From: Dennis <dstacy@texas.net>
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 19:18:40 -0500 (CDT)
Fwd Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 09:50:28 -0400
Subject: Re: The Question of UFO Witness Anonymity

I agree with Jerome Clark that any witness who asks for anonymity should
have it, although I'll probably be accused of hypocrisy by those who think I
violated that precept myself by once mentioning Linda's real name in print.
In Linda's case I can only plead special circumstances. Anonymity is like
virginity, in that once you lose it you don't get it back. It was my call
that that anonymity, in Linda's case, was lost before I arrived on the
scene, a genie that could no longer be put back in the bottle. Subsequently,
I accepted my public rebukes and personally vowed that her real name would
never cross my keyboard again.

That said, we shouldn't lose sight of the obverse side of the coin, which is
that anonymity, _in and of itself,_ can hardly be construed as bestowing
either validity and/or credibility to a particular case.

Let me be blunt here. The fact that Linda requests anonymity has absolutely
nothing whatsoever to do with the ultimate validity of her case.

The problem we must all face is that Linda's case is _not_ your average
abduction. If true, in fact, it is _the_ single most startling and
sensational abduction of all time. It is a case which "accuses" a former
Secretary General of the United Nations of also being abducted and
subsequently interacting not only with the claimed abductee but with her son
and family.

Is it fair for you-know-who to be subjected to such "anonymous" claims? What
if an anonymous someone had claimed that they had sex with with a certain
former Secretary General of the United Nations? Wouldn't the public want
(and deserve) to know who this someone was, and whether, in reality, they
had ever been in a position (no pun intended) that would have actually
brought them into intimate contact with the accused?

As I previously pointed out -- to deafening silence -- it was all right when
Perez de Cuellar's name was "leaked," because that made the Linda case all
the more sensational. So who violated Perez de Cuellar's desire for
anonymity? (Certainly not I.) For that matter, how do we even know that it
really _was_ Perez de Cuellar who wishes not to be involved?

The answer is that we don't. But I don't see Honey Bee (or anyone else)
complaining about the fact that Perez de Cuellar's name is commonly (and
publicly) associated with the case. Instead, when he denies any involvement,
there's a chorus of chortling that says, "Well, hey, what did you expect a
man of his position to say?"

So here's my standard for anonymity. Put your name behind your claims, or
don't make the claims. Ufology is already far too rife and riven with
anonymous claims of every nature.

In short, were you ever on a beach with a dead fish, a sand pail, shovel,
Dan, Richard and Jose Perez de Cuellar simultaneously -- as a consequence of
having been taken aboard a flying saucer -- or not? A simple signed
affidavit will suffice.

Dennis