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 . 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: Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,sci.skeptic,alt.conspiracy In article 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 ******************************************************************************* Submissions infopara@scicom.alphacdc.com Administrative requests infopara-request@scicom.alphacdc.com FTP archive grind.isca.uiowa.edu:/info/paranet/infopara Permission to distribute Michael.Corbin@paranet.org Private mail to Paranet/Fidonet users firstname.lastname@paranet.org UUCP gateway {ncar,isis,csn}!scicom *********************End**of**the**InfoPara**Newsletter************************