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Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume 1 Number 594
Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume I Number 594
Thursday, October 1st 1992
(C) Copyright 1992 Paranet Information Service. All Rights Reserved.
Today's Topics:
"FarOut" Magazine
Welcome
Nasa 'ufo Video' Rides Again
Re: "alternative 3": April Fool! (was: Bookstores And Excellent Books
Re: Ufo/alien Themes In Ads
The End Of The Crop Circles?
'Going To Extremes', 9/22/92
Welcome
'going To Extremes', 9/22/92
Where Greys Come From 1/2
Where Greys Come From 2/2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brent.Wilcox@f100.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG (Brent Wilcox)
Subject: "FarOut" Magazine
Date: 13 Sep 92 20:27:00 GMT
Anyone have any comments on the new FAROUT Magazine "The
Unexplainable, The Unusual and The Unreal"? (Vol 1, No.1)
Not just the usual UFOzine, but edited by William L. Moore, who also
writes a large number of the articles. It's published by LFP Inc --
"Chairman of The Board, Larry Flynt".
A brief quote from Moore's opening editorial:
"...It is only possible to know what 'they' _say_ their motives are.
Whether 'they' can be trusted is quite something else again. (In
other words, is the true object ultimately to feed the rat or to
simulate specific behavior patterns?)"
He's writing above about channelled messages from alleged aliens,
and is on the mark. But given his history, can this be read
differently? Just change the definition of "they"...
Or am I being too cynical?
* JABBER v1.1 #55 *
--
Brent Wilcox - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Brent.Wilcox@f100.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bob.Dunn@p0.f31.n1012.z9.FIDONET.ORG (Bob Dunn)
Subject: Welcome
Date: 19 Sep 92 18:35:00 GMT
MC>This is to welcome Bob Dunn and the Fortean Research Center of Lincoln,
MC>Nebraska
MC>to the ParaNet family. ParaNet ALPHA-BETA is now logged into the network.
Thanks for the welcome, Mike. We're looking forward to participating
in the echos and cooperating with others in the ParaNet network. I
want to thank you again for giving us this opportunity to take part in
what is surely the worlds most important UFO investigative
organization.
MC>Bob, please take a moment and introduce yourself and your group.
Surely, the Fortean Research Center was started by Ray Boeche in 1982
as a means of investigating all types of paranormal phenomenon. Our
current Director is Scott Colborn, whose work on the Bentwaters UFO
incident has been recognized by Timothy Good in ABOVE TOP SECRET,
Jenny Randles in FROM OUT OF THE BLUE, and Chuck deCaro in the 3
part CNN series on the subject. Our Associate Director is Mr. Stephen
Johnson, the former MUFON state director for Nebraska, our Director of
Investigations is Mr. Tom Keith, formerly with the Lincoln Journal &
Star newspaper. The editors of our monthly newletter and quarterly
journal are Frank Drier and Dale Bacon.
Scott and Dale also host a weekly radio show called Exploring
Unexplained Phenomenon, heard locally on KZUM 89.5 fm, past guests
have included Jenny Randles, Leonard Stringfield, Martin Caidin,
Dr. John Salter, even Bill Cooper. We also sponsor an annual
international paranormal conference each May, last year we had John
Keel, Loyd Auerbach, George Wingfield, Caidin and Randles.
We're also experimenting with bringing in monthly speakers. So far
we've had Peter Robbins, a New York based UFO researcher who is
working on a book with Bentwaters witness, Larry Warren. Dr. John
Salter, professor of sociology at the University of North Dakota,
whose abduction experience was recounted in the CBS television show
VISITORS FROM THE UNKNOWN last July. The last speaker we had was Dr.
Donald Jensen, professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska
who delivered a paper on the skeptical perspective of parapsychology.
Me? I'm just a sysop <g>. My main job now is trying to coax and cajole
the REAL researchers to come online here. Anyone wishing to contact us
for further information send SASE to: The Fortean Research Center,
P.O. Box 94627, Lincoln, NE. 68509. Or call the FRC BBS at (402)
488-2587.
* OLX 2.1 TD * Frisbeterian: When you die, your soul gets stuck on roof.
