I've been looking at sites that seem to agree with me that all is not right with the UFO community but there are good things about it worth "rescue" from the bad. These sites try to identify the "good" and "bad" within it. I am having some difficulty sorting it all out and I am sure others have had their challenges with this sort of self-led study. So I thought I would try to pool all the knowledge together and make a thread that is a good source of information about what is happening between Earthlings as we know them and beings that we are less familiar with.
I recognize that in trying to uncover the truth about these matters I will undoubtedly enter a realm that is known to have conflict, trauma and triggers within. It is not my intent to increase any drama within any research community and I apologize in advance if I step on anyone's toes. I am sure that this sort of thing can get quite heated. Among my first instincts is the one to go right to the source of the UFO interest and seek more personal experiences of the phenomenon. However, I really love people and I wish to trust them and I think we will be stronger and happier facing this phenomenon together if we can learn to get along over any divisive elements.
Remaining wary of people just because they are cranky or just because they are suspiciously friendly does not seem like the best way to understand the complexities of the UFO research community. So for now I am going to do my best to simply point out the most egregious contradictions or "flags" where I felt that was an indicator of someone being unsupportive of the truth or supportive of deception. It could be that even the reason for deception might be understandable if we can understand the intention behind it. It could be I am totally wrong about people. I'd like to know others' thoughts on these UFOlogists.
Also, I have learned over the years to be careful of condemning anyone, especially just because they fall for an untrustworthy source. They may not know what they do. On the other hand, I have also learned the government doesn't mind inventing people, stories, witnesses and twisting reality, nor ignoring the public need for more genuine information.
The logical, compassionate and creative path we design here could lead to major opportunities to become on good terms of friendship both within our human community and also with “alien” beings we do not presently understand but wish to.
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SITE REVIEW: http://www.ufowatchdog.com/
First of all I would like to look at the site of one Royce Myers III calling himself “UFO Watchdog” who is doing something along these lines already. Presumably they have used some form of their own discrimination to determine “good” (trustworthy) and “bad” (untrustworthy) researchers. I will write my reactions to his list items from when I looked at his site in October 14, 2014 :
Good List
MUFON
A very mixed bag, in my opinion. But seems the most genuine, particularly because of some really valuable decentralization and local community orientation to the structure.
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: The head of MUFON was arrested for being a predatory teen rapist, as lured by a detective. He was apparently also known for being a racist. This doesn't seem to affect the witness cases, I guess, but maybe it's worth mentioning that they are going through some organization issues because of his scummy behavior.
Bob Lazar
I can't remember what it is said he did but I think the claim is that he reverse engineered alien technology. The drawings I have seen connected to Bob Lazar look unlikely to me, almost as if done by someone making a Star Trek set rather than an advanced form of technology. I would like to review for myself the claims of Bob Lazar to determine if I think he is pulling our leg.
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: Now that there is more info and a campy documentary about Lazar, I am even more undecided. He seems sort of believable, but not really strongly believable. Dolan speculated recently that Lazar was given false (or perhaps outdated) information to create a limited hangout around obsolete alien technology. Dolan's friend Mr. X suggests that maybe the Lazar tech was legitimate but from just one of several different advanced flight technologies.
Dr. Richard Haines
This is a NASA fellow collecting UFO sightings by pilots. While I give strong credibility to average witnesses who are unlikely to simply imagine or invent sightings that unify into a somewhat cohesive understanding of advanced “craft”, my mistrust of NASA makes me wonder what Dr. Haines was doing working for an organization whose business involves regularly fleecing the public.
Russ Estes
Someone who is known primarily for being a debunker. I would like to know more if this is the kind of “debunker” that embarrasses and publicly shames legitimate witnesses or if they are more of a “buster” type who bravely exposes fake evidence using sound understanding of photo manipulation and so forth.
Stanton Friedman
Here is someone whom I genuinely think shows signs of being a con artist. He claims to be a nuclear physicist, which is an extremely government managed field of scientific inquiry. I personally have doubts about public knowledge of nuclear science, if it's even a physical rather than psychological science; I suspect it's the latter. He is also associated with UFO witnesses Betty and Barney Hill, whose stories I find not credible. However, I may have to look into the whole Hill affair again. Are those their real given names?
