Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Don Ecker Quits UFO Research

Word has reached me, meaning that Don Ecker called me, to tell me that he was quitting the UFO business. He had been around it for more than twenty years and probably a lot longer as an interested party. He served as the Director of Research for the US version of UFO Magazine for a number of years and was key in exposing some of the biggest UFO frauds. Even when the magazine seemed to endorse the ridiculous stories of some claimed witnesses, Don would write companion pieces explaining why he, at least, was not taken with a specific tale.

In a long paper that he published recently, Ecker wrote:

One thing that I’ve discovered being in this field for 20 years is a very simple truth, but a truth that is most profound. Most "researchers" are ignorant of what has happened previously in the field of UFO research. They are ignorant of the claims made in the past, ignorant of past hoaxes perpetrated by "players" in the field and are intolerant of views that conflict with their deep seated erroneous beliefs. Quite frankly, I’ve grown tired of this field.

I’m tired of the media that is blinded by their prejudice about UFOs, their snide and condescending remarks about something that quite frankly they know nothing about. I’m tired of people claiming to be researchers that refuse to accept the truth about something regardless of how many times it jumps up and bites them in the ass. I’m tired of government agencies that continuously lie about a subject that has shown to be something real and even possibly affect our national security … and getting away with it for over 60 years. I’m tired of believers that become upset when their fuzzy illogic is shown to be as full of holes as Swiss Cheese. I’m tired of frauds and clowns in this field that are shown to be frauds and clowns and yet still are treated like they are stars with something important to say. I suppose you could just say I’m tired of all of it.

20 years ago I thought that genuine study, research and investigation might make a difference. Alas!! I was most profoundly wrong! Today (even though I most certainly believe this is a genuine and legitimate subject of study and UFOs must come from somewhere), I have had enough! So, this is my goodbye from the wonderful and wacky field of UFOs. For any of you that, through the years, have found any of my writing on the subject to be of interest … thank you. It has been an up and down thing, this UFO enigma. However, if you are a believer in Bill Cooper, Mel Noel, Billy Meier, Project Serpo, or benevolent ET’s from the Pleiades here to show us a better way … or possibly how to build a better mouse trap … preferably a humane one, I’m sure you will be glad to see my exit … on stage right. So with that in mind I now make my exit. Thanks, because if nothing else … this has been an interesting but frustrating 20 years.

We see that Ecker’s paper tells of his years fighting the nonsense in the field and of the personal toll that sometimes takes. Although he doesn’t point it out specifically, this field, like much found in academia, is contentious, with claims and counterclaims thrown about, allegations of all sorts, and when that fails, then it moves into the legal arena, or more often, threats of legal action with no follow up.

I understand much of what Ecker says. I have been threatened with lawsuits for years and used to count the days in each new year until the first threat of a lawsuit was made. One year it was in early January.

This comes with disagreements and perceived slights. Stan Friedman once complained that in the acknowledgment section of my first book on Roswell, I had given Robert Hastings more lines that I had given him. I mean, who counts the number of lines in an acknowledgment?

But it does demonstrate one of the problems with UFO research and that is the ego of the researcher. We fight with one another in the fashion that O.C. Marsh used to fight with Edward Drinker Cope in the early days of dinosaur hunting. They would lie about their finds, collect specimens and then dynamite the fossil beds so that others couldn’t find them or excavate them and called each other all sorts of names. It did nothing to further the research and hindered it many times. Ufology should look at these "Dinosaur Wars" and try to learn from them.
So, in Ufology, we simply smear those with whom we disagree. I have been labeled, in recent weeks as a liar, poor researcher, incompetent and a fraud. In the past, I have been called a government agent and one misguided person even reported that I had worked with Hector Quintanilla, he once the chief of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, on some kind of recovery team. Of course, when Quintanilla was leading Blue Book, I was in high school, but such facts do nothing to defuse the situation.