- JetMail v1.14a3 - Unregistered QWK Mail Door for Spitfire
--
Bob Dunn - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Bob.Dunn@p0.f31.n1012.z9.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: Nasa 'ufo Video' Rides Again
Date: 20 Sep 92 05:18:02 GMT
* Forwarded from "Alt.Alien.Visitors"
* Originally from Robert Sheaffer
* Originally dated 09-19-92 18:03
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Date: 19 Sep 92 16:59:07 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Message-ID: <6s4n7d+.sheaffer@netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.alien.visitors
Many of you no doubt recall the excitement last June concerning a supposed
video of a UFO shown on "Hard Copy", taken from a NASA camera on the
Space Shutle (STS-48). Certain UFOlogists of little critical acumen
insist that it is a UFO being chased by some "secret weapon," even
though NASA says, quite correctly, that the objects are just tiny pieces
of ice being pushed away by an attitude control thruster firing.
Well, I understand that the "Sightings" program on FOX-TV has scheduled
a six-minute segment on that "NASA UFO" on its show to be broadcast
Sept. 25. James Oberg and Don Ecker will appear to debate the matter.
It seems that "you just can't keep a good UFO down," no matter how
BAD it may happen to be!!
--
Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!
"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
where it will end."
- Emerson: Essay, "Circles"
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: Re: "alternative 3": April Fool! (was: Bookstores And Excellent Books
Date: 20 Sep 92 23:26:01 GMT
* Forwarded from "Alt.Alien.Visitors"
* Originally from Robert Sheaffer
* Originally dated 09-20-92 12:04
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Date: 19 Sep 92 21:44:20 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Message-ID: <k24np+a.sheaffer@netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,sci.skeptic,alt.conspiracy
In article <s#1n#9d.jeffp@netcom.com> jeffp@netcom.com (Jeff Papineau) writes:
+
+Much of what the above book talks about has been written about in other
+works. Perhaps none as infamous as "Alternative 3". I have a copy of
+this book, and if you are intersted, I will tell you how to get one
+yourself, since I understand that some people have been looking for it
+for years and never got it:
+
+East-West books, Menlo Park, CA 415- 325-5709
+
+In the alternative 3 book, there is a great body of evidence, if only
+some of it is circumstantial, that these are facts that have been
+kept from us just as the UFO story has been. If fact, it could be the
+main reason that the truth behind extraterrestrial visitation is a
+secret...
Now that the tired, old "Alternative 3" hoax is making its way again
around Conspiracy circles, I scanned in an article I wrote 13 years ago,
when it first surfaced. Guess what: you Conspiracy folk have been taken
in by an old April Fool hoax!
"BOOK, HYPE, AND SNOOKERED"
by Robert Sheaffer
(Book Review reprinted from the Nov.Dec., 1979 issue of
the now-defunct magazine, "Second Look")
ALTERNATIVE 3
by Leslie Watkins, David Ambrose and Christopher Miles.
New York: Avon Books, 1979.
Can a book be banned from sale in the United States? Well-
known UFOlogist Gray Barker [died 1984] claims in his regular
column in UFO Review (June, 1979) that this one was. The book's
thesis that the end of life on earth is coming, and that only the
elite of the world can be rescued, is purportedly too shocking
for the government to permit the book's release. "I'm not going
to risk trouble by trying to get a copy," Barker shudders
(although after I effortlessly obtained a copy of the original
British edition, no "Men In Black" came pounding on my door).
An American edition of "Alternative 3" is available now. It
is not difficult to see why the government might want to suppress
the book, *if* what it says is true*. East/West tensions are a
deliberate fraud, it says, a smokescreen thrown up to divert
attention from the real danger now reportedly facing the world.
The eco-alarmists are right, the authors contend: the world is
now facing certain extinction due to an accelerating runaway
greenhouse effect resulting from the buildup of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels. Alternative 1
was supposedly discussed by an elite panel of end-of-the-world
brainstormers, and rejected as being impractical and hazardous:
using a series of nuclear explosions to "punch holes" in the
supposed envelope of carbon dioxide. Alternative 2 - moving the
elite of mankind to live in underground cities - was also
rejected as impractical and undesirable.
