Info-ParaNet Newsletters Volume I Number 300 Tuesday, September 11th 1990 Today's Topics: Re: Mystery Teletype Mystery Teletype Bermuda Triangle A review of 'Out There' Re: Mystery Teletype Posting Guidelines Re: Mystery Teletype Re: Mystery Teletype Re: Mystery Teletype 'Out There' -- Anyone read it yet? A Review Of 'out There' Ufo Crash In Russia Mystery Teletype RE: End of the World Cult ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John.Hicks@f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG (John Hicks) Subject: Re: Mystery Teletype Date: 7 Sep 90 16:12:00 GMT CM> Including the pictures? What did the pictures show/not CM> show, does anyone know? I don't know of any other pictures that were received by anyone. The two published in the GB Sentinel show apparently classic daylight discs. One could easily be a frisbee; the other definitely is not. Not much can be determined from the pictures themselves. I didn't recognize them as previously-published, but that would be something to consider. CM> is a long way from the "woodwork" to cutting in on a CM> teletype. An awful long way. Typewritten notes, so far as I know. No mention of cutting in on a TT. These (AP/UPI etc) are all data transfer now. The old clattering wire TT is long obsolete. CM> Has anyone tracked any of the GB 6 down & talked to them? Rex Salisberry has been having conversations with them. They've told him that they're just in GB visiting friends, not for any of the ufo purposes or cult purposes mentioned, and that they wanted to meet Cooper because some of his statements match their Bible reading. Rex says he feels the GB connection is probably coincidence. jbh -- John Hicks - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: John.Hicks@f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John.Hicks@f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG (John Hicks) Subject: Mystery Teletype Date: 7 Sep 90 16:14:01 GMT JS> is gonna happen next with this case?? Interesting twists and turns, probably. Did you catch the Salisberry's CI$ CO? jbh -- John Hicks - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: John.Hicks@f29.n363.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike.Keithly@f320.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Mike Keithly) Subject: Bermuda Triangle Date: 8 Sep 90 14:45:00 GMT Just wondering if you recieved my mail i sent some time ago on this subject. I see everyone is taking sides on this issue and holding true that it is all a bunch of crap. I tried to bring up this subject once on a few Paranet boards and it was shot down right of the bat.. Mike Keithly -- Mike Keithly - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Mike.Keithly@f320.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Roger Black Subject: A review of 'Out There' Date: 9 Sep 90 05:18:31 GMT 'Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials' by Howard Blum (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 300 pp. Reviewed by James Roger Black for the ParaNet Newsletter. The literati of serious Ufology tend to be a small and somewhat predictable group. When the latest tome from Vallee, Hopkins, Fowler, or Strieber appears in the 'New Books' section, we usually know what to expect. But lately the churning waters have been braved by a handful of 'mainstream' writers who have no prior involvement with the UFO phenomenon or the culture that has grown up around it. Last year saw the publication of 'Report on Communion' by Ed Conroy, a feature writer for a San Antonio newspaper. And now, in the summer of 1990, we have a book by Howard Blum, 'a best-selling author and award-winning former New York Times journalist' whose previous work has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Something important is going on here. Blum is an investigative reporter whose previous books dug into the labyrinthine worlds of fugitive Nazis and the Walker spy scandal. It was, oddly enough, the latter which propelled him into the UFO arena. As he tells it, he was conducting a late-night interview with 'a senior official at the National Security Agency' about domestic espionage, when his source dropped the bombshell that the intelligence agencies had established an 'all-star working group' to "get the truth at last" about UFOs. It says something about Blum's initial attitude toward UFOs that he was, by his own admission, decidedly not interested in this sudden revelation; and he quickly steered the conversation back to the subject at hand. It was only when the Walker project was completed that he found his thoughts returning to the official's mysterious claims. Then, overcome by curiosity, Blum began a three-year investigation to pin down the truth about the government's involvement with UFOs. 