverse consequences (similar doubt whether Earth types
would do well in an alien atmosphere).
I'm neither a negativist nor a biased skeptic. I just have questions
that bother me. And so far I'm having trouble squaring what I know about
the atmosphere, toxicity, and principles of evolution, with abduction
scenarios where aliens and Earth folks exist in the same environment for
extended periods of time. Does anyone have technical data that might
address the issue? Thanks,
Gary
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