That leaves us with Alternative 3: transporting the world's
intellectual and governmental elite off the earth completely,
using the moon as a way-station in the colonization, and eventual
terraforming, of Mars. The technology to accomplish this is
alleged to already be in existence: the space program as we know
it is said to be just a diversion from the *real* space effort, a
joint US/USSR venture, which is far more advanced than everyone
has been led to believe. A lunar colony is claimed to already
exist, managed by the elite "designated movers," where a corps of
de-sexed, lobotomized slaves, tactlessly called "batch
consignments," performs all of the manual labor.
It is difficult for the casual reader to know what to make
of Alternative 3. The book purports to be non-fictional (the
British edition carries the categorization "World Affairs/
Speculation"), an adaptation of a supposedly earth-shaking TV
documentary produced by Anglia TV. It is filled with references
to real persons and real events. Otto Binder *did* make wild
claims about weird objects that the astronauts supposedly sighted
in space. Gerard O'Neill [died 1992] *did* make headlines with
his advocacy of space colonies (the US/USSR conspirators are said
to have debated whether Professor O'Neill should be done away
with, since he knows so much: "not necessary," they decided. I
wonder if he realizes how close to death he came!) We find
references to Senator Edward Kennedy, astronauts Mitchell, Aldrin
and Armstrong (as well as a fictitious moon-walker named
"Grodin"), UFOlogist Dr. David Saunders and many others. We find
many apparently authentic quotes from newspapers and magazines.
Yet the book is obviously a novel. The dialogue is too
contrived, and the protagonists' slam-bang uncovering of layer
after layer or treachery and conspiracy is typical of low-grade
spy novels. Can anyone truly convince himself that top American
and Soviet officials meet regularly in docking submarines beneath
the arctic ice cap to review conspiracy developments, and that
the transcript of their ultra-secret deliberations would read
like this?
American 2: I told you we should have killed that guy
Gerstein . . . way back in February . . . I said that he was
dangerous . . .
Russian 4: My friend is right . . . he did say that. And I
pointed out that Gerstein's talk could start a panic among
the masses . . .
A 8: . . . and I propose an expediency.
A 2: Seconded.
R 8: Those in favour? . . . then that is unanimous. The
method?
A 3: How about a telepathic sleep job . . . maybe with a
gun.
R 8: that seems sensible . . . it's too soon after
Ballantine for another hot job.
Gray Barker devoted a full column to the book because of
information received from an unnamed Major so-and-so. (The hints
Barker drops appear to be chosen to make us immediately conclude
"The Major" to be former NICAP director Major Keyhoe. But it is
not. It is a different retired Major [Wayne Aho], living on the
West coast, not nearly as well-known as Keyhoe, who has long been
associated with Adamski-style contactees.) The Major attempted to
buy one hundred copies of "Alternative 3" from the Canadian
publishing firm or Thomas Nelson & Sons. Jim Gifford, the manager
of the paperback division, informed the Major that the order
could not be filled because, in his ill-chosen phrase, "the above
title has been banned from sale in the United States."
The Major apparently sent a copy of this letter to Barker,
who picked up the football and ran a hundred yards, charging that
this book was suppressed in the U.S. because it was embarrassing
to the authorities, and that the "space program is a hoax" movie,
"Capricorn One", was canned prematurely, supposedly for the same
reason.
Since, however, the full letterhead of Thomas Nelson & Sons
is reproduced in the Barker piece, I wrote to Gifford asking if
"Alternative 3" really was banned in the United States. He
replied that it is unfortunate that Barker did not contact him
before rushing off to print, as it would have saved considerable
embarrassment on both their behalfs! The reason the book was
supposedly "banned" in the U.S. , he explained, was that Avon
Books had purchased the U.S. paperback rights. Had the Canadian
firm filled the Major's order, it faced the risk of a whopping
lawsuit from Avon Books.
But are the startling claims of "Alternative 3" true? How do
we explain the interviews with whistle-blowers, the tie-in with
missing persons, the clues to allegedly mysterious deaths of
prominent persons? Our British readers already know the answer:
April Fool! As reported in "The Times" of London on June 21,
1977, the day after the TV version was presented, "Independent
television companies last night received hundreds of protest
calls after an Anglia programme, "Alternative 3", giving alarming
"facts" about changes in the earth's atmosphere. It was a hoax,
originally intended for April 1." Reporter Alan Coren observed
that "the year's worst kept secret was that Alternative 3 was a
spoof . . . if you know that 'a hoax is a hoax, how can you
possibly attack it for lacking authenticity?" He suggested that
had he not been in on the "secret" in advance, while the total
preposterousness of the story itself might not have deterred
belief, the acting was so unconvincing as to remove all doubt.
