Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Scully vindication?

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The [controversial] 1963 Shklovskii memo (online at our web-site) seems to authenticate the 1948 Aztec, New Mexico flying saucer crash storied by Frank Scully in his 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers.

(The Aztec incident is a small part of Scully’s book, and is always taken out of context.)

Shklovskii’s memo and response from the United States Army acknowledges an event near Aztec, in 1948. As you can see from the Shklovskii material, the hints about that event being abnormal are palpably interesting. But that discussion is ongoing elsewhere….

Here we’d like to note that Frank Scully was not a journalist easily duped. Moreover, when the government wanted to (and wants to) discredit persons spewing ideas or engaging in activity anathema to the prevailing propaganda or Machiavellian-inspired mores of the times, the government, like that of the U.S.S.R., either accused the renegades (and sometimes incarcerated them: Wilhelm Reich) of crimes against the laws of the state, as they did successfully with Al Capone when they couldn’t nab him on a murder rap or locked them up in a psychiatric facility.

Silas Newton, and Leo Gebauer, the alleged Aztec mavericks according to ufologists, were accused of fraud but received suspended sentences after a trial for swindling.

Frank Scully went to his death insisting the story about Aztec in his book was authentic. Scully wasn’t senile, and there are enough government machinations regarding Aztec that the tale has legs…spindly legs, but legs nonetheless. (See Nick Redfern and Karl Pflock’s take on Aztec, which can be found at various internet venues, using Google.)

Can Aztec obtain credibility at this late stage of ufological inquiry? Maybe, since Aztec has as many bona fides as Roswell, and maybe more, considering how beclouded Roswell has become by the insertions and intrusions of ufological poseurs and outright con men and women.

But the most important element of the Aztec “crash” is Frank Scully’s inherent credibility no matter how the government or ufologists downplay or even dismiss it.

And with that 1963 admission by the Army that an event – one not made public then (or now) – did occur near Aztec, one can assert that Scully did yeoman journalism and got nothing from his endeavor but scorn and opprobrium.

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More to come….

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Edward U. Condon Affair

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Back in 1967, the founder of the UFO Group and his minions challenged the appointment of Edward U. Condon to head up the Colorado University UFO study for the United States Air Force.

The concern was that Condon had lost an earlier security clearance (because of Communist leanings and affiliations) and would have access to Top Secret government documents and material.

Had the effort been successful, the UFO study would have been given to someone else and the results changed for the better (as far as “ufology” goes).

Here are the documents pertaining to the thrust to oust Condon at the time:

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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Orthoteny lives!

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Aime Michel’s hypothesis that flying saucers travel(led) in straight lines was and is a fascinating concept, discounted by some but never really examined thoroughly by scientists or “ufologists.”

But here is an experimental model you can try for yourself, if you believe that UFOs still exist and still show up now and again in the firmament.

When a (supposed) UFO is spotted, one can expect a second sighting two days later, somewhere.

But if you plot the distance between the two sightings, you can determine where a third sighting will take place by doubling the distance between the first two sightings, along a straight line extended from the first two sightings.

And you can determine the time of the third sighting because it will happen seven or eleven days after the second sighting.

(Why the third sighting takes place seven or eleven days after the second sighting, or the second sighting two days after the first sighting is not clear by any means; it just is the case.)

Yes, this is not quantum measurement since, as Heisenberg postulated, one cannot know, simultaneously, both the exact position and speed (momentum) of a quantum artifact.

In the orthotenic equation here, quantum is eschewed and classical physics, or a simple mathematical model, are employed.

(Some UFO events are not quantum events, as we’ve indicated elsewhere.)

The orthoteny principle of Michel works and can be tested. Unfortunately, “ufologists’ are short on testing hypotheses and long on rant-filled, non-substantive refutation when their belief systems are challenged or questioned.

Nonetheless, Aime Michel was on to something, and a disciplined scrutiny of UFO sightings – those that are apparently still occurring – will follow the pattern(s) outlined here.