To give you a feel for how this works, back in 1988, Don Schmitt, then the Director of Research at the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, invited me to join them in a project about Roswell. They planned to look at the evidence and search for witnesses who might not have been interviewed during the initial research. Remember, Schmitt asked me, because of my military background, to assist them. I agreed.

Imagine my surprise in the mid-1990s, when my partner was telling people that he suspected I was a government agent planted on him. He refused to supply people with my contact information when they asked for it and kept convention bookings for himself, telling the hosts that I wouldn’t be available. This is how it is in Ufology all too often. Partners working at what turns out to be opposite goals.

I can point to other examples but why bother? The story is sad and those who have called convention or lecture sponsors to attempt to steal the bookings know who they are. It can be documented. It has been but then, no one seems to pay attention to these underhanded tactics as long as the researcher says what the people want to hear. Often times the truth gets left behind.

What this demonstrates is simply, as many have said, we eat our young. We turn on one another so that we can move to the top of the heap in a field in which the heap is small and so often ignored. But fight for that top place we do, and this, I think, explains some of what Don Ecker was talking about in his article. He has grown tired of the infighting that benefits no one except the skeptics.

Which leads to another point that Ecker made. He wrote, "One thing that I’ve discovered being in this field for 20 years is a very simple truth, but a truth that is most profound. Most ‘researchers’ are ignorant of what has happened previously in the field of UFO research. They are ignorant of the claims made in the past, ignorant of past hoaxes perpetrated by ‘players’ in the field and are intolerant of views that conflict with their deep seated erroneous beliefs."

The example I think of here is the Mantell case. I believe that most of the old time researchers realize that Captain Thomas Mantell, a transport pilot during the Second World War, and who had just transitioned into fighters in 1947, was killed in a tragic accident. Mantell, asked to attempt to identify an object seen over the Godman Army Air Field at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, died when his F-51 crashed.

We now know, based on the files released by the Air Force, by the statements of those involved, research by Robert Todd, Jerry Clark and a dozen others, that Mantell climbed too high and blacked out due to oxygen starvation. His aircraft, trimmed to climb, continued upward to about 30,000 feet where the torque of the engine and the thin air conspired to pull the aircraft over, into a power dive. The aircraft was seen to begin to break up at about 20,000 feet. Mantell died in the crash.

The object he was chasing was a skyhook balloon which was part of a classified project in 1948. Descriptions released with the declassification of the Project Blue Files seem to confirm this. The answer, tragically, is that Mantell was trying to reach a balloon that was at 80,000 feet, way above him.

Today, we begin to argue about the case again. There are those who believe there was something more here. Mantell was chasing an alien space craft and regardless of the evidence, will not be persuaded otherwise. So, we waste more time and effort on a case, tragic though it was, that is only tangentially connected to UFOs. For those interested in the full treatment of the case see:

and scroll down to the segment about Mantell. All the information is there so that the reader can decide if Mantell was chasing a craft from another world or if he was chasing a balloon.
Ecker continued in this vein, writing:

As most reading this will know, Birne’s [meaning William Birne who is now the publisher of UFO magazine] was co-author with Phil Corso of the blockbuster "The Day After Roswell." However Birne’s is an academic and writer where I was a researcher and investigator. They began allowing previously verboten bullshit spewing airbags into the magazine that in my opinion don’t have a clue nor could they buy a vowel.

