SUBJECT: APRIL SAUCER SMEAR ONLINE FILE: UFO910 Well, Billy Meier and his entities from the Pleaides are back in the news. A New York publishing house called The Atlantic Monthly Press is coming out this May with a 50,000 copy first-printing of a book by one Gary Kinder called "Light Years". The publisher's propaganda sheet enthuses: "Meier's evidence has been analyzed by experts and leading scientists - including an American se- curity team headed by a retired U. S. Air Force Colonel and scientists from NASA..." Could this be referring to our old friend, Lt. Col. Wendelle Stevens, now serving a five or six year term in an Arizona state prison? Where are you, Kal K. Korff of Kalifornia, now that we need you??? Korff wrote a very competent book a few years ago, exposing Meier in great detail. On the strength of this and other ufological feats, Korff rose to an exalted posi- tion on the Permanent Organizing Committee of our own National UFO Conference (NUFOC). Now Korff has disappeared, and even his best friends in the Field don't know where to locate him! Is Korff, who has his own publishing company, hiding out from Ufodumb's Dr. Richard Haines, for whom he had contracted to publish a book about the famous Frederick Valentich case? Just out is another UFO abduction book, called "Communion", by one Whitley Strieber, who recently appeared on a Miami TV interview show with two of the other alleged abductees. We saw this show, but found it confusing for several reasons. Incidentally, ace investigator Harry Lebelson of Miami has strongly suggested we buy "Communion" and lend it to him, to save himself the cost of this expensive tome! And from Random House, no less, comes a new book by abduction investigator Budd Hopkins, called "The Intruders." Also, there's "The Zone of Silence" from Avon in paperback, of which we have been supplied a free copy by our friend and non-subscriber Denis Corey of Cowtown (also known as Columbus), Ohio. "Zone" is about an area of Mexico with weird magnetic peculiarities, and we actually in- tend to read it. Then there's Kenneth Behrendt's magnum opus, a 150 page, 65,000 word sci- entific extravaganza called "The Physics of the Paranormal", available from Arcturus Book Service (Box 2213, Scotia, NY 12302) for $19.80. The author, who is also the editor of AURA & a loyal "Smear" non-subscriber, tells us that this book reaches the conclusion that many paranormal phenomena are genuine but have been little studied due to the short-sightedness of the scientific community. He further claims that with only a minimal amount of experimental work, we will soon be able to artificially duplicate these phenomena for the benefit of all mankind. Behrendt's usual specialty is UFOs, but he has now expanded his horizons. In regard to Light Years, ParaNet's Jim Speiser has this to say: "I pre- dict that the book, and the Meier case itself, will become a cause celebre, riding as it does on the heels of Shirley McLaine's `Out on a Limb'. The attendant publicity will thrust our one-armed farmer further into the public eye, where he most certainly doesn't belong. The subsequent public interment by Klass & Co. will constitute the greatest blow to the UFO subject since the Condon report." We agree! Back to Frederick Valentich - this is one of the very few UFO cases that really intrigue us, here at "Smear". Either the man concocted a wild hoax to cover up a voluntary permanent disappearance, or else he really was "zapped". It all reminds us of the long forgotten disappearance in 1952 of Karl Hunrath and Jack Williamson of California, who rented a small plane at a minor Los An- geles airport, in order to supposedly fly to a rendezvous with a flying saucer and thereafter immigrate to Mars. In spite of a thorough FBI investigation, neither man was ever heard from again, nor was the plane ever found! (Shudder, gasp!) Our olde friend James ("The Amusing") Randi recently wrote a very inter- esting letter to psychic researcher Dennis Stillings, a "Smear" non-subscriber and head of the semi-mysterious Archaeus Project. We have obtained a copy of this letter from Secret Sources, and want to share some of its contents with our readers: Randi begins by saying that the year 1986 has been very kind to him, and lists 12 specifics, of which a few are: His award of $272,000 tax-free by the MacArthur Foundation, "to continue my work of investigating and exposing fakes, pseudo-scientists, and swindlers"; The fact that Uri Geller has (supposedly) "retreated to England after finding that U. S. scientists are no longer fooled by him"; and the fact that professional psychic researcher Berthold Schwarz has again fallen for "simple conjuring tricks" and thus has made a fool of himself again. Randi's most serious charge is that one of the alleged instigators of an alleged blackmail scheme against him (several years ago) has been "arrested and convicted as a child molester with a long history of crimes." Rumor has it that numerous lawsuits are now pending against CSICOP in gen- eral and Randi in particular. In general, over-zealous methods and accusations against opponents seems to be the cause. STAY TUNED! Notorious former UFO researcher Todd Zechel has finally come out with issues #2 and #3 of his peculiar pseudo-Intelligence zine called "For Your Eyes Only". These contain interesting