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: Now that I have heard more about the Betty and Barney Hill case, I am simply surprised that Betty and Barney Rubble of "The Flintstones" fame simply have coincidentally similar names. The actual stories and personalities of the Hills are fascinating and other-worldly, even if the case is ever mysterious. I am still very suspicious of Stanton Friedman but at least the Betty and Barney Hills story seems like a genuinely unexplained weird incidence.
John Lear
This celebrity sometimes seems trustworthy when he talks about physics on 9/11, boldly saying what we should have suspected all along: there were no plane crashes on 9/11 because the feats the planes are said to have accomplished are not possible. So I can see why the UFO Watchdog would choose to trust him. However, he is also associated with endorsing “Paul Bennowitz” and his “alien shoot out” in an “underground military base”, a story that doesn't seem to have any solid reality to it, to me.
Don & Vicki Ecker
So I guess Don Ecker has worked for Military Intelligence for the U.S. Army, which is a sure sign that he's willing to withhold truth from the public, for better or worse. He is also a Viet Nam vet, which causes me some concern for his mental and emotional well being. From UFO Watchdog's site:
They are also associated with an STS-48 story on Larry King and I should probably watch that for signs that they have good intentions. It seems to make a magazine about the UFO phenomenon is a good thing, but they probably have people in their lives who are friends from the military who would not mind lying and using their “in” to the community to spread false information. Are either of them one of those types of people? I don't wish to think so.Started the long running UFO Magazine twenty-years ago, have engaged both believers and skeptics in debates.
Richard M. Dolan
I had no notes about this person and I should look them up.
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: Ohhh! It's Richard Dolan! I met him and I like him. He seems genuinely interested, shrewd and to genuinely have a good head and good heart. Seems like a rarity in ufology and it's a relief to have someone like him around and constantly commenting on all the old and latest news. I don't agree with everything but I am almost certain he is the most genuine character in ufology that I've encountered so far.
George Knapp
KLAS-TV in Vegas, and occasional host of paranormal talk show Coast to Coast AM. I have heard several of his shows and I think he shows a genuine frustration with the murky topic. I believe he might have been or is military intelligence, but again that's not a condemnation beyond the fact that he is trained to lie and withhold information. Perhaps his interest is genuine. In the fan base of the radio show, I think there are always people who don't like one host or another.
Kevin Randle
I was surprised to see this name on UFO Watchdog's “good” list because of his association with someone named Donald Schmitt with whom he may have some professional “frenemy” relationship. Sometimes I am suspicious of very public rivalries since it takes a certain attention seeking type to fail to deescalate conflicts, but that may be over simplistic of me. There are probably many cases where conflict is harder to avoid. He is known for being a professional writer on the subject of the famous Roswell, NM story. I feel that if anything real happened at Roswell involving UFOs, it has been painted over with so many layers of fake intrigue that the more subtle truth has been lost or made to be lost on purpose. If I were to start my research on Roswell, I would try not to begin with Mr. Randle's writings first.
Peter B. Davenport
A National UFO Reporting Center is just the sort of place that an intelligence operation would have very keen interest in monitoring. Nevertheless, it sounds like a great thing to have in general, for any country! I should look more into this place and Mr. Davenport. If he is really operating from an old ICBM site in East Washington, it does make me wonder what kinds of friends he has to offer such a site.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
I guess they are associated with calling some sightings “swamp gas”, which sounds like either a pretty hilarious cover up or someone with a pet project, since most UFOs are not necessarily seen at swamps. I have no further notes on Hynek except that he may have been used as a consultant or the basis for a character for Spielberg's UFO movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I would like to use this thread to look into him, but if they are already so closely associated with Hollywood it kind of has that “studio set” theatrics vibe. On the other hand, dramatic Hollywood stories are often sites of storytelling friction between writers, directors, actors and of course producers. So what finally “makes it” to a movie may be a mixture of truth and fiction.
Michio Kaku
Michio is an enthusiastic repeater of information he's interested in and doesn't have much unique insight into the world that he publicly shares. And he shares a lot of claptrap from the TV pop science priesthood. So whether he pertains to UFOlogy is like wondering if Yahoo or Google search results pertain to UFOlogy.
Kenny Young
Based on my notes, I seemed to have had some personal suspicions about his entire character. It apparently did not reflect well on my opinion of UFO Watchdog's sense of reality. I don't know why, since I haven't found anything too weird about his passion for UFOlogy now. Goes to show opinions can change, I guess. Here is a memorable quote from UFO Watchdog's "Hall of Fame" page on Mr. Young:
Jacques Vallee"The UFO research and investigation business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps of corrupt ideology run free, agenda dictates, delusion is rampant and ignorance prevails. The infestation of wrongful motivation and the beggarly depths of belief reign supreme amidst a universal disregard for truth and factual actuality... where good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side..."