So, what are they doing in UFO? Birne’s feels that regardless, all should have a say and then let the public decide. I most strongly disagree with that position. (For example, there is a vocal minority claiming that the NASA Moon landings were done on a studio stage, and the entire Moon Program was a government disinformation program. Should we give these morons a public position in the magazine?) If one strives to be the publication of record in this confusing field, one has to be willing to separate the wheat from the chaff. As I write this paper, the most recent egregious example of slip shod editorial decisions was allowing one wind-bag columnist to revisit one of the biggest hoaxes in recent memory by allowing the inclusion of the ‘Dulce alien base shoot out with U.S. Forces in 1979!’ (With neither Birnes wife especially, or Birnes being aware of the last 20 odd years of UFO history, this type of egregious error is routinely made.) This came from the John Lear/ Paul Bennowitz disinformation all the way back to 1987, and has been effectively shown to be total crap!
Which means that some, unaware of the history of these stories will now accept them because there have been printed again without commentary. The bright spot is that with the Internet, some will try to learn more and will find the controversy that rages, though, in my mind, there is no real controversy. We know, as Ecker said, this is "total crap!"
So, we see that nothing in Ufology changes. We see that old cases are repeated as if newly discovered and that solid explanations are ignored because the mystery is more important than the truth. As some in the news media say, "Why ruin a good story with the facts?"

Don, I at least, am sorry to see you go. Voices of reason are too few in this field and the clouds of deceit and confusion far too many. The commentaries offered by you put some of this into perspective and now we’ve lost that. I hope that, at some point, you’ll return and that we’ll have another voice for reason because, without that, the bad guys win.
(Note: In the latest issue of UFO they only report that both Don and Vicki Ecker have decided to retire from the field...)
The whole of Ecker's article can be seen at:
And a thanks to Don Ecker for forwarding the link.

12 comments:

Doc Conjure said...

Sad. With losing so many researchers to the reaper this year, to have a good one voluntarily leave the field is even more depressing.

Is Ufology dead or dying? Even abductees are claiming encounters have either stopped or diminished significantly.

Perhaps the O'Hare sighting in November was of an exit rather than a visit.

Alfred Lehmberg said...

"...Most "researchers" are ignorant of what has happened previously in the field of UFO research."

All respect to Mr. Ecker a man burdened, as many of us are, with earnest sincerity.

The statement presumes a nebulous fault upon the sneer-quoted "researcher" as the major hurdle to a ufological renaissance of funded interest by the scientific mainstream, say.

Also presumed are the, I must protest, "earnestnesses" (real sneer quotes) of corporate bodies , contested governments, criminal departments of law enforcement, dark-side alphabet agencies, and errant religious institutions... to do the right thing if approached rationally, logically, and sensibly about UFOs, for example.

Sirs, the whole of officialdom works against that which shall not submit to the control of same. It abhors that which shall not be measured, counted, predicted, accounted for, or profitably employed. Moreover, Officialdom employs egregious mechanisms to defuse works of best practice to the aforementioned ends... as we know.

It is this which generates the informational void-with-no-attention-span protested, I submit. Officialdom, largely, and not we individuals burdened with the sincerity alluded to, that hinders the investigation, insults aggregate intelligence, and keeps us in the decided and duplicitous dark about fortean things.

It is easier to blame the individual and not them "officiating..."
...but culture and society have a duty to improve and respect the individual, if only because society and culture are improved and respected in turn. They don't hold up their end on that score... and then have the bland if impertinent arrogance to _pronounce_ on that which it helps to deny, decry, or fallaciously obviate.

There's your enemy of reason, I expect.

alienview@roadrunner.com
> www.AlienView.net
>> AVG Blog -- http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/
>>> U F O M a g a z i n e -- www.ufomag.com

LesleyinNM said...

I would like to read the entire article, but you provided no link and didn't say where it was published. Can you post the link?

Laura Knight Jadczyk said...

Very sad that Don has given up, but I sure do understand why!

I would like to post some thoughts about the crucial importance of the study of UFOs and aliens that I hope will emphasize what UFO research has lost. Don is absolutely right that most so-called "researchers" are abysmally ignorant of previous work, not just in the UFO field itself, but in those areas that could help to bring light to the subject.