'Out There'--the book that grew out of that investigation--is not so much a book about UFOs as it is a chronicle of the author's search and his own reactions to what he found. Blum describes in great detail his discoveries about the tracking of a UFO by Norad radar; the subsequent formation of the seventeen-man UFO Working Group as a joint project of DIA, CIA, and NSA; the double life of Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book; the role of a bizarre secret society in NSA's decision to collect data on UFO sightings around the world; the history of government and private SETI projects; and the contactee obsession which seems to have taken over the entire town of Elmwood, Wisconsin. In the course of the book, sometimes almost as an afterthought, Blum reveals facts that have either eluded other researchers or at least not been given due attention. Among these are: -- that Project Aquarius--an intelligence program to search for Soviet submarines by a psychic technique known as 'remote viewing'-- often reported the presence of UFOs as well; -- that the FBI conducted a Priority One investigation of the MJ-12 documents--and concluded they must be fraudulent since no government agency would go on record as owning them; -- that the SETI project currently being conducted by NASA has already detected intelligent signals from space, but is covering them up for unknown reasons. But the most valuable part of the book comes near the end, when Blum discusses the flap surrounding the Roswell incident and the alleged MJ-12 documents. He vividly describes how the documents first came to light; how the arguments lined up on both sides; how researchers were led to the notorious Cutler-Twining memo in the National Archives; and where the controversy stands today. It is a nice piece of work: Friedman, Moore, Shandera, and Klass all stand out clearly as individuals with a mutual obsession and a lot more at stake than merely the question of authenticity. But it is also, inevitably, a sad story full of accusations, recriminations, and vendettas. It is here that the most disturbing revelation of the book takes place: the descent of researcher William Moore into the abyss of counterintelligence, and his participation--or, at least, his acquiescence--in the near destruction of Dr. Paul Bennewitz. Bennewitz was a physicist, inventor, and associate of abduction investigator Leo Sprinkle. For several years he conducted his own private investigation of the rather brazen UFO activity near U.S. military facilities in New Mexico. He was also, according to Blum, the victim of a vicious and sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by, among others, agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. It was an unsuspecting Bennewitz who purveyed the lurid tales of alien bases, secret treaties, and impending interstellar war that have recently become the mainstay of Ufology's fringe; but the stories themselves were concocted by the government to throw him off the scent and discredit him. In the end it was too much for Bennewitz, and he had to be hospitalized. And through it all, if Blum is to be believed, Moore acted as an AFOSI mole--posing as Bennewitz's friend, reporting his activities to the government, and withholding from him the truth that could have spared him a great deal of pain. 'Out There' is a popular book, not a scholarly one. There are no footnotes, not even an index (though there is an appendix containing good copies of the MJ-12 documents); much of the interview material is presented in paraphrase instead of direct quotation; and salient facts are sometimes buried beneath a mass of descriptive narrative. Much of the material on the history of SETI and the UFO phenomenon itself will be old news to the devotee. But for the newcomer to the field of UFOs, 'Out There' is an accessible, solidly researched introduction. Blum's first-person style lends a sense of drama and immediacy to his story, and in incident after incident he effectively conveys both the wonder and the confusion that confront those seeking entrance to the convoluted world of UFO research. He doesn't always gets his facts right (there is no 'University of Southern Illinois', and at one point he adds a few extra zeroes to the length of Homo sapiens' earthly tenure); but this is inevitable given the huge mass of data he collected and his previous unfamiliarity with the field. Blum is to be saluted for how much he gets right, rather than panned for the little he gets wrong. In the end, one must ask the question (and it has been asked already), whether Blum was on a fool's errand. His introduction to Ufology came by way of a government official who sought him out, rather than the other way around; he had little difficulty finding not one, but *two* members of the elite UFO Working Group who were willing to spill the beans about the group's activities; and, in the end, the UWG itself seems to have accomplished nothing except to impress upon Howard Blum that they couldn't find any answers, either. It was one of the Working Group's own members, according to Blum, who made the case most succinctly: the UFO Working Group itself might be a pretense, a part of the cover-up. 