From: Stanton Friedman <fsphys.nul>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:38:53 -0300
Fwd Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:58:11 -0400
Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind - Friedman


>From: John Harney <magonia.nul>
>Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 21:58:00 +0100
>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind

>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 10:04:03 -0500
>>Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind

<snip>

>I haven't found any cases
>which seem inexplicable, except those for which the information
>is insufficient or unreliable. There have also been some very >
intriguing hoaxes and I find it amusing that so many ufologists
>are in denial about these stories being false, even when the
>evidence is compelling.

>John Harney

John,

The above is truly an extraordinary claim and frankly nonsense.
The professonals at Battelle Memorial Institute who prepared
"Blue Book Special Report No. 14" (Copy available, but beware,
it is loaded with data) found that they had to label 689 of the
3201 cases (21.5%) they examined as UNKNOWN completely separate
and distinct from the 298 (9.3%) which they listed as
INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION.

Furthermore they did a quality evaluation of all the cases and
found that the better the quality of the case the MORE likely to
be listed as UNKNOWN. They must have had tough criteria because
only 9.6% were listed as EXCELLENT, yet 35.1% of them were
UNKNOWNS while only 18.3% of the 525 POOR cases and 15.6% of the
 1298 Doubtful cases were listed as UNKNOWNS. A further 26.6% of
the 1070 Good cases were listed as UNKNOWNS. The better the
quality the more likely to be UNKNOWNS.

Frankly it would appear to be straight balderdash that there are
no cases with sufficient information that were unexplainable,
and that the problem was poor quality.

I suppose one solution as to how you could make such an
extraordinary claim, backed by no data, is that you have only
looked at a few poor cases and have rushed to judgement by
extrapolation to a grandiose claim.


Stan Friedman