I often tell people that of all people who never wanted to know anything at all about UFO’s and aliens, I deserve a place at the head of the line. I spent 25 years as a mother, social worker, hypnotherapist, and seeker of knowledge. At the age of 41, I thought I had things pretty well sorted out. There was, of course, a line beyond which I would not go and that line was between my categories and UFOs/aliens. In my world, people who “believed in” UFOs were geeks who believed in little green men and who probably wore plastic pocket protectors, coke-bottle glasses, and kept Mad Magazine rolled up in their back pockets.

In short, I was a flaming skeptic about aliens. I had spent so much time poking around in people’s heads in therapeutic contexts, that, with only a cursory examination of the issue, I’d decided that sightings and claims of abductions were strikingly similar to past life dramas. After reading Whitley Strieber’s Gothic book “Communion” and Ruth Montgomery’s patently ridiculous “Aliens Among Us,” I refused to give any serious consideration to the subject. The stories were so crazy I simply could not consider them to be real in any context other than as useful metaphors for subconscious conflicts.

At the same time, I was trying to keep an open mind from a clinical and scientific viewpoint. I wasn’t sure that our whole existence, as we perceived it, wasn’t simply a series of chemical reactions in the brain of the Cosmic Dreamer.

In short, stories of aliens and abductions seemed an archetypal drama of the subconscious mind. I called it the Millennial Disease, and saw it as a form of mass hysteria. I attributed the physical scars and traces of abduction to stigmata-like effects, or poltergeist type events. Clearly, there was very little about UFOs and aliens that couldn’t be explained by these theories.

And that was were things stood until I (along with 4 of my 5 children) experienced a sighting of such strangeness that I still shake my head to think of how it all transpired. (This story is covered in Thomas French’s article about my work as a hypnotherapist: “The Exorcist in Love” on the St. Petersburg (FL) website.)

At that point I was galvanized to begin researching the subject. The thing that drove me was the realization that here was a phenomenon that was NOT factored into all of my carefully constructed categories of reality (which were pretty liberal, I can tell you!) I realized with a sense of absolute horror that I’d spent years studying and digging for answers, only to have it all trashed in one night by a stupid black boomerang.

And that’s when the real weirdness began. And all kinds of questions. What kind of madhouse had I opened my eyes to see? Was the fact that I had seen it the very source of its existence? I was truly passing through the valley of the shadow of death. I had thoroughly convinced myself that UFOs and aliens could not possibly exist. Upon seeing the thing itself with my own eyes, I had pronounced it to be a flock of geese.

What I knew that the average person does not know (and this was because of my work and research in the paranormal) was that down through the ages people have been visited by all sorts of strange beings. Some of these creatures have been utterly fantastic in description as well as activity. By far the most common type, however, have been humanoid - having some semblance to the human physical configuration - although their powers have been distinctly super-human.
I had read stories going back hundreds of years that told of these humanoid beings.

A creature with strange, glowing or compelling eyes comes in the night and somehow drains the energy, blood, or life force from a victim unable to call out for help and paralyzed in body and mind. Their presence often is heralded by unusual lights or freezing temperatures. The strange beings have powers that include the ability to disappear, to fly, to control weather, to direct the behavior of animals, to change into the form of animals, to pass through solid objects. The beings can produce hybrid offspring by having sex with their victims.

This belief in supernatural beings is to be found in every society around the world, a common theme in all religions as well as folklore. The reports are as frequent in our own day as they have ever been. And the numbers and types of visitors are legion. I realized that this historical assessment was quite consistent with the UFO and alien abduction situation. There is a tradition stretching back thousands of years, of otherworldly beings abducting humans and their children.

Along with most rationalists, I had always considered these stories to be “psycho-dramas,” or “artifacts of consciousness”. The study of anomalous experiences, the paranormal, and related psycho-spiritual fields has occupied many of the brightest minds of our race for millennia. Endless theories and their variations have been proposed to explain them and, for the most part, such ideas are even behind most of the world’s religions.