It seems that we Americans, who almost never read the
British press and whose own media have said virtually nothing
about this matter, are having our credulity tested by the
promoters of "Alternative 3". Some of us have already risen to
the occasion, mustering credulity above and beyond the call of
duty: Major A., Gray Barker (the first to write a book about the
supposedly mysterious "Men In Black," whose existence has now
been swallowed by Hynek, Vallee, Keel, Clark and many others), as
well as Timothy Green Beckley, editor of "UFO Review". Don't be
the next to bite the hook. The marketing of "Alternative 3"
represents a real-world test of the old adage that a fool and his
money are soon parted.
--
Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!
"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
where it will end."
- Emerson: Essay, "Circles"
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Schuyler@f201.n350.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Schuyler)
Subject: Re: Ufo/alien Themes In Ads
Date: 20 Sep 92 04:09:00 GMT
In a message to All <09-16-92 11:06> Michael Corbin wrote:
MC> * Forwarded from "Alt.Alien.Visitors"
MC> * Originally from Keith Rowell
MC> * Originally dated 09-13-92 12:52
MC>
MC> From: krowell@agora.rain.com (Keith Rowell)
MC> Date: 8 Sep 92 03:39:55 GMT
MC> I'm trying to catalog the use of UFO/alien themes in
MC> advertisements, especially in nationally distributed ads
MC> in the print or electronic media. Here's what I have so far.
MC> If you have any information on others, please email me or reply
MC> to the net. Thanks a lot.
Datastorm Technologies, publishers of Procomm Plus, featured a crop circle
advertisement earlier this year in the form of a floppy disk imprint in a wheat
field. It was in PC Magazine and InfoWorld, among others.
--
Michael Schuyler - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Schuyler@f201.n350.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: The End Of The Crop Circles?
Date: 23 Sep 92 06:12:01 GMT
* Forwarded from "Sci.Skeptic"
* Originally from Chris Rutkowski
* Originally dated 09-22-92 12:14
From: rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Chris Rutkowski)
Date: 20 Sep 92 19:18:27 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Message-ID: <1992Sep20.191827.8298@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Well, good news! (I think :) !)
In the latest issue of THE CROP Watcher, a circlezine from England,
editor Paul Fuller has this to say:
"Even the paranormally-inclined cerealogists have admitted that 1992
produced fakes galore, with few prepared to stick their necks out and
claim that a single (NB!) British circle qualified as 'genuine'. In
some ways, this restrained response could be construed as an
over-reaction to last summer's hoax revelations, but in reality the
awful truth has dawned on cerealogists everywhere - that most modern
crop circles really are man-made hoaxes and that if there ever was a
'genuine' phenomenon in the first place it has now been utterly swamped
by a smokescreen of wishful thinking and media-inspired mythology. Sad
words indeed but a fact which most researchers now seem to be accepting
with some reluctance."
Later on, Paul notes that "leading cerealogists accept that they have
lost the crop circle battle and that it is time to flee the sinking
ship." A number of cerealogists are said to be emigrating to the USA!
As for the remaining "meteorologically-caused" circles, Terence Meaden,
that theory's main proponent has now stated that: "Anything other than
a sinple circle is definitely a hoax", and he has now restricted the
number of 'genuine circles' to "fewer than a dozen a year". Paul
further notes: "It remains to be seen whether Meaden's meteorological
theory can survive such trauma."
Later in the issue, there appears a map of England, showing the
locations of "Known Crop Circle (Groups of) Hoaxes". I can't reproduce
it here, but to give newsgroup readers a flavour for what's on it, the
editor notes that "there are so many known hoaxers that we couldn't
squeeze them all in!" Good old Doug and Dave, who got all the
publicity, are on there wih their small number of formations.
