From: Martin Shough <parcellular.nul>
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 18:46:10 +0100
Archived: Wed, 06 May 2009 07:29:01 -0400
Subject: Re: The Screamin' Demon Of Mexico


>From: Alfred Lehmberg <alienview.nul>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
>Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 07:52:08 -0500
>Subject: Re: The Screamin' Demon Of Mexico

>Surely you must be aware that this is a glass appropriately
>turned on yourself, Mr. Harney. You don't have to be a "credulous
>believer" to regard yourself, perhaps, as - to put it politely -
>a somewhat unreliable source of information on UFOs and
>mysterious animals. See, for example:

>http://ufologie.net/htm/ellsworth53harney.htm

>Your reference to a legitimacy for Condon, et al, is simply
>appalling and does you _massive_ discredit.

I have to agree with Alfred that the Condon Report evaluation of
this classic case (Bismark-Rapid City) is poor and highly
suspect.

I say this reluctantly because I corresponded with Thayer on
other matters during the 1980s and found him a sharp and
objective analyst who was highly critical of Condon and not at
all prejudiced (it seemed to me) against anomalies. He told me
that he had written up his radar chapter with the conscious
intent of striking a sceptical and hard-headed tone, and that
the residue of unknowns, which he thought was quite impressive,
would speak for itself. Of course he was famously and
disgracefully misrepresented by Condon in the Report, and I know
he was angry about it.

Nevertheless, it's hard to interpret some statements in his
account of the Bismark-Rapid City case as other than calculated
misrepresentation by himself - for example:

"The second pilot, upon being interviewed by Dr. Hynek, stated
that he felt he had been chasing a star, although there were
some aspects of the appearance of the object that disturbed him"

The BB acount says:

'The second pilot gave the impression of being "on the ball". He
obviously was trying to convince himself the light was a star,
but was having difficulty. He took a realistic approach and had
done some logical reasoning. He was worried about the fact that
the light moved relative to the stars.' Thayer also invokes a
ghost reflection to explain what Ruppelt reports as a constant 3
mile target separation from the second pursuing F-84, but this
is physically impossible if the plane was really being vectored
onto and pursing a moving target since a ghost with a constant
separation from the primary reflector (aircraft) must mean a
constant range from the aircraft to a secondary ground
reflector, so the plane would have to be a in a 3-mile orbit
around the latter and in that case could not have been visually
chasing (or even "pacing" as Thayer puts it) a star.

However the BB report summary (Status Report 12, Page 20 to 23)
is a bit vague in some respects and doesn't explicitly support
some of the claims in Ruppelt's personal account, such as the
repeated cross-checking between ground radar controller and the
first F-84 pilot with ground radar always showing the UFO
accelarate away at the same time as the pilot saw it recede
visually:

'The pilot would notice that the light was getting brighter, and
he'd call the controller to tell him about it. But the
controller's answer would always be the same, "Roger, we can see
it on the scope."'

Impressive, but the BB account says that the ground radar got
only "four good blips" from the UFO during the NW pursuit by the
F-84. If true then Ruppelt's account could not be accurate.

On the other hand, this pursuit reportedly lasted from 15 miles
range to 70 miles from the radar site, which even at cruise
speed for the F-84 (475mph) would take about 7 minutes, or about
42 sweeps of the radar even for the slowest likely surveillance
scan rate of 6rpm (I don't know what type radar this was). In
fact Ruppelt says that the controller was using sector-scan at
the time and "moved the sector scan to the NE quadrant" where
ther target was first picked up. If sector scan was being used
the update rate on the scope is going to be several times as
fast as that. So if they only got "four good blips" in about 7
mins or more this would be scarcely even a "track" at all. Does
this mean that the ground radar evidence is much poorer than
suggested (the BB summary does say the Controller's objectivity
may have been suspect)? Or does it mean that the summary's "four
blips" is misleading or inaccurate? I don't know, I haven't
studied the complete original BB file but will make a point of
doing so ASAP.


Martin Shough



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