X-Zone Broadcast Network - Rob Swiatek (Harzan Scandal)

By a strange coincidence, I had invited MUFON Board Member Rob Swiatek on the show to talk about the history of MUFON and what is happening in the world of UFOs today. Less than twenty-four hours before we sat down, Jan Harzan, MUFON’s Executive Director, was arrested for attempting to engage in sexual

Rob Swiatek

activity with a minor, according to the Huntington Beach Police. That was, of course, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. As Rob mentioned, we could not not talk about it.

I began the show with a brief history of MUFON, starting with its creation in the late 1960s. I mentioned that Walt Andrus, the original International Director but a one time member of APRO, had approached Coral Lorenzen of APRO with the idea that he would organize the field investigators in the Midwest into a network to prevent duplication. This was the genesis of MUFON. Coral Lorenzen was furious about Andrus break with APRO to start his own organization.

After that very brief history, we moved onto the discussion of Harzan and what it meant for MUFON. You can listen to that discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39787151

During the interview, we did get some insight into the reactions of those inside MUFON and on the Board to the police report. It shocked nearly everyone who heard the news. My first reaction was that it was some sort of a hoax, but I made contact with some of those I know in the UFO field. It became clear, quickly, that

Jan Harzan

the information was true and that it had been released on the Huntington Beach Police website. There was a mug shot and a few additional details.

According to Rob, MUFON had prepared for some sort of a catastrophic event at the top before this happened so that there was a plan to pass the leadership to another if necessary. Their thinking, frankly, seemed to be that a natural disaster at MUFON headquarters in California would be the culprit. Leadership would then pass to another at the push of a button. The new Executive Director, selected by the Board in the hours after the news about Harzan broke, was David MacDonald, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

There were those in the UFO community but not necessarily members of MUFON, who wondered if this wasn’t a somewhat tone deaf (a term that will probably offend someone in the world today) move. MacDonald had run, and may still run, an aerial charter service that helped consenting adults join the “Mile High Club.” One of those commenters wondered, “I mean the guy ran a company for aerial sex. Is this going to smooth over the bad publicity over the reprehensible sexual activities of the previous International Director?”

Now, I confess that I’m a little concerned about this rush to judgement because, to be fair, Harzan has not been convicted of anything at this point. Arrest does not translate into guilt. I talked with Rob McConnell and in X-Zone Radio Show a few hours after I had interviewed Rob Swiatek (what are the odds there would be two Robs in this story?) and mentioned this. You can listen to our discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39788045

I think we make it clear that MUFON had no choice, and given the facts as they developed. The accusation was enough to require action by the Board. More to the point, it doesn’t seem as if there is any error in the arrest. Still, Harzan has not been convicted of a crime.

The other thing that has come up, as both Robs and I discussed is that in the last several years, MUFON has been rocked by a number of scandals, from racist rants by state directors, to similar statements held by members of what is called the Inner Circle. I did explore some of this a number of years ago and you can read about some of that here which links to the interview:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/06/x-zone-broadcast-network-jan-harzan-and.html

There was another part of the discussion as well. I was concerned that the mission of MUFON had changed from investigating UFOs to a more business-oriented strategy of filling the corporate coffers. Rob Swiatek said that the mission hadn’t actually changed, but in thinking about it, I believe that it has. Investigation was secondary to creating income streams. In other words, speakers at a recent MUFON Symposium were invited, not for their scientific credibility but for their ability to put butts in the seats. For those who wish to learn a little more about this, you can read some of my thoughts here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/07/are-some-tales-just-too-wild-to-believe.html

For those in the UFO community, the latest scandal, is important even though it has nothing to do with UFO research. When the leadership falls, it sometimes takes everything down with it. This just might be one of those times. There are already rumblings by some of the membership that this was one step too far and some of those have said they will sever their connections to the organization.

Next week I’ll be talking with John Greenewald about Eric Davis and Admiral Wilson. What is the true story here? John has an interesting theory. And, we’ll probably talk about the latest from the AATIP program. If you have questions, let me know in the comments section.

MUFON Board of Directors Statement

For those interested, here is the statement released by the MUFON Board of Directors about this on-going story:

In light of recent events, Jan Harzan has been permanently removed as the Executive Director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

Effective immediately, he will no longer serve any role in the organization.

David MacDonald, Executive Director Emeritus and a member of the MUFON Board of Directors, will now assume the duties of Executive Director. MUFON remains committed to its core mission: the study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity. This mission is greater than any one person or member of MUFON and supersedes all other considerations. We will continue to move forward and focus on our mission statement.

The MUFON Board of Directors

I will have more information later in the day. I will be talking with Rob Swiatec, a member of the board about this and will post a link to the show as soon as it becomes available. I will also be talking with Rob McConnell about this on hi X-Zone Radio Show this evening.

MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan Arrested

Just hours ago, I learned that Jan Harzan, the Executive Director of MUFON, had been arrested on a number of felony charges. He is accused of soliciting a minor “for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.” The Huntington Beach Police Department said that Harzan had been communicating with a girl he believed to be thirteen.

Jan Harzan

According to the police, “"On July 3, detectives contacted a male by the name of Jan Harzan after Harzan solicited sexual activity from a detective he believed was a 13 year old girl. The suspect [Harzan] solicited the minor to meet for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, and when the suspect agreed to meet the supposed minor, detectives were there to take him into custody. [Harzan was] arrested for multiple felonies and transported to the Huntington Beach Jail [for] specifically targeting minor females online."

Harzan had been the Executive Director of MUFON since 2013 and had shifted the direction of the organization from a more active, scientific investigation of UFOs to one that seemed to have a more business-oriented mission.

MUFON began in the late 1960s, when Walt Andrus, then a member of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) suggested to Coral Lorenzen that he would organize the field investigators living in the Midwest into a group to prevent duplication of effort. According to Lorenzen, this was the core of MUFON, originally named the Midwest UFO Network. Andrus eventually broke with APRO turning MUFON into the Mutual UFO Network, an autonomous organization.

In recent years, after the retirement of Andrus, MUFON had several international directors and in 2013, Harzan took over as the Executive Director. He changed the look of the MUFON Journal from a magazine that dealt with UFO sightings, investigations and controversies to one that focused on glitz with very little real substance.

In 2018, John Ventre, then the Pennsylvania State Director, a member of MUFON’s “Inner Circle,” and a promoter of UFO symposium in the northeast US, was fired after a Facebook posting that was little more than a racist rant. Ventre said that it was in response to the promos for a television program that seemed to portray white Americans in a very negative light. Harzan’s response was tepid at best but under pressure, he eventually fired Ventre.

The episode resulted in several state directors resigning because of the lack of a swift response. And just last month another state director made a number of comments posted to a number of racist comments on his Facebook page.

This latest is just another in a long list of missteps. Members of the Inner Circle also made racist comments. Membership in the Inner Circle was based on a yearly contribution of five grand to the organization. In recent years, a number of them have dropped out because of past comments and beliefs.

This latest blow, given the serious nature of the accusations, does not bode well for MUFON. Some of the members I have communicated with in the last few hours have suggested this might mean the end of MUFON. I was told, “This is awful for MUFON.”

I will be interviewing Rob Swiatec, a member of the MUFON Board of Directors for my radio show/podcast. I’ll post a link to it as soon as it is available.

Dr. Eric Davis and Admiral Thomas Wilson - Redux

The Devoid (Billy Cox), columnist at the Miami Herald, reignited the Admiral Thomas Wilson debate several days ago. Although it seemed that most of mainstream Ufology had realized that the story told by Dr. Eric Davis about his clandestine meeting with the Admiral was probably more hyperbole that truth, there are still those who believe the information is leading us to disclosure. You can read the article here:

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/16000/eric-who-the-admiral/#comment-588557

I bring all this up because, a while back, Dr. Davis had suggested, on Coast-to-Coast, that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. That crash is based on the information of a single witness who had claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel, a former Air Force fighter pilot, and a veteran of the Korean War. I explored all this at length in a posting on this blog that you can read here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

Given that the Del Rio story is a hoax, and the lone witness to it has been less than honest about it, this does cast a shadow over the credibility of Dr. Davis. I mean, if he truly had inside information, he would have known the Del Rio crash

Dr. Eric Davis

was a hoax. I exposed it as such in 2010 in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky. I also gave a presentation at the MUFON Symposium in Denver about Willingham and why his tale should be rejected. This merely means that the information I uncovered was available long before Dr. Davis had his conversation with Admiral Wilson (which, BTW, Wilson has denied ever having taken place).

In the last few days, a number of people have been discussing this on the Internet, and I wouldn’t mention it but their experiences seem to match my own. As I said in the post, I had emailed Dr. Davis a couple of times, even asking George Knapp for some help in making contact, but never heard a word back from Davis. The excuse was that Dr. Davis was getting plenty of emails from all over the world and I certainly could understand his failure to reply to me.

However…

I wasn’t the only one having that sort of problem. André Skondras told Philip Mantle had he had attempted to contact Dr. Davis but hadn’t heard back. Given that had been less than twenty-four hours after he had sent his email, that wasn’t all that surprising. Now, several days later, he still hasn’t had a response.

Don Schmitt

That’s not the end of it. Don Schmitt reported, “Tracy Torme had asked me to contact Davis after his failure when he and James Fox were shooting the forthcoming docu-film. He never responded to email or personal calls. Next, because Davis was listed at that time as a MUFON consultant, I asked Jan Harzan to make the same effort. Same result.”

This was important because of Don’s efforts and the suggestion that MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan was involved. While I fully understand Dr. Davis ignoring some of these requests, as a consultant to MUFON, you’d think that a response to the Executive Director would be forthcoming.