Jacques Vallee’s control system hypothesis is interesting in this regard. He writes:

“I believe there is a system around us that transcends time as it transcends space. The system may well be able to locate itself in outer space, but its manifestations are not spacecraft in the ordinary ‘nuts and bolts’ sense. The UFOs are physical manifestations that cannot be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we see in effect here is not an alien invasion. It is a control system which acts on humans and uses humans.”

The very idea that this might be a reality that dominated or controlled our own was staggering. What made the problem so terrifying was the fact that my studies and experiences in working with “spirit attachment” and demonic possession were reflected in the so-called UFO and alien phenomena.

The fact that modern alien abductions mirror demonic infestation and vampirism is part of a historical pattern. This, according to Vallee, implies a pattern maker.

The first thing I noticed in deeply studying this phenomenon was that some encounters with alleged entities - and even just sightings - seem accidental, but others clearly are directed at a specific person. This led me to wonder whether the seemingly accidental encounters were as accidental as they appeared to be.

In such a case, I had to ask again: did the manifestation occur in response to some hidden need, a psychological state that calls for outside intervention of some kind?

French ufologist Jean-Francois Boeded, in his book Fantastiques recontres au bout du monde (1982), suggests that UFO sightings start long before the actual experience. He noted many cases in which the witnesses had premonitions that something was about to happen, or for some reason they went home by a different route, or took an unaccustomed walk. Somehow, it seems, the witnesses were being prepared for the experience they were about to undergo. In many cases, the abductee claims there is a sensation of a presence before an actual encounter takes place.

I can’t say that any such “premonition” occurred in my experience. But that may simply be due to a lack of sensitivity or awareness to certain subtle clues. Perhaps my rational approach acted as a barrier?

However, Boedad has a point. Many so-called “attached entities” I conversed with during spirit release hypnosis claim that their host was chosen “before he was born”. In most cases, a line of contact and the gradually building assault can be traced back to childhood. It can be said, in general, that the process of possession has already begun before the target or those around him are aware of the signs.

Again, this flew in the face of many religious and philosophical teachings.

Many “abductees” have reported that their abductors were benevolent beings. At the same time, other abductees reporting “abductions”, when the surface or screen memories have been probed in a competent way, reveal memories of events so chilling in their implications that the first interpretation must be looked at carefully. The fear evoked in these experiences is tangible. Yet, these other beings somehow convince that all they do is for “the good of the planet” or “the enhancement of our race”. These stories seemed designed to perpetuate a dangerous and cunning lie.

In my examination of the standard religions as well as the many and varied New Age teachings, I saw these systems being used as the very means of propagating such a lie. I could see individuals with no extensive knowledge of historical metaphysics being fooled by a belief in the “benefits” of alien abduction. We repeatedly see terms describing “light” or related phenomena.

Even the esteemed John E. Mack seemed to have been taken in by such a view. This view is rooted in emotional beliefs that cling desperately to any straw offered that those more powerful than we are “good”.

After several years of study, I began to realize: “The Alien presence on our planet is real. Those who choose to close their eyes to this reality do so at their own peril.” And I was terrified.

If there is a psycho-spiritual or even literally physical “invasion” taking place before our very eyes, under our very noses, represented in the symbolic system of our lives and experiences, interacting with this “control system” at some deep level, what kind of protection do we have?

Well, in thinking about it deeply, it does appear that these beings - whatever they turn out to be - can plunder our world, our lives and our very minds at will. But I also have observed that they seem to be going to an awful lot of trouble to conceal their activities and to confuse observers with hundreds of crazy stories of different “races” and groups of semi-mythological “good guys and bad guys”.

Many people who think they are psychic, have prophetic “dreams” or visions, channel “space brothers,” are contacted by beings who are here to “help” us or to “save us” if only we will let them, or have other psychic experiences may, in fact, be unconscious “agents” of this control system. These stories are spread around, increasing the level of confusion. But the greatest deception of all is the idea that negative forces do not exist. And even if negative forces did exist, there’s no need to worry. If we just think nice thoughts, meditate regularly, and repeat our affirmations, nothing icky will ever enter our reality.

