From: Brad Sparks <RB47x.nul>
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 05:21:36 EDT
Fwd Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 08:34:53 -0400
Subject: Re: UFOs And Scott Van Wynsberghe - Sparks


>From: Chris Rutkowski <canadianuforeport.nul>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:24:31 -0500
>Subject: UFOs And Scott Van Wynsberghe

>From: canadianuforeport.nul
>To: letters.nul
>Subject: Re: UFOs and Scott Van Wynsberghe
>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:29:02 -0500

>Letter to the editor, re: Sixty Years Later, We're Still Alone
>(15 June 2007)

>In response to fellow Winnipegger Scott Van Wynsbeghe's
>editorial about aliens and UFOs, I should like to clarify some
>misconceptions about the search for extraterrestrial life and
>the perceived connection with UFOs.

>As Scott correctly points out, the term "flying saucer" was
>coined by a journalist, not Kenneth Arnold, the witness to the
>observed object in 1947. But it has been the media which has
>carried the ball, continuing the association between UFOs and
>aliens ever since, demonstrated effectively in Scott's article.

Very good point.

>The reality is that people around the world continue to observe
>and report unusual objects in the skies overhead, many of which
>do have prosaic explanations. Scott notes a value of 88% of
>Canadian UFO sightings in 2006 as the percentage of cases that
>are explained, citing my own research. As clearly categorized in
>The Annual Canadian UFO Survey, this value is actually the
>combination of explained cases, cases with possible explanations
>and those with insufficient data to allow explanations....

Very bad point. With all due respect this is a good example of
Scott's (actually real culprit and virulent debunker Curtis
Peebles') point 8: "UFO activists are their own worst enemies."

This statistic is false debunker propaganda which we UFO
researchers have uncritically swallowed for far too long. The
standard propaganda spiel is that 95% (or 99% or 88% or whatever
the hell the figure of the day happens to be) of all 'UFO'
sightings are explained or explainable as IFOs therefore the
tiny remainder of 5% (or whatever) unidentifieds are just IFOs
too, as if they are no different, just low-quality junk reports
of no scientific significance or value.

As I have posted innumerable times this is a statistical and
definitional trick, an old Project Blue Book scam that Ruppelt
invented in late 1952, when he decided that his staff would look
better in Pentagon briefings if he just merged the "Probable"
and "Possible" IFO categories with the very small Known IFOs
that he was coming up with.

Only about 11% were coming out as Known IFOs, which technically
means that about 89% were possible or definite UFO's, which is a
shocking reversal of the debunker lie that most sightings are
explainable IFOs (it's a knowing, willful lie, they know
exactly what they are doing). But if BB just lumped all the
Possibles and Probables together with Known IFOs and not tell
anyone they were changing definitions then it would look like BB
was 'solving' about 90% (later 95%) of the cases, even though
most of that was the product of sheer guesswork not actual
investigation. That looks better than only 'solving' 11% of the
cases.

But in fact most of these BB cases should neither be IFO or UFO
because they were not competently investigated or even
investigated at all. Nevertheless because many highly competent
AF activities sent in good reports that they - not BB -
competently investigated, and many poor-quality indeterminate
reports were sifted out and never sent on to BB, there are still
a huge number of genuine UFO Unknowns in the BB files.

I agree with McDonald's estimate of about 30% to 40% Unknowns in
the BB files. That is why I have worked with Will Wise on the
Blue Book Archive and Fran Ridge on the NICAP website for
several years now to sort out and make public on the Web this
vast and important Air Force UFO material which I consider to be
the number one body of UFO evidence on earth. Not civilian
files.

When we straightjacket ourselves within the narrow deceitful
worldview of the debunkers we 'forget' our best evidence and our
best arguments. Why the hell are we still arguing over damnable
nocturnal lights reported by hyperactive teenagers as if that's
all there is to the UFO phenomenon? Do we not know that PhD
astronomers of the caliber of Lincoln LaPaz, one of the world's
leading meteoriticists of his time, had Daylight Disc UFO
sightings meticulous detail reported?

Do we just overlook the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh and his
multiple-witness sighting? Just junk-heap the instrument
sightings by Los Alamos scientists? Develop amnesia about the
world's leading aircraft designer Kelly Johnson and his
independent Lockheed crew of top engineers and their
triangulated Daylight Disc sighting? Shove under the carpet the
Pentagon R&D director's Daylight Disc sighting with independent
triangulation?

How the hell does the AF missile tracking camera triangulation
cases from White Sands get forgotten in favor of the housewife
sighting a funny light in the sky? Do we really think that a
military case where the UFOs were photographed with tracking
instruments moving from azimuths 86deg 9' 9.2" to 85=B047' 9.2"
and elevations 25deg 48' 0" to 25deg 7'50" over 74 frames (14.6
secs) is in the same caliber with 'I saw a shiny object in the
sky'? Hard scientific quantitative data! Or do we just not
bother to find out about such cases and just grovel in garbage
reports instead?

Most 'UFO' witnesses do not report a quote "UFO" or "flying
saucer" or "alien spaceship."

The UFO label is slapped on by the agency or the Ufologist
collecting the report. Most witnesses report quite correctly and
neutrally an "object" or a "light" and _not_ a quote "UFO".
These are indeterminate sightings and they constitute the vast
bulk of all sightings. They are _not_ UFOs. The witnesses do not
even say they are 'UFOs', for the most part, and the witnesses
are not required to be the PhD scientist investigators of their
own cases - except by debunkers who then seize on the witnesses'
failure to produce PhD-level lab reports on their sightings.

By Hynek's definition, published back in 1972 (and even earlier
but anyone can get hold of his classic 1972 textbook of Ufology,
The UFO Experience) a sighting is not classified as a 'UFO'
until after it has been scientifically and competently
investigated first.

If cases are passed through the Hynek screening then most of
those cases will never be explained as IFOs. In fact some major
prime example IFO cases such as Phil Klass' beloved RB-47 case
have been completely reversed after thorough investigation and
converted into prime example Unexplained UFO cases. See Paul
Kimball's outstanding television documentary Best Evidence. (And
note that I speak as one who rejects the ETH, always have, do
not believe in 'alien visitations', but am willing to look for
and consider evidence for ETH especially if it is scientific
evidence.)

Also Klass' demolition of the 1956 Lakenheath-Bentwaters case as
IFO has now itself been demolished and returned to the UFO
category. See Martin Shough's website for much of the data and
my previous posts.

This is a crucial watershed issue not some hyper-technical
argument. The survival of UFO research hangs in the balance. If
we cannot properly define our own field so that it has some
scientific validity, and not continually vulnerable to the
sophistry of malicious debunkers, then we are doomed. If we let
the debunkers fabricate the fundamental definitions for our own
study then we are doomed.


Brad Sparks



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