In North America, we know that Rob Day made a few hoaxed circles in
Alberta, a farmhand was caught by my colleagues and I in Manitoba, and
at least one set of hoaxers admitted to some circles in the American
midwest.
So, we wonder, echoing Paul Fuller:
Is cerealogy (or, to quote some, "crop circle mania") finally DEAD?
--
Chris Rutkowski - rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
University of Manitoba - Winnipeg, Canada
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com!vanth!jms
Subject: 'Going To Extremes', 9/22/92
Date: 23 Sep 92 07:29:46 GMT
From: vanth!jms@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Jim Shaffer)
Would someone who saw 'Going To Extremes' on ABC tonight (9/22) please
confirm that I didn't hallucinate the final scene? And if I didn't, what
was it *doing* there? It didn't have any relationship to the rest of the
show. (Gee, this sounds a lot like the 'I'm not going to argue who shot
John...' thing.)
--
* From the disk of: | jms@vanth.uucp | 'there's a hell of
Jim Shaffer, Jr. | uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms | a good universe
37 Brook Street | jms%vanth@cbmvax.commodore.com | next door; let's go'
Montgomery, PA 17752 | 72750.2335@compuserve.com | (e.e. cummings)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim.Speiser@f100.n1012.z9.FIDONET.ORG (Jim Speiser)
Subject: Welcome
Date: 22 Sep 92 13:56:00 GMT
BD>MC>This is to welcome Bob Dunn and the Fortean Research Center of Lincoln,
BD> MC>Nebraska
BD> MC>to the ParaNet family. ParaNet ALPHA-BETA is now logged into the network
BD> Thanks for the welcome, Mike. We're looking forward to participating
BD> in the echos and cooperating with others in the ParaNet network. I
BD> want to thank you again for giving us this opportunity to take part in
BD> what is surely the worlds most important UFO investigative
BD> organization.
Well, better late than never, huh? Welcome aboard, Bob, and I am really
looking forward to interacting with the FRC.
Jim
* OLX 2.1 TD * Fundamentalism: Fund=Give Cash, Amentalism=Without Brains
--
Jim Speiser - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Jim.Speiser@f100.n1012.z9.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: 'going To Extremes', 9/22/92
Date: 24 Sep 92 01:14:01 GMT
+ From: vanth!jms (Jim Shaffer)
+
+ Would someone who saw 'Going To Extremes' on ABC tonight (9/22) please
+ confirm that I didn't hallucinate the final scene? And if I didn't,
+ what
+ was it *doing* there? It didn't have any relationship to the rest of
+ the
+ show. (Gee, this sounds a lot like the 'I'm not going to argue who shot
+ John...' thing.)
What?
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: Where Greys Come From 1/2
Date: 24 Sep 92 01:22:03 GMT
* Forwarded from "Fidonet UFO Conference"
* Originally from Tessa Hebert
* Originally dated 09-22-92 13:07
Nick:
I noticed your interest in Betty Hill's star map, and I found this
very interesting, from the book THE UFO VERDICT: EXAMINING THE
EVIDENCE, by Robert Sheaffer, copyright 1980, published in 1986 by
Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, softbound, ISBN 0-87975-338-2,
$13.95, quotes from pages 39-43.
"Much attention has been focused on this supposed star pattern,
which Betty Hill claims to have seen aboard the UFO and
subsequently sketch by post-hypnotic suggestion (plate 4). The
reason for all this attention has been the work of Miss Marjorie
Fish, former third-grade teacher at the Oak Harbor Elementary
School in Ohio. Using colored beads strung out on a 3-D frame,
she claims to have matched the `stars' drawn by Betty Hill with
a group of nearby stars that are all similar to the sun, and
which appear to be likely places to find habitale planets. Miss
Fish utilized the most accurate astronomical reference work
currently available, and the basic accuracy of her star
positions has been established.
"One of the biggest boosters of the Fish map has been Stanton
Friedman, a well-known professional UFO lecturer who bills
himself as `The Flying Saucer Physicist.' When he and Betty
Hill appeared together on the Tom Snyder Show on NBC-TV (October
22-23, 1975), Friedman made it sound as if the stars of the Fish
map, alone among all the stars in the universe, matched the
`stars' of Betty Hill's sketch like an apple fits its skin.