'Somebody already knows,' the scientist suggested. 'There's an MJ-12 Group or a whatever group somewhere in some dark corner of the chain of command that already knows exactly what is out there. They know that UFOs have visited this planet, that crashed alien spaceships have been recovered. And the very fact that we exist, that we meet in the Pentagon, that we go about our business so determined to get to the bottom of things, helps to protect their secret--UFOs exist.' -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Clark.Matthews@f320.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Clark Matthews) Subject: Re: Mystery Teletype Date: 9 Sep 90 05:10:00 GMT > The two published in the GB Sentinel show > apparently classic daylight discs. One could easily be a > frisbee; the other definitely is not. Not much can be > determined from the pictures themselves. John, what date was the issue of the GB Sentinel that showed the pix? Sounds like the paper had complete pix to show, not altered (cut up) pix as the newswire or note or ???? implied. BTW, even though newswires move as data now, the same principles apply -- they are secured against interference and theft by several means, including encryption and packetizing. So, if the mystery message came over the newswire it really does present us with plenty of food for thought, in my opinion. On the other hand, if it was typewritten it's much less interesting from a technical standpoint. But still interesting. It all boils down to the pix and whether they're persuasive evidence or Frisbees... Best, Clark -- Clark Matthews - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Clark.Matthews@f320.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doug.Rogers@p0.f1.n606.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Rogers) Subject: Posting Guidelines Date: 8 Sep 90 22:55:12 GMT New readers are always joining Paranet. For their benefit, allow me to review the rules of posting which we ask all our users to adopt: ******* PARANET ECHO POLICIES ******** The following are guidelines for the operation of the Paranet Echos on member boards. Please take a moment to read (and understand) these policies. If we'll adopt these attitudes, we'll have a more polite, effective network. 1. No anonymous messages may be posted on the network. Some Paranet BBS's allow users to use "handles", and USENET users have no opportunity to place their names in the "From" field. If a user uses a handle, then all posts to Paranet Echos must be signed at the end of the message using the user's REAL NAME. In the case of USENET posts, it would help to place the ADDRESSEE's REAL NAME in the subject field. It is the respon- sibility of the Sysop of each Paranet Node to enforce this requirement, either by reviewing all messages before release, or by disallowing Paranet access to users using handles. 2. Personal Attacks are *NOT* allowed in the Net. In any echo dealing with issues as emotional as those with which we deal it is a matter of course that the validity of testimony on the part of certain individuals will be called into question. It is important, however, to remember that *ALL* parties are to be treated with respect. If you wish to question a person's validity, state your reservations AS YOUR OPINION. For example: "John Doe is a totally unreliable witness" could leave you legally vulnerable. "I BELIEVE John Doe to be a totally unreliable witness" is much better, especially if you can add "because...". Please be careful how you judge the parties involved, and attempt to defend your contentions. 3. Any user who is found to have knowingly and deliberately posted false or misleading information regarding the activities of the United States Government, its intelligence agencies and/or operatives, with respect to the investigation of UFOs or other related matters, will be locked out of the network immediately and permanently, and their name circulated to other UFO investigatory groups. 4. Direct Flames are best posted elsewhere. They will not be tolerated in the echos. 5. References should be included if required for clarity. Some users tend to copy the entirity of previous messages before responding, while others never quote anything and simply make comments about previous posts. You should remember that many boards don't hold all messages forever. Quote (if your software allows it) or at least paraphrase (write a simple summary of) the content of the message you refer to. Please DO NOT quote the entire message, as this is just expense for all boards concerned. Quote only the germaine material. 6. Please make all messages conform to the specified content of the Echo Area in which you are posting. Putting the messages in the right pile makes it MUCH easier to make sense out of the stacks of messages. 