Apparently, this researcher associates UFOs with faerie beings. As I get older I don't mind considering “far out” things and I wouldn't hold this against M. Vallee.
Fife Symington
This person is associated with the Phoenix Lights. Since I find this to be one of the more credible and inexplicable events of our time, I would like to look more into people involved in the story.
Chris Rutowski
A UFO authority of Canada. I would like to learn more about them.
Seth Shostak
Apparently associated with the SETI project. At the time of my note taking in 2014 I associated SETI with some of the most cynical cover ups, using optimistic investigations to mask the existence of UFO phenomena. However, I do think many people involved with SETI have yet to experience any strange UFO phenomena for themselves and so they unfairly prematurely dismiss all UFO witnesses as invalid and insist only a big institution can make relevant contact for the human race. I think they are probably just elitists, maybe many with good intentions.
Dwight Schultz
Played a character on Star Trek, a show that explicitly cites NASA as a scientific institution for legitimate space travel. The show is funny and well-written, though, and many actors are too lost in fantasy worlds of celebrity, money and fragile careers (and/or egos?) to talk openly about true matters. I want to find out what Dwight claims to know about UFOs.
Tom Gonsalves
This person is associated with the 509th Japan “A-Bomb” group, and since I find the nuke bombs to be lies important to the military, I wonder if his incredible story is used to subtly reinforce false events of World War II rather than explicitly validate or invalidate the UFO phenomenon.
Zecharia Sitchin
Perhaps I should be a bit embarrassed to say I do not know much about this famous name, but I think they wrote many books that question mainstream history. I am open to some of these writings when I think it's not about sensationalism. I don't get a real good feeling from what I have heard about the writings associated with this man.
Jeff Rense
This is a very controversial figure in conspiracy sites. His web site certainly is a typical looking cocktail of racism, xenophobia, patriotism and the most tabloid looking sensationalist view point of many events and stories. I don't think he knows how to distinguish truth from exciting iconoclasm. Maybe for some people it's good enough to have someone that just lifts underdog opinions. “A rising tide floats all boats”. One problem is when it looks like it's obliviously seeking to sink itself at the same time.
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So that was the “good” list at UFO Santa Claus Watchdog. It wasn't very impressive to me, and I think that although there were some personalities I'd like to know more about, there are some more on his “bad” list that are even more interesting because of just how nefarious their lies may prove to be:
Bad List
Ray Santilli
This one was behind the famous Alien Autopsy. It is quite apparently a hoax, though some have said it is “art” in order to “show a truth” that may have happened or is happening because the real autopsy video(s) are controlled and not public. That would be a fair enough point but it seems easy enough to just put “reenactment” on the video, then. Some people thrive on controversy and that's not a great feature in divisive communities.
Art Bell
I was intrigued and unsurprised to see that a fan of George Knapp should put another Coast to Coast AM host, the founder no less, on a list of untrustworthy types. Despite accusations by a rival, a “CIA insider” named Ted Gunderson (and some time informant for popular conspiracy site Educate-Yourself.org) that Art Bell molests his own children and profiteered from spreading misinformation about UFOlogy, I think some of Art Bell's work helped to open the public's mind to topics it otherwise could have left shamefully closed. Whether he was mostly good or mostly bad for the world I don't know but it is interesting that he talked about so many strange things and encouraged the dialogue to take place. Another character from the Art Bell world is a “Robert A. M. Stephens” who may be a fake Navy SEAL and another bogus “NASA insider”.
Peter A. Gersten & Richard C. Hoagland
I was relieved to see the “NASA insider” Richard C. Hoagland identified as an untrustworthy personality. Someone trying to tell me that image compression in NASA images are “underground alien cities” is either not right in the head or deceptive, and I am not sure his celebrity status with Art Bell reflects well on Mr. Bell. I honestly don't remember Peter A. Gersten on the radio show or anywhere else and I should probably learn more about him.
Brian Bessent
This person sought to get their fake UFO footage endorsed in an attempt to “expose the UFO community” but apparently wound up only making themselves look foolish. I wonder who fell for it, since this does seem like a well-meaning if also misguided, cynical and mean-spirited effort.
