From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 10:28:45 -0500
Fwd Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 17:15:50 -0400
Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind - Clark


>From: John Harney <magonia.nul>
>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 20:23:43 +0100
>Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind

>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 16:04:12 -0500
>>Subject: Re: Close Encounters Of The Fourth Kind

>>Meantime, for specifics on how debunkers had to alter details -
>>including the time at which an independent sighting of what may
>>well have been the same UFO took place - to make the C-W
>>sighting fit into the meteor framework, see my discussion in
>>Chapter 4 of Strange Skies.

>According to Jenny Randles, the timing was exactly one hour
>different and Hynek "told the US government they had a choice.
>If the timing on the ground or the reporting of it was wrong by
>an hour then the engineer clearly saw the same object as the air
>crew." ("Something in the Air", p. 36)

The witness reported seeing something very much like what
Chiles-Whitted reported. Debunkers such as Hynek then was
suggested that the witness might be mistaken about the time of
his own sighting, which may have been at the time of C-W's,
thus making the "extraordinary meteor" (Hynek's phrase)
more likely. There is no evidence that the witness was mistaken
about the time of his sighting.

>>>From their entries in my UFO Encyclopedia, I have drawn these
>>names of ufologists whom their colleagues considered of good
>>character and respectability; all are no longer among us and
>>therefore can't phone their attorneys. Please pick the names of
>>those whom you judge to have been exploiting UFOs solely or
>>primarily for personal gain:

>I wasn't referring to _dead_ ufologists. What would be the
point? The ones I have in mind are very much alive. Two or three
of those you mention are too obscure for me to know anything
about them anyway.

So you were, after all, just blowing smoke. Nobody can possibly
conclude otherwise now.

I hope that in the future we can be spared innuendo about
ufologists' motives. As we see here, John Harney's words are no
more than a poorly concealed dodge. It would do all of us well,
ufologists and their critics alike, to assume that ostensibly
sincere researchers and theorists are, in fact, sincere (even
if, from our point of view, in error about one thing or another)
-- unless we have clear evidence that they are, as John hinted,
simply out to make money, grab attention, or fool the public.
John has been able to demonstrate no such evidence, and now
essentiallay concedes that he has none.


Jerry Clark