7. Enforcement. Users who violate these guidelines will be advised of the lapse by the Echo Moderator. After three violation notices, the user is to be locked out of Paranet areas by the sysop. A FIRST lockout will be for THIRTY DAYS. A SECOND lockout will be for NINETY days. The THIRD lockout will be PERMANENT. Sysops who refuse to lock out troublesome users can be dropped from the net by the Paranet Administrator. Users who believe the Moderator has been unfair in requesting a lockout can request that their Sysop plead their case in the Sysop Echo. In such cases, ALL net Sysops will be asked to vote on the matter. Vote of the net is binding on all concerned. Doug Rogers Echo Moderator -- Doug Rogers - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Doug.Rogers@p0.f1.n606.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG (steve rose) Subject: Re: Mystery Teletype Date: 8 Sep 90 18:56:50 GMT > CM> Anyway, the teletype was received at the > CM> Gulf Breeze Sentinel with a header: > CM> <> > CM> assuming a commercial newswire. Even so, I'm impressed at someone > CM> cracking the UPI or AP wire -- let alone dedicated Uh hmmm...I am not yet so impressed. We are talking about a Network NEWS WIRE which sends out stories and info across the globe...and this one gets picked up at the Gulf Sneeze newspaper's site, only!? In that case, I could make any terminal in our plant sing "Hallaluyah!" to my name and no one here would be too impressed. :-) How about some independent confirmations that this 'plea' was seen at various locations area-wide...nationwide...world wide. I'd hate to think that someone at the paper is so desparate in wanting to keep GB fiasco alive that they would stoop so low. As you can tell, I have been a GB skeptic (as well as former area resident) so I do not take readily to reports of such obscure happenings there. -- steve rose - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG (steve rose) Subject: Re: Mystery Teletype Date: 8 Sep 90 19:08:11 GMT > I don't know anything about how the commercial newswire > circuits are set up but I would imagine that they are fairly > secure and may even be on dedicated phone lines. But I > agree it is impressive. They are about as secure as a business phone line, which is what many are transmitted on. A company can pay for a dedicated wire, but why should they when it is only a one-way 1200 baud delivery system. Since that means any one with entry the electrical closet of a building can gain hardwire access to it. I am not very impressed at all. What makes it even less impressive is the thought that only this one location picked it up (as far as I know). But even if it is received areawide, it is no more a mystery than the yearly annonymous 'Seasons Greetings' messages sent down the pike. No one can trace those when the ORIGINATION flag is turned off. -- steve rose - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG (steve rose) Subject: Re: Mystery Teletype Date: 8 Sep 90 19:21:35 GMT > Jim, am I correct in assuming that the teletype came to the newspaper? > I've been thinking about this one. Without the full message, including > all headers, it is difficult to determine whether or not the sender > tapped into securenet or not. Tapping into the standard teletype > network is not all that hard to do. The point is...who the heck knows if it was ever on securenet at all!? Must we rely on the word of the message's title as proof of delivery? If so, I guess we can wind up as gullible as the rest of 'em. :( In addition, Jim's message mentions the companion photographs sent with the message. Gee...I never knew 7-bit Text Teletype style delivery (even today's version) can generate graphic photos. Everyone: Network Teletype isn't a FAX system! -- steve rose - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: steve.rose@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Betz Subject: 'Out There' -- Anyone read it yet? Date: 9 Sep 90 13:15:21 GMT I'm sitting here listening to Jim Bohannon interviewing Howard Blum, author of 'Out There', an investigative report of the Government's covert efforts in the search for extraterrestrial life and UFOs, and in promulgating phoney stories (Bill Cooper and Bill Moore, among other examples) to throw real investigators off the track. Blum seems like a real hardnose reporter, and he has a good track record with the NY Times and a previous book about Nazi war criminals living in the US. (The stink raised in Congress after that book's revelations got the Justice Dept off the dime and at least 30 Nazis deported.) Has anyone read his book yet? I'd be interested in the responses of informed Paranetters to its thesis and presentation before I go looking for it myself. -- -----------------------------------------------------| hombre!marob!upaya!tbetz 'Ever since the fateful day when Al heard about | that `Follow Your Bliss' thing, it's been just | Tom Betz - GBS cannoli, cannoli, and more cannoli.' - Peter Hannah | (914) 375-1510 -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael.Corbin@f3206.