Michael Cohen
Apparently in charge of Intergalactic News Service this might be seen as the bad imitation of a honeypot of wild claims.
Steven Greer
Head of his “Disclosure Project”. My friend khammad points out to me that he is among the least successful UFOlogists of all time. Interviewed frequently for a project that never gains ground for decades on end, it could be seen as a distraction from actual research or an attention-seeking performance.
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: Greer has suddenly become a central figure in the great 2019 Wilson/Davis "leak" about a rogue military project (see two posts down) and I am not sure but it seems to make Greer seem at least more credible, if not the same amount of enthused as he always seemed.
Richard Boylan
Supposedly an insider of MJ-12 (Majestic Twelve), a conspiracy to hide information that is really bad at actually hiding it since dubious insiders claim to have secret information from within. Or is it really really good at hiding information? The endless loop of “what ifs” seems to be the opposite of what we ought to be concerned with, especially when insiders fail to stand by any story that actually makes sense of the wonderings. Apparently Mr. Boylan is friends with an exposed fraud known as Michael Wolf. I wonder if we might gain insight into how real honey traps and fake information is used to deceive the public by studying performances in UFOlogy like these “buddies”.
July 19th, 2020 UPDATE: On the other hand, some people genuinely believe in the MJ-12 documents. I cannot really honestly comment one way or the other because I haven't looked into it. I suppose I should do so, eventually, if I am really going to be diving into this world of ufology in earnest.
George Noory
Another Coast to Coast AM host that gets the short end of the stick in the list. There is a lot to find off putting about this host and how he runs the show, but he also seems like a genuinely warm and heart felt person that wants to improve the world, if unsure just how to do it. I don't know why you would waste energy being mad at Mr. Noory. He just seems to be comfortable in Art Bell's chair.
Sylvia Browne
An apparently fake psychic that was apparently exposed on Coast to Coast AM. I know nothing of this and cannot comment.
Linda Moulton Howe
This woman is frequently praised on Coast to Coast AM and I find her site “Earth Watch” to be a really bizarre thing, with no touchstone of actual information. It appears to be some kind of clearing house for her own suspicions of what may be happening and I'm not sure that's useful. At worst, it may be a deliberate distraction. Like a low-profile Michio Kaku.
Dan Burisch a.k.a. Crain
From a YouTube video description:
I am not even sure where to go from here. Is Area 51 where aliens are kept? Is cloning as real as claimed? Is there an alien there that accepts regular human interactions? If any of this is true, does it make Dan Crain's story true? If so, what would be the indicators that we don't just have another attention-seeking personality? Why would UFO Watchdog call “foul” on this particular researcher?Dan Burisch (pseudonym of Dan Crain) claimed to have worked on cloning alien viruses at Area 51, also alongside the alien named "J-Rod".
Ed Dames
Apparently a fake “remote viewer” (someone who uses psychic powers to gain reliable information). Maybe this kind of person can exist but maybe it's not Ed Dames.
Robert Ghostwolf
This is the fascinating case of a fake Native American selling junk survival courses, calling people who call him out “Internet terrorists”. I would like to know more about the whole story of this personality. Is he yet another white guy that wants to exploit and cash in on public interest in genuine indigenousness?
Dr. Bruce Goldberg
UFO Watchdog says Dr. Goldberg is probably a “past life” scam artist, giving people fanciful stories and taking their money to do so.
Milton “Bill” Cooper
Many people praise Bill Cooper for being someone brave enough to get into some kind of gun fight with the government. It sounds like a lot of silly tall tales to me, and I don't know if he did me any favors by trying to make me fear aliens or telling the public that aliens may all be an elaborate government conspiracy with no truth to it. He seems lost and I am not sure I buy his mythos.
David Icke
No reason is given at UFO Watchdog for saying David Icke is not worthy of our time, but I guess it's true he does largely just repackage and sell interesting information in ways that somewhat contradict themselves. And he makes a good career doing so.
Guy Kirkwood (Neall Bryce Cornwell) and Bill Hamilton
No reason is given for these characters being untrustworthy, and I guess I need to brush up.
Stan Romanck and Dr. Jonathan Reed a.k.a. John Bradley Rutter
Apparently Reed killed an alien and stored it in his fridge. It sounds fanciful. I wonder what the whole story is.
