From: Karl T. Pflock <Ktperehwon@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 16:33:13 EDT
Fwd Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 18:28:14 -0400
Subject: Florida Scoutmaster Case


GREETINGS LIST SLAVES--

I see my complete COPYRIGHTED paper on the subject case, "The
Best Hoax in UFO History?" (note well the question mark) is now
posted as planned on the Microsoft Network UFO site
< www.forums.msn.com/ufo/hoax1.htm >, so I'm saved a bit of
work here.

In their earlier posts on this case, Gary Alevy (GA)
and Kevin Randle (KR) wrote:

GA: The name of the scoutmaster in question was Sonny
GA: Desverges. This case was discussed within the past 6 months
GA: on a television documentary broadcast on a television
GA: station in New York City.

Actually, his name was D. S. [Dunham Sanborn] Desvergers (with
an "r"), pronounced DeVERges. "Sonny" was his nickname.

The TV show in question was a 2-hour "Sightings" special, "UFOs
-- The 100 Year Cover Up" [sic], on which I appeared on location
interviewing one of the Boy Scouts involved in the case plue two
other previously unknown witnesses with potentially very
important corroborating testimony (I'm still working on this).

GA: Curiously none of the locals, still living in the same
GA: locale, had anything negative to saw about the scoutmaster.
GA: They seemed to indicate that he had been railroaded by the
GA: military in the investigation of the UFO sighting.

In point of fact, only one of the locals, a delightful lady
named Vicki Oaks (one of the witnesses mentioned above) spoke
positively about Desvergers and suggested he'd been done wrong
by Uncle Sam. Fact is, everyone else I talked with
considered/knew him to have been a ne'er-do-well and a
tall-tale-telling publicity seeker, completely consistent with
what Ruppelt and company learned in spades in 1952. No one who's
looked into this case in any depth has any doubt Desvergers was
just that and likely more.

KR: Ruppelt (p. 241) wrote: 'I thought that we'd collected
KR: all the items that could be analyzed in a lab until
KR: somebody thought of one I'd missed, the most obvious of all
KR: - soil and grass samples from under the spot where the UFO
KR: had hovered. We'd had samples, but in the last-minute rush
KR: to get back to Dayton they had been left in Florida.'

"Later he suggested that the samples had been under the control
of the intelligence officer, but there is no documentation that
the samples were locked in a safe and inaccessible except by
authorized personnel. In other words, the chain of custody is
broken because we have no clue about where they were left, how
they were stored, or who might have had access to them.

Truth is, careful study of documents in the Bluebook case file
establishes with little room for doubt that the chain of custody
was NOT broken. The air force-collected samples were under the
control of the intelligence office of the 1707th Air Base Wing
at West Palm Beach International Airport from the time they were
collected. It is true we don't know who all MAY have had access
to the samples during the brief time they were in the local air
force intelligence office, but it is unlikely in the extreme
this intriguing physical evidence was accessible in such a way
and long enough for a hoaxer to do what was necessary to create
the highly unusual results. (Hey, Kevin, usetawas you were an
air force reserve intel. officer. Were you in the habit of
leaving evidence or other senstive material lying around where
just anyone could lay hands on it, remove it from your office,
muck about with it, and sneak it back in, all undetected?)

That said, however, there's no need for a hoaxer to have had
access to the samples during that period to have been able to
char the roots of the grass but not the above-ground portions of
the plants, thus creating the huge question mark which has hung
over this case for almost 46 years. There IS a way it could have
been done before the samples were collected, and the record
suggests who might have done it (see my above-ref'd.
paper)--although this still doesn't prove the evidence was
hoaxed. Fact is, absent anything definite one way or the other,
the only honest position one can take on this physical evidence
is to suspend judgment.

KR: (paraphrase; I lost the original during my recent
KR: software crisis):  "None of the other physical evidence
KR: stood up to scrutiny."

Not so, Kevin, although none of it--Desvergers' scorched and
burned cap, the hair singed off his arms--was of the sort that
could prove the scoutmaster was attacked by a flying saucer.
This physical evidence was undeniable, and although plausible
mundane, hoax-connected explanations were suggested by air force
investigators, nothing was found to back them up. In fact, such
evidence (e.g., flare residue) was completely lacking.

KR: "But why are we even talking about this case. It just
KR: doesn't deserve our attention."

Come on, Kevin, of course it does. It was one of the most highly
publicized and, because of the puzzling grass samples and the
scoutmaster's questionable- at-best character and antics, both
intriguing and frustrating cases of the "golden age of UFOs."
It is at the very least historically interesting and important,
and if further credible supporting information can be developed
(I'm working on it), it could re-emerge as an evidentiarily
significant incident. Hey, you included it in your PROJECT
BLUEBOOK EXPOSED, and you certainly know all about the latter
point, having turned a few bits of earthly tinfoil into a saucer
of gold yourself. Not, I hasten to add, that I'm suggesting
anything underhanded on your part (or that Roswell is
evidentiarily significant) and most certainly not that I would
do anything of that sort myself in re the Desvergers or any
other case.

As noted above, I continue to work on this case and will publish
more about it in the near future. In November, I hope to present
a paper with additional findings at the 1998 National UFO
Conference in New Jersey, sponsor resources permitting.
Meanwhile, those as may be interested can check out my paper on
the Microsoft site. Or, for those who like me prefer the real
thing in their hands, AUTOGRAPHED copies are available for $3.00
from Arcturus Books, 1443 S.E. Port St. Lucie Blvd., Port St.
Lucie, FL 34952, and, of course, the much shorter version can be
found along with many other very interesting and informative
articles in the hard-cover book UFOS:  1947-1997, edited by
Dennis Stacy and Hilary Evans, still available from Dennis,
<dstacy@texas.net> for ordering info.

-- Cheers and ad astra per ufologia (maybe), KARL