speculations concerning NICAP, the John F. Kennedy assassination, and other matters, but notable for their absence are parts two and three of the promised three-part expose of Phil Klass, begun in issue #1. Was this one too hot to handle? Zechel "freaked out" when we passed on our copy of #1 to our friend Klass, since we hardly thought we were expected to take the ridiculous title of this magazine seriously. Zechel sent us an angry letter, which we printed at the time, and he refunded the $3.00 we would have spent for issues #2 and #3. Better would be a refund of the nearly $2000 in theft of services, suffered by your editor at Zechel's hands circa 1977, when we made the ghastly mistake of having him as a long-term house guest, at our New Jersey apartment. Zechel phoned friends and informants all over the country for several weeks, till finally the phone bill arrived and he was asked to move on. More on this in future "Smear"s..... KEN BEHRENDT of AURA writes: "I am a believer in the Nov. 18th 1986 Alaskan UFO incident. It must have involved a very large mother ship which release two smaller cylindrical craft to inspect the 747 cargo jet to make sure that it did not pose a threat to the much larger and less maneuverable mother ship. If the Japanese pilots had gotten too close to the mother ship they they might have wound up like Captain Mantell, and all of that nice French wine they were carrying would have made a lot of polar bears very drunk!" DENNIS STACY of MUFON writes: "Dear Capt. Moseley: "I don't know, Jim. Sometimes I wonder about you and your...UFOphobia. Are we supposed to discount the JAL ...sighting ... solely because [Capt. Terauchi] looks like a mental basket case? "Come on! YOU look like a basket case...! Venerable UFO researcher GEORGE EARLY delights us with: "...I understand that Todd Zechel claims Phil Klass has gone boating with a member of the KGB. Will Zechel's next revelation be that this was the inspiration for that famous song, `Red Sails in the Sunset'?..." Dreaded skeptic JOHN MERRELL, who is being sued by a Florida psychic, writes as follows: "Interestingly, I cannot recall a major lawsuit coming forth from the UFO community at large. Perhaps this is but another unspoken indication that the `UFO = ETI' issue is but a matter left best presented amid the pages of `Saucer Smear', and away from the realities of a legal system that demands payment to examine an issue. Perhaps too, given the virtual non-existence of legal battles between believers and skeptics on the UFO = ETI issue, there is a greater degree of comradery [sic] and willingness to forgive than on other paranormal matters. Certainly `Smear' is the unifying squeaky wheel under which -every- person gets the grease!..." Stanton T. Friedman Nuclear Physicist - Lecturer Mr. James W. Moseley POB 1709 Key West, FL 33041 USA Dear Jim: Rarely has the intellectual bankruptcy of anti-ufology been more clearly demonstrated than with Phil Klass' explanation of the JAL UFO sighting as Jupiter and/or Mars. I spoke with the FAA, have read their report, collected other information and even viewed a slide of how Jupiter and Mars looked the night of the sighting. Some facts ignored by Phil include that the UFO was observed on the aircraft weather radar; The the ground radar observer observed the primary UFO over an extended period of time; that the primary UFO [kept station] with the 747 through an extended period of time and flight at different altitudes; that the drawings made by the crew immediately upon landing show an object with a large solid angle not a point object. Jupiter and Mars fail all of these tests. In addition the pilot has more than 10,000 hours as a pilot and has been flying polar routes for more than 2 years. To suggest that he is unfamiliar with the planets in skies which are usually quite clear during long winter nights is patently absurd. Perhaps even more reprehensible is the fact that the pilot speaks rather poor English and is now stationed in Japan. Obviously he is not in a good position to sue Phil for the libelous or slanderous accusations which amount to suggesting total incompetence. I would expect that Phil has not talked to the crew with or without an interpreter. It seems strange that Dick Haines a scientist with considerable professional experience concerning perceptual skills spoke to the pilot through an interpreter with a PhD for three hours and came away completely convinced that Jupiter and Mars could not explain the case. It reminds me of Phil's investigation of the Roswell Incident. Despite the fact that Bill Moore and I have talked to 91 persons involved in the case, Phil has talked to none and yet claims he has explained it away!! It is no wonder I was able to note more than 20 mistakes in his treatment in his last book-fantasy. Despite persistent claims on his part that no secrets can be kept from the Woodward-Bernsteins of Washington, DC, Press corps, he has still failed to provide a copy of even one of the more than 150 documents about UFOs that the NSA states it is withholding or even an unexpurgated version of the Top-Secret NSA affidavit to a federal court judge justifying Non-release. ...Regards, Stan PS I agree that the People Mag article re the JAL case was indeed poor! <> ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************