X-Zone Broadcast Network - Robert Powell and the SCU*

Robert Powell

This week I spoke to Robert Powell, one of the forces behind a new organization named Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU). According to their press release, and to what Powell told me, the mission is to “conduct, promote and encourage rigorous scientific examination of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as Unidentified Flying Object (UFOs). You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13125719

I did ask about the effect that Tom Delonge’s announcement, made not all that long ago about his organization, would have on the SCU. I learned that they had reached out to Delonge’s group but they had also attempted to incorporate others as well including the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies. Powell said that the emphasis here would be on investigation and the scientific method. That is something that would sometimes get lost by the UFO groups in the past. You can learn about the SCU here:

http://www.explorescu.org/

and here:

https://www.facebook.com/explorescu/

Part of our discussion centered around a UFO incident that involved Navy and Marine fighter pilots from the USS Nimitz. It was the same case that one of those associated with DeLonge had mentioned as well. Radar in one of the ships associated with the Nimitz battle group picked up an unknown object and fighters were directed to intercept. The pilots reported seeing something that resembled a “Tic-Tac,” that was maneuvering near the ship. Addition fighters were launched and the object eventually left the area. You can read the details here:

https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/

We did, during the interview, discuss the difference between UFO and UAP, a notation that goes back to the 1960s. Powell said that UFO didn’t mean spaceship though that was the way it was interpreted by many. I said that I liked the term “flying saucer,” to mean spaceship. There would be no confusion there.

Next week’s guest: Derek Bartholomaus

Topic: Billy Meier

* Thanks to those folks over at the Anomalist for pointing this out to me. I sometimes do that. In Iraq I sometimes referred to the IED as IUD. Don't know why I do this, but hey, we all make mistakes...

Kenneth Arnold and the Null Hypothesis

It has become an article of faith among some that the Kenneth Arnold sighting with its misreported description of a flying saucer is the genesis of modern UFO shape. Arnold had said that the objects he saw moved with a “motion like that of saucers skipping across a pond,” which reporters took to mean that Arnold had seen disk-like objects. Skeptics have pointed out this error, suggesting that Arnold had not seen a disk, but crescent-shaped or heel-shaped craft. Others, coming after Arnold, used this error in their descriptions of UFOs because that was what had been so widely reported. Skeptics said, “Arnold didn't see a saucer--but the press reported that he did and thereafter saucers were pretty much the standard shape for UFO's. Denying the implications of this is just part of the reason that UFO belief falls outside scientific (or rational) interest.”

I had suggested a null hypothesis for this. If we found sighting reports in the months that preceded Arnold that would suggest that some were reporting what they had seen without contamination by the press reports of Arnold’s “flying saucers.” The response to that was:

I don't think so. It's a rather common shape and is documented in earlier science fiction.

It's the huge media frenzy and the resulting reports that followed that suggest that the shape followed the press report. We have no reason to think that all of those reports were anything other than at least the standard ~90% (and I suggest more like 100%) bunk that make up all UFO cases. So among those cases, it is strongly suggested that folks had learned that they should see saucers (not the off bat-wing/half plates that Arnold saw). And they dutifully began to "see" them.

Of course nothing social like this is open and shut and completely clear cut. There very well may have been earlier reports of a saucer shape. I don't think that matters.

I think there is plenty reason, particularly under media induced hysteria. I will mention the famous experiments done in the UK that David Clarke revisits in his excellent new book, "How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth" as rather clear evidence of this.

Again, ignoring or trying to feebly minimize this inconvenient truth hasn't served UFO believers well in trying to get folks outside the myth to take interest.

Or, in other words the null hypothesis was rejected because there were other influences that could account for the reported shape of these objects. The suggestion that it was documented earlier in science fiction might be seen as a corollary to the null hypothesis, or that science fiction images influenced the description of the flying saucers rather than the misreporting in 1947. It seems to me that this would nullify the idea that Arnold’s sighting was the driving force here because you couldn’t have it both ways. Either science fiction was responsible or the reports of Arnold’s flying saucers were.

I made a survey of science fiction magazine covers for the 1940s and didn’t find the saucer shape to be there. I was thinking that most people in the 1940s wouldn’t be reading science fiction and any exposure to the concepts would have come from seeing the magazine covers on the newsstands. When spacecraft were represented, they fell into the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon rockets with tail fins. A saucer shape behind the alien spacecraft just wasn’t seen all that often.

The same can be said for the representations in science fiction movies and serials that would have had a wider audience. The few that had a space theme again fell into the rockets seen in Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon arena. When the saucer

The Day the Earth Stood Still.

shape appeared, it was post Arnold and could be said that the flying saucers being reported influenced the look of alien craft in the movies. The 1950 classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the best examples of this.