"All fifteen of the stars on the Hill sketch were identified by
Miss Fish, according to Friedman, and all of them are the kind
of stars that are likely to have habitable planets. Since this
is true of only about 5 percent of the stars in our part of the
galaxy, Friedman went on to say: `The chances that the Fish map
would grab fifteen and come up with the right kind are, well,...
astronomical.' `Every one of the stars on the map are the right
kind of stars, and all the right kind of stars in the
neighborhood are part of the map,' he told an amazed Tom Snyder.
"Another well-known proponent of the Fish map is Dr. David
Saunders, a psychologist formerly of the Univerity of Colorado
and the University of Chicago, who was a dissident member of the
Condon Committee. Dr. Saunders, a specialist in statistics, has
estimated that the odds against a random pattern of stars
matching Betty's sketch as well as the Fish map is `at least
1000-to-1.' 15
"The only problem with statements such as these is that they are
incorrect and misleading. All fifteen stars have been
identified, according to Friedman, but he neglects to mention
that Betty's original sketch contains twenty-six stars, not
just fifteen. Why doesn't the Fish map identify the remaining
eleven? Three of Betty's background stars (unconnected by
lines) are included in the Fish map, because they fit nicely,
but the other eleven are ignored. This is hardly a valid
scientific procedure.
"As for the claim that all the stars that fit the pattern are
exactly the right kind for supporting planets with life,
Friedman neglected to tell us that Fish excluded other stars on
theoretical grounds, as being unsuitable for supporting
life-bearing planets.
"Betty Hill shows a star between the point represented on the
Fish map by Tau Ceti and Gliese 86, but Fish does not. Zeta 1
and Zeta 2 Reticuli on the Fish map (the supposed home base of
the UFOnauts) are shown as giant globes on Betty's sketch,
supposedly because they are high above the rest of the map in
the third dimension and hence appear larger. Yet other stars on
the map, such as Tau 1 Eridani and Gliese 95, are equally high
above the rest of the stars, but they appear as tiny dots, not
as giant globes. Furthermore, although the globes in Betty
Hill's sketch are widely separated, on the fish map Zeta 1 and
Zeta 2 Reticuli are so close as to be inseparable without a
magnifying glass (though of course they are never drawn that
way).
"Another investigator of the Hill star-map is Charles W.
Atterberg of Elgin, Illinois. He has made an interesting
finding concerning these two principal stars on the Fish map.
Generating a mathematical representation of the Fish map, which
is far more accurate than stringing up beads, Atterberg found
that the orientation of Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli, as given in
the star catalogs, is totally out of line with the corresponding
giant globes of the Hill sketch. The lines connecting Betty's
globes slant northwest and southeast, but a line through the two
Zetas actually slant northeast and southwest (although the
distinction is largely academic, since magnification would be
required to even see Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 as separate objects were
the Fish map drawn accurately). Thus on the two most critical
points of the map, the supposed `home base' stars of the
UFOnauts, the Fish map is totally wrong in the orientation and
separation of these stars.
"As Cornell University astronomers Steven Soter and Carl Sagan
point out,16 the only reason that there appears to be any
resemblance at all between the Hill sketch and the Fish stars is
because of the way the lines have been drawn. View the two
patterns simply as dots, without any lines to help the reader
visualize the resemblance, and the two patterns look about as
different as can be.
"Not only is the resemblance between the Fish map and the Hill
sketch questionable, but more than one pattern of stars has been
found that appears to match the sketch. As I have noted
elsewhere,17 at least two other such `identifications' of the
Hill sketch have thus far been documented.
"In 1965 a map of the constellation Pegasus appeared in the _New
York Times,_ showing a location of a strange astronomical object
designated CTA-102, which a Russian radio astronomer claimed was
an artificial radio beacon in space. Upon seeing the map, Betty
Hill noted a striking resemblance between the stars of the
constellation Pegasus and the stars she had drawn on her sketch.
She then proceeded to fill into her sketch the corresponding
star names from the _New York Times_ map. (Of course, these are
entirely different stars from the ones on the Fish map.) The
supposedly artificial radio source, CTA-102, appeared very near
the UFOnauts' supposed home base, the star Zeta Pegasi. Was it
a beacon go guide the UFOs home from their explorations?