Nick Pope
I had the pleasure of talking on the phone with an American who claims to have interviewed Nick Pope in the UK about the “UFOs shutting down missile silos” testimony. I find these unbelievable because I think UFOs would be aware that nuclear armaments are fake and therefore government stories around their intragalactic danger would by extension be propaganda to make us fearful of the fake weapon. The American researcher sounded convinced and was very careful to say he only talks about what he studied. But I was dismayed to learn from him that he hadn't personally experienced any kind of UFO experience. It may be that Nick Pope is honey pot story and I don't blame UFO Watchdog for being suspicious.
Marshall Applewhite
Ostensibly, this guy was a cult leader of Heaven's Gate who killed his followers. Whether this was just an anti-community scare message so that people fear leaving [fill in the blank mainstream message] will automatically involve you in a cult, or a legitimate story of sad fools is not as important. Associated with “Lee Shargel” who looks like he might live in the game The Sims.
Jeff Peckman & Clifford Stone
These people claim to be aware of 57 alien species and endorse the radical Jewish cult belief in the rise of a Metatron being? Or did they simply borrow the name Metatron for their own story because it sounds like the name of a character from Transformers? Either way, I sincerely want to meet people who have these claims.
Michael Salla
Apparently just condemned for believing Greer and classic UFO hoax prankster Billy Meier.
Wendelle Stevens
Apparently some felon that supports the Billy Meier flying plate nonsense.
Pamela Stonebrooke
Not sure why UFO Watchdog doesn't like this Los Angeles jazz singer. Bad at a vocal rendition of “Take Ten”? Or maybe she is known to be a UFO hoaxer.
Dirk Vander Ploeg
I am not sure but I think this person believes Middle Earth from Tolkien's books is a real place. I don't want to unfairly characterize someone.
Alfred L. Webre
Apparently, this person is an acolyte of the Werner von Braun cult of personality. I highly suspect von Braun of simply being a Nazi with a weird sense of humor about rockets. I don't think rockets can achieve the fantastic claims that NASA made about going to the moon and back, so I would be wary of people who are fans of Herr Braun as well.
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Over all, the study of the big names in UFOlogy is a little depressing. I think that it's possible once your name is “big” you are already being promoted because you are compromised in some way that you may not even be aware of. However, as the famous saying goes I want to believe that we can turn to some kind of opinion leader that hasn't been named here.
Why do I have this craving? Is it the worship of celebrity? No, not really. I just like information and people that present it in an unambiguous, unsensational and entirely prosaic and easy to understand way. I don't see a lot of that in the UFO research community. Instead, if you were to go by this list of “good” and “bad” alone, it seems mostly comprised of government agents and people trying to make a buck, even while also being caught up in the circus of the whole interest.
Meanwhile, right at the start of the whole list is probably the most interesting entry of all. That is MUFON. It involves an unverified list of those around the world who apparently know of it, reported something to it, and then left the story as is, with no chance of really making much of it outside of a personal network of friends or family; perhaps some of the stories are genuine and they wished to reach other people's lives and say to them that they are not alone. Kenny Young's stories and writings have a sense of genuineness or naivete about them when I look at them now. I wonder if it's a put on, but it's certainly (to me) a lesson that we need to face this as a community instead of ostracizing those with weird personal experiences.
I find these the most interesting because of the incredibly ambiguous nature of the UFO experiences I myself have had. It did not involve any abduction, missing time, disappearance of a loved one, appearance of mysterious surgery indications or a whisking away to a space room of weird beings. Yet I do not discount all those I've met who sincerely believe something related like that did occur to them. In fact, I haven't yet met someone who seemed 100% deluded and everyone I've met seemed confused and even saddened by much of their experience with UFOs, which indicates to me that it's not a very positive phenomenon. People hardly have the ability to be open to my really comparatively “boring” experiences of seeing odd lights in the sky just behaving oddly. I wouldn't be surprised if much were military or alien or something we cannot grasp.
I will write more about this when I look at another “UFOlogist review” site that I found more recently. It was at either Whale.to or ViewZone.
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It seems that in some "dimension" or another, this form of transportation is real. It is really powerful and yet not fully understood by anyone.
Then again, even mechanics who thoroughly know the ins and outs of their car may find some level of mystery to certain gears, mechanisms or interactions. It could be that humans or human-like beings are quite literally piloting UFOs. Yet, is that all they are doing? Is there a mystical energy being exploited by the UFO designers and operators? Who were the first UFO designers?