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin) Subject: A Review Of 'out There' Date: 10 Sep 90 00:11:00 GMT > From: postmaster@scicom.alphacdc.com > Date: 9 Sep 90 05:18:31 GMT > Message-ID: <6320@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM> > Newsgroups: info.paranet > > From: James Roger Black Your review was very well received here. Thanks for the contribution. Mike -- Michael Corbin - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@f3206.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael.Corbin@f3206.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Corbin) Subject: Ufo Crash In Russia Date: 10 Sep 90 00:13:00 GMT Could anyone see if there is any followup to this article? Thanks, Mike * Forwarded from "Fido UFO Echo" * Originally from David Stager * Originally dated 09-06-90 21:11 SOVIET SCIENTISTS CLAIM FLYING SAUCER FOUND IN ESTONIA by Serge Mazankine PARIS (AFP): Soviet scientists say they are studying what they think is a 20 meter wide flying saucer from another planet found in Estonia. Several institutes have analyzed the suspected unidentified flying object and have come to the same conclusion. Colonel Marina Popovich wrote about the events in Sovietski Sport. The air force test pilot and president of the world association of female scientists is an expert on unexplained phenomena such as UFOs and abominable snowmen. She has been interested in flying saucers since coming across two Soviet pilots in hospital who had seen strange lights in the sky. One had his eyes affected by a strange radiation. The co-pilot had the calcium in his bones evapoted [sic] and several ribs broken during landing. Another crew of an Antonov-12 plane told her how on one ocasion [sic] all onboard power suddenly failed. They were landing in complete dark when another vessel of some kind suddenly lit up the whole area so they could see. The 60 ton plane landed without a problem. Popovich plans a journey to Estonia where the flying saucer was found six meters below the surface. Soviet experts are to attempt to raise it, and so far no one has been able to cut off a segment and several institutes have said is [sic] must be from another planet. In 1984 Popovich went in search of the Yeti with a Kiev University expedition to Pamir. "We went up 3,000 meters and set up guards around the camp, because we knew it comes out mainly at night. "We saw traces around the camp from the first day. It could break into cans of milk with its teeth and threw stones in fires and moved other objects." -- Michael Corbin - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Michael.Corbin@f3206.n207.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don.Orchard@p1.f502.n202.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Don Orchard) Subject: Mystery Teletype Date: 9 Sep 90 18:39:07 GMT In a message to Don Orchard <07 Sep 90 20:55:00> Clark Matthews wrote: CM> Heck, you're a Sysop -- forgive my spouting off. Nice typing to you CM> & welcome to Pnet! Thanks Clark, I know I'll be enjoying this connection. See Ya!! Don -- Don Orchard - via FidoNet node 1:30163/0 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Don.Orchard@p1.f502.n202.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Dobbs Subject: RE: End of the World Cult Date: 10 Sep 90 23:53:34 GMT Last night I was reading a book put out by the publishers of the Whole Earth Catalog last night called 'The Fringes of Reason - A Field Guide to New Age Frontiers, Unusual Beliefs & Eccentric Sciences'. It is a fun and interesting catalog/mini-encyclopedia of New Age type beliefs and enigmas. A lot of material was contributed by Jerome Clark, editor of both the International UFO Reporter and Fate Magazine. Anyway... There was a review of a book in there called 'When Prophecy Fails' by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken & Stanley Schachter - 1984. The story goes like this. Sananda is an entity/spokesman for a higher race of beings who channeled through a housewife says that 'The tilting of the land of the U.S. to the East will throw up mountains along the Central states...'. This was to occur on December 21, 1952. The evening before the cataclysm was to happen, Sananda promised that spacement in flying saucers would come and take away the true believers to the safety of their own planet. They were told that wearing metal would produce severe burns in the flying saucers. The 12 members of the group of believers were taunted by newsmen and a crowd of 200 onlookers. They were wearing rope belts, the zippers had been removed from their trousers, and the eyelets gone.from their shoes. The night came and went with no UFOs. Sounds kinda familiar, eh? Mike Dobbs Internet: miked@vcd.hp.com ********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************************