I would suggest at this point that one of the null hypotheses has failed. Science fiction did not influence the shape of the objects reported in 1947. There were simply too few, if any, examples of saucers as spacecraft in the literature or the movies. If there was an influence, then the reports would have been of rockets rather than saucers.

That leaves the idea that there were saucers or disks reported prior to Arnold. Looking at the literature, there are many examples. Biron Savage said that he had seen a flat, disk-like object in May 1947. That was documented in the press on June 26, 1947.

And that illustrates the problem for many of those earlier sightings. Project Blue Book mentioned a number of pre-Arnold sightings, but it seems they were reported after Arnold. Any reports that had been gathered prior to Arnold disappeared when the official investigation of UFOs began. (And yes, that can be proven. Sightings mentioned in both Project Sign’s and Project Grudge’s final reports mention sightings that are not found in the Blue Book index but indicate they had been gathered.)

I did find other pre-Arnold sightings that mention disks or saucers. On February 28, a formation of disks was reported near Lake Mead. In March 1947 a Los Angeles woman said that she’d seen a disk. Also in March a disk was seen early in the morning in Putnam, Connecticut. On March 30, two women and a young girl saw several silvery disks. On April 11, a woman watched a disk-shaped object for two minutes. On June 2, a circular object was seen in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Well, you get the point. Many sightings but the problem is that the documentation for these all come from sources published after June 24, 1947.

The exception for this might be the Minczewski case from Richmond, Virginia in April. This is one of those sightings that was apparently investigated by the Army prior to the Arnold sighting. There is no record of it in the Blue Book files, but it is mentioned in the Project Grudge final report. That suggests to me that there would have been documentation for it prior to Arnold but the case file was removed from the “regular” files at some point. In all fairness, I must note that I have found no documentation dated prior to Arnold about this sighting. I merely have a suspicion that it does exist if we could access the proper records… which means we haven’t asked the right agency to review their files.

Without being able to document that these sightings were reported prior to Arnold, it can be said that they were contaminated by the press after Arnold. There is no proof of that, but then, without some sort of documentation, that is a possibility and that means the null hypothesis is unconfirmed at this point. Not that it is in error but it is unconfirmed.

There is another factor in all of this. I noticed, as I surveyed the newspapers from that era that flying saucer or flying disk was used to describe objects even when the witness used other words. In an article headlined, “Carpenter Reports ‘Discs’ in Midwest.” The last line in the article said, “He added that he could not describe the shape of the objects since he could not see them clearly.”

In an article that was headlined, “Flying Saucer Story Grows,” it was reported that George Glover, in Bellingham, Washington, said that he had seen several shiny objects that were shaped like kites. In another sighting reported in that article, the object was described as round, like the sun.

In a case that underscored this point, the article, headlined, “AKRON, O., July 5 (AP) — ‘Flying saucers’ made their appearance here Friday night,” when it was reported, “Dr. Forrest Shaver said the silvery disc he saw ‘looked like a balloon with a light inside.’ Larry E. Hoertz described it as ‘a light with a propelling device.’ Both men said they saw the ‘saucers’ about 8:30 P. M. while driving near Akron.” This suggests that the term had become generic, describing any strange thing in the sky regardless of shape.

In the end, we have a theory, that the error made by reporters in the Arnold case drove the shape of the objects seen in its wake. But what a review of the newspaper articles show is that flying saucer and flying disk became the generic term for all unidentified objects including those that were not circular or round. A review of the literature shows that many of the reports were of lights in the sky, bright flashes of light that had no shape behind them, star-like objects, streaks of light and cigar-shaped objects.

What is interesting is the claim that even if it was proven that saucer-shaped craft were seen prior to Arnold, it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters because it nullifies the theory that people saw saucers because that was what was reported by the press after Arnold.

As it stands right now, the null hypothesis is unconfirmed and the theory is unproven. Additional information and documentation can solve this riddle but it will take some in depth research. My survey of newspaper articles wasn’t as extensive as it could have been, but even though limited, I found many examples suggesting shapes other than saucer and articles that mentioned “disk sightings” but the object see was not disk shaped.

This discussion seems to be one that we all could end by simply surveying the newspaper articles from June 24 to July 9 (when the press seemed to mostly stop reporting saucers at the request of the Army and Navy). One of the places to begin would be Ted Bloecher’s Report on the Wave of 1947. We can actually apply some science here and reach an intelligent and proper conclusion.

Another Mishmash of Fact

I know that I said I was done with responding to Kal Korff, and I know that when I watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I get tired of his rants about Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, but sometimes it’s just so much fun.