We are not dealing with materialistic, earth-based technology here! For God’s sake, these critters walk through walls, float people out of their bodies and control minds - the abilities we have historically attributed to angels or demons or vampires.

In the past, we dealt with ghosts and “gods” and demons. We are dealing with the same entities now, only we are calling them “aliens”. They probably always WERE “aliens!” And maybe they want to be “gods” again.

One thing I knew for sure from hypnotherapy for many years, evil insinuates itself into our lives in the guise of goodness and truth. This problem is made even worse by the acceptance of the New Age teaching that “evil” simply does not exist unless an individual “creates” it in their reality. Evil follows the line of erosion of our free will through the erosion of knowledge. What better way to protect evil activities than to deny that they exist?

The New Age types say that putting one’s attention on these ideas “gives them energy”. This is true only if one focuses in this way with the intention of participation. However, a comprehensive understanding of these forces is absolutely necessary in order to know how to give them less energy.

It was a stunning and grotesque prospect for me to consider that humanity, as a whole, has been used and cunningly deceived for millennia. The UFO and alien business is truly nothing new. We have historical records of these phenomena stretching back thousands of years. If these beings could get what they want simply by moving in and taking it, would they spend so much time creating terror and confusion?

Alternatively, perhaps the terror and confusion is exactly what they want to generate because they feed on it. But that makes me also wonder why they are going to so much trouble to persuade us to willingly accept their total control if they could take it at will? These guys would not be spending so much time terrorizing us and trying to sneak in the back door if it were possible for them to walk in directly.

Standing back from the problem in overview, there were the hints of some sort of pattern maker, and it wasn’t God in any sense that I had ever conceived of Him. Yes, I could see both positive actions and negative actions; a dynamic interplay of forces, but exactly what it was, and precisely how it operated, I couldn’t tell. It was like a shadow show where the shadows are produced by certain angles of light behind objects which, when finally revealed, bear no resemblance whatsoever to the form of the shadow.

For those who think it is some kind of secret government program, let me say the following:

If the government is behind all the abductions, surely they would have screwed up at least once in 45 years and we would know that fallible human beings were doing it!

The fact that not one single incident, not one single abduction, not one single purported kidnapping event has ever resulted in a screw-up that led to anyone seeing the “man behind the curtain,” not one, should give us pause to think.

It’s just preposterous to believe that the US government can pull off an enterprise of this kind, with evidence of world-wide activity, for over 50 years, involving possibly millions of individuals, the logistics of which make the machinations of WWII look like the planning for a picnic? I’m sorry. I can’t buy that.

I think that we have to look for a hypothesis that explains and predicts the phenomenon, and part of that hypothesis may be that the nonsense of the “aliens are here to help us” schtick is deliberately planted in the mind of the public for the very purpose of hiding a dreadful and sinister secret.

We can also see that, if the government is not involved, then public officials would be most interested in maintaining the cover-up: to admit that our leaders really are NOT in charge could lead to world-wide chaos and anarchy. If we are, as Charles Fort was wont to say, “property,” if we “belong” to some race of advanced beings who use us for food and resources, then there is no point to anything we believe in at all. It is all a lie; a sham; a grand illusion; an enormous cosmic fraud. Who can live with that thought?

But clearly, we MUST consider it. As I mentioned above, I don’t think we are helpless, but we ARE screwed without accurate knowledge.

KRandle said...

lesley -

Don sent me a long article in Adobe that I believe he planned to publish on the Internet. I looked through it for a reference to his plans but found nothing. I might suggest just "Googling" his name and then emailing him to ask for a copy.

KRandle said...

laura -

With Russ Estes and Bill Cone (a clinical psychologist) I did a book called The Abduction Enigma which looked at the same human history that you write about. And yes, we found many of the same things. We point out that these claims of alien abduction mirror claims in past ages, only the interpretation has changed. You might want to read the book.