"This Pegasus map so impressed author John Fuller that he
included it in _The Interrupted Journey._ It appeared to
provide strong evidence in support of Mrs. Hill's story. But
the case for the Pegasus map quickly fell apart. Other
astronomers soon refuted the sensationalist claims that had been
made about CTA-102. This supposedly artificial object turned
out to be simply another quasar (whatever _that_ may someday
turn out to be), and that was the end of the Pegasus map.
"The third supposed identification of the star map of Betty Hill
was proposed by Atterberg. He computed the patterns made by
certain groups of stars when viewed from various perspectives in
space. After much labor, Atterberg discovered that there exists
a point in space, along the southern boundary of the
constellation Ophiuchus, from which the stars in the sun's
vicinity appear to match almost exactly the pattern of the Hill
sketch. The Atterberg map fits the sketch much more closely
than does the Fish map, identifying twenty-five of Hill's
twenty-six stars, instead of just fifteen. Atterberg did not
restrict himself to just the stars favorable for life. He
started out by plotting all the stars in the sun's vicinity,
which makes it all the more remarkable that the majority of the
stars supposedly visited by the aliens (according to this map)
are quite favorable for life. Of the eleven stars supposedly
>>> Continued to next message
---
SLMR 2.1 UFO = Unsavory Feckless Obfuscator
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin)
Subject: Where Greys Come From 2/2
Date: 24 Sep 92 01:23:04 GMT
* Forwarded from "Fidonet UFO Conference"
* Originally from Tessa Hebert
* Originally dated 09-22-92 13:07
>>> Continued from previous message
visited by aliens (not counting the sun), seven of them are
listed in Stephen H. Dole's Rand Corporation study, _Habitable
Planets for Man,_ as stars `that could have habitable planets.'
Not a bad percentage for stars selected at random from the solar
neighborhood!
"Even more surprising is the fact that the three stars that form
the heart of the Atterberg map--Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi,
and Tau Ceti--which are connected by lines supposedly
representing the major trade routes of the UFOnauts, have been
described by Carl Sagan as `the three nearest stars of potential
biological interest.'18 Surely this is more remarkable than any
of the evidence supporting the Fish map.
"The purpose of this discussion is not to convince you that
Atterberg has found the home star of Betty Hill's abductors, but
to show that an impressive-sounding case can be made for more
than one map. If I had to choose one of these three maps, I'd
pick the Atterberg map as being the most impressive--it is,
after all the closest to Betty Hill's sketch. Even Miss Fish
concedes that the Atterberg map is accurate, though she goes on
to argue that her own map is better. But `better' is not the
issue here: _there are simply too many star patterns that fit
Betty Hill's sketch._ Random star positions, when rotated,
sorted, and manipulated, can be made to match nearly any
pre-established pattern, as long as we are willing to expend
enough time and effort to obtain a match. Atterberg illustrated
this point nicely when he showed his map to a friend who had not
previously seen the Hill sketch. He reports that his friend
quickly replied that he knew exactly what the map represented:
`It`s the neighborhood I live in. This is my house. That is
the house on the corner. And if we angle up this way, this
takes me down Devon Street, and there's the gas station.'
"If twelve more people, each as intelligent and as dedicated as
Marjorie Fish or Charles Atterberg, were freely to devote months
or even years of their spare time to a painstaking analysis of
the existing star catalogs, in due time we would have a dozen
more of these maps, each closely resembling the pattern sketched
by Betty Hill, and each one boasting of some amazing feature
that simply cannot be explained unless we accept the map as
having been drawn from something Mrs. Hill saw aboard a UFO."
----------
15. David Saunders, _Astronomy,_ August 1975.
16. Steven Soter and Carl Sagan, _Astronomy,_ July 1975.
17. Robert Sheaffer, _Astronomy,_ July 1975; _Official UFO,_
August 1976.
18. Carl Sagan and I.S. Shklovskii, _Intelligent Life in the
Universe_ (San Francisco: Holden-Day, 1966), p. 349.
---
SLMR 2.1 UFO = Unsavory Feckless Obfuscator
--
Michael Corbin - via ParaNet node 1:104/422
UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name
INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@p0.f428.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG
*******************************************************************************
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