Take the latest rant. He quotes from one of my books and goes into a typical rant.

The quotes that annoy him so much are these:

Marcel said about the debris, "I’d never seen anything like that. I didn’t know what we were picking up." He said that some of the debris was thin as newsprint, feather light but so strong they couldn’t dent it or burn it. He described foil-like material, I-beams, and "...other stuff there that looked very much like parchment that didn’t burn.'"

Marcel was so impressed by what he had seen that he stopped at his house on the way back to the base. He wanted his wife and son to see the debris. When Jesse Marcel, Jr. saw the strange material, he asked his father what it was. Marcel, Sr. "It’s a flying saucer."

Marcel, Jr. Said that he saw some foil material that was thicker than lead foil and that was much stronger. He mentioned the I-beams which seemed to be made out of layered foil and that was embossed with writing. Marcel Jr. described the writing as, "Purple. Strange. Never saw anything like it.

He then says, "Well, no folks, he didn’t say it was a flying saucer. They didn’t use that word back then. They said flying disk. That’s it."

Here is the front page of the Roswell Daily Record for July 8, 1947. Clearly it says, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region."

The next day, the headline reads, "Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer."

In case you think that it was only in Roswell that they used that term, though it certainly proves my case because it shows the term in use in Roswell, here, from the Des Moines Register of July 4, 1947, "Army Probes ‘Flying Saucer’ Stories."

And from the Herald American (Syracuse, New York) "Flying Saucers Reported By Scores in 28 States."

So where did he get the idea that they didn’t use the term flying saucer in July 1947? I found lots more examples, so clearly they did.

The other part of the quote that sets him off is the term I-beam. He says that Marcel didn’t use that term and in fact, Marcel said that his son got it wrong.

Well, looking at the interview that Linda Corley did with Jesse Marcel, Sr. in 1981 (and not available until after 1993), it appears that Marcel did say that during her interview. At least it seems that way. Marcel drew a picture of the cross section of one of the smaller members and it is rectangular. If you look at the "I-beam" that Marcel, Jr. had made, you see that it is nearly rectangular as well. Yes, there is a "I" shape to it, but the top and bottom cross beams are small.

And something that Korff fails to report is that Corley said when she shared her tapes with Stan Friedman, she had to go back to create transcripts because the tapes, sitting on a shelf, had degraded quite a bit. They were difficult to understand and Corley had to interpret the words and phrases, so it’s possible that the senior Marcel wasn’t quite as positive as Korff and others now believe.

Korff goes on to say, "Jesse Marcel, Jr., he claims he saw an I-beam and he’s the only one who did... And his father Jesse Marcel, Sr. says, ‘No.’"

According to Korff, "Jesse [Jr.] got that wrong. He was a little boy. He was only 11 years old... No other Roswell witness reported I-beams at all. None. Zero."

Except, of course, for Robert Shirkey, who, in January 1990, in a personal interview described the scene as some of the debris was carried through the Operations building. In a telephone interview, Shirkey said, "Marcel was carrying a box that had the I-beams sticking up in one corner...

Much later, Steve Lytle, in an interview conducted with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey, used the term I-beams.

And another witness Jack Trowbridge said, "It was aluminum in appearance. There were fragments of aircraft skin, or whatever the thing was and also some girders with pictures of hieroglyphics..."

So, Korff goes off on a tangent here, claims that no one else ever mentioned the I-beams and yet, without much effort, I was able to locate two additional witnesses. Trowbridge doesn’t say "I-beam," but does say girders, which can be construed as an I-beam-like structure and that runs the score to three.

Finally, in this latest mishmash, Korff said, "The U.S. government did launch one [Mogul balloon] to spy on the Soviets..."

This isn’t quite right either. Yes, the purpose of Mogul was to spy on the Soviets, but they could never keep the balloons aloft long enough for them to drift over the Soviet Union, and the coming of the spy planes, and much later, satellites, did in the need for Mogul. It just never worked the way it was supposed to.

The real reason that I’m forced to post this here is that Korff, in his YouTube rants, disables the comments section. No one has the opportunity to suggest that maybe he’s off base on his claims. Had I been able to comment on YouTube, I would have done this there.

Once again I apologize for dragging you all along with me on this, but then, sometimes it is fun to see how badly he muffs the ball.

This will be the last time for a response to Korff here. There is a marvelous little blog at http://www.kalisanidiot.blogspot.com/ and I’ll try to get the host there to post any more responses I feel are needed. Maybe I should just let it go because no matter what Korff says, when all the facts are presented, the story is different than he says, sometimes wildly so.