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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Knight 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- -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Knight 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 ********To have your comments in the next issue, send electronic mail to******** 'infopara' at the following address: UUCP {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara DOMAIN infopara@scicom.alphacdc.com ADMIN Address infopara-request@scicom.alphacdc.com {ncar,isis,boulder}!scicom!infopara-request ******************The**End**of**Info-ParaNet**Newsletter************************