Laura Knight Jadczyk said...

KRandle wrote:

"With Russ Estes and Bill Cone (a clinical psychologist) I did a book called The Abduction Enigma which looked at the same human history that you write about. And yes, we found many of the same things. We point out that these claims of alien abduction mirror claims in past ages, only the interpretation has changed. You might want to read the book."

Thanks for the direction. Book is ordered and looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, this oughta give you a chuckle. We received the following email this morning:

Subject: Web Enquiry from arkadiusz-jadczyk.org
Date sent: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 23:34:03 +0200 (CEST)

Name: Avim Ashkenazi
Company: Special Secret Services, -- Israel
Telephone:
emailaddress: kalkorff@kalkorff.com
YourEnquiry: Your wife writes that Col. Korff was not a witness in the OJ Simpson civil case. Truth: Mr. Korff certainly WAS a witness. Col. Korff never claimed he appeared before any judge. Mr. Kimball's claim is dishonest.

I'm sening this email as a friendly "warning" -- we presume you will take steps to promptly CORRECT these false claims your wife made without conducting any diligence.

If you do not do so, I will forward this matter to our legal counsel for immediate action.

We wish to resolve this matter amicably, and avoid informing the media and filing suit.
Sincerely,
Avim Ashkenazi
Adjutant to Colonel Kal Korff -- Warrant Officer, Special Secret Services - Israel
REMOTE_ADDR: 194.79.55.130
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30)
DATE: 23:34:3 2007-8-6

Anniemargret said...

Ufology has not yet grown up. It lacks sophistication and it lacks real substance. After being an earnest student of the UFO phenomenon for over a decade, I am convinced that the charlatans and 'believers' have made mincemeat out of what was once an aspiring and inspiring possibility. That possibility, of course, was that ufology would earn the respect it sincerely needed and deserved. Lacking scientific grounding, and principles, and boundaries, it let in anyone with an opinion and gave them a forum. As a result you have New agers 'channeling' reptilians and others who won't bother to understand that ufology will continue to die unless and until the nonesense is separated from the facts. Theories are fine, as long as they are understood to be theories. But jumping from a theory to belief has muddied the waters so much now that it is even more unlikely that mainstream science will take a real look. I have felt strongly from the get-go that unless mainstream science joins the efforts to unlock the mystery of the UFO, it will sink into the swamp. The media will only take it seriously when science takes it seriously. Ufology has failed to protect its own image. I am disappointed in this, as I had high hopes a decade ago that students of this phenomenon would be further along.

Anonymous said...

really sad see how we lost another expert in this theme, the worst part of this, is nobody can take the place of this men, there's nobody who can do the thing with the same seriously aptitude, only one could be the next to take this place viagra online and no one else.

Unknown said...

Yay!! Boot
Outed buddy

Don't bag Bill Cooper, he was twice the man you were. After listening to you defame him on air and present him as the protagonist of his MURDER when you won't relay the entire story. Go home, this field is better off without your disinfo

Tammy said...

This guy was hardly an expert, he spewed whatever the government wanted. What I find most sicking about him, he had no problem attacking a dead man's character. I guess that way Mr Cooper could not fight back. Is that something they teach you in the CIA?

Dark Lemur said...

"spewed whatever the government wanted"?

Wow. That actually says a lot about these individuals and about the validity of Mr. Ecker's comments. The difference between Ecker and the person who posted that? One treats UFOlogy like a religion, the other like a science. Guess which one is which.

To sum up this entire article: bad science is bad. Period. If you cannot/ will not research the paranormal in the same ways, and to the same standards as any other legitimate science, then UFOlogy will never be a legitimate science.

If you ever want answers, then stay out of the big kids' way. They'll eventually figure it out. Leave your emotions at the door, folks. And pick up a big ol' bag full of scientific method.