This has now taken a different path with a suggestion that we contact Admiral Wilson, who has repeatedly denied that he knew Davis and wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into the room. Since the Admiral has been contacted and responded a number of times, I don’t know what good it will do to bother him again. He’s not going to change his mind.

I’m reminded of the note Kent Jeffrey received from the late Colonel Robert Barrowclough, who, in 1947, was one of the senior officers at the Roswell Army Air Field. In that note dated June 15, 1997, Barrowclough wrote, “Thank you for the copy of the [MUFON] UFO Journal on the Roswell Myth. Maybe some of those crack pots will quit calling me up and say I’m covering up a deep gov’t secret.”

Even if Admiral Wilson did know something, he would be obligated to deny it if it was still classified. I’m not saying that he does, only that continued pestering of the man will not yield any positive results… especially since he is on the record, repeatedly, as saying he had no such discussion with Dr. Davis.

The key here is Dr. Davis, but it seems to be a key that is lost. Since Dr. Davis has proclaimed a well-known hoax (Del Rio) as being authentic, I fear that there is nothing more to learn from him. All we end up doing is chasing a claim that cannot be verified and it does nothing to advance our knowledge. It only diverts us from a path that could yield better results.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jan Harzan MUFON

MUFON’s Executive Director, Jan Harzan was the guest on this edition of A Different Perspective. We began by talking about the trends in UFO reporting, if there are more sightings, fewer, or has it remained steady. I wondered if, in the world today, they were solving more of the cases than they had in the past. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20014666

We talked about the To The Stars Academy, and if they communicated with one

Jan Harzan

another. Seems that there is interaction between the two, but there is a difference in the missions of the two organizations with MUFON more engaged in UFO research and TTSA following a somewhat different business model.

One of the things we talked about was the increase in the number of military witnesses coming forward. I wondered about the vetting of these witnesses because, in my experience, there were far too many who claimed military service or high military rank who either hadn’t served or were inflating their credentials. We did talk about the difficulty of vetting these witnesses given some of the roadblocks in getting the most accurate information.

There was one aspect of this that did bother me. I wondered if Jan had heard the skeptical argument that what the Navy pilots from the USS Nimitz had seen was a top- secret Army drone project. Jan suggested that Luis Elizondo had been in a position at the Pentagon, or in his job where he had an opportunity to review all the black projects. Had such a project existed, he would have known about it. I simply do not buy this sort of an argument.

I cite the situation in 1945, as the US raced to complete and test an atomic bomb, that Harry Truman, as vice president had not heard about it. He didn’t learn about it until President Roosevelt had died. At that point Truman became president and was briefed on it. Truman was the vice president at the time… not some fellow toiling away in the Department of Defense (and yes, I know that there was no Department of Defense in 1945… it was the Department of War and the Department of the Navy). The point is, that when you reach into the stratosphere of classified information, there really is no one who has access to everything. Sure, the president can get at it, if he knows what questions to ask, but seriously, would Elizondo be privy to everything?

At the end of the program, I mentioned Don Burleson’s article that appeared in a recent issue of The MUFON Journal. When Don appeared on this program, I asked him about some of this and while I don’t mean to pick on Don, I was concerned about the “speculation” in the article that could be read as established fact. For those who missed that interview, you can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19428012

Next week, I’ll be talking with Charles Halt about the Rendlesham Forest encounter. The following week is Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine. If you have questions, put them in the comments section here and I’ll get them asked on the program.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - James Clarkson and His Resignation from MUFON

James Clarkson. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

For those who wanted to hear Peter Robbins, he had a family emergency, but fortunately I had already talked with James Clarkson about the show. He wasn’t actually a fill-in, but one who appeared a week before I had planned, meaning I moved him up in the schedule. So, I thank James for coming on the show to tell us about his reasons for resigning as the Washington State Director of MUFON. You can listen to the discussion here:

https://youtu.be/Hz0nmWbj4Q8

I did ask for a little bit of James’ history with MUFON and how he became interested in UFOs as a way of establishing his long-time interest in the subject. Once that was understood, and it was clear that James was not someone who had entered the field in the last couple of years, we explored the tasks of a state director, which is a somewhat thankless job. One of the things I learned was that every state director is required to attend the annual MUFON symposium. That meant the symposium this year had an income of $17,500.00 before anything else was accomplished. Apparently, this year’s symposium, claiming a secret space program, was well attended. Many of those didn’t seem to care that much of it was unfounded, unverified and unproven tales of those who said they had participated in that program. You can read more about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/07/are-some-tales-just-too-wild-to-believe.html

I was interested in what had caused James to resign as the state director. He provided a list of reasons, including some of the things that Jan Harzan had said when I had interviewed him about those in the MUFON Inner Circle. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/12180631

Or, if you prefer to read about it, you can see my analysis of the situation here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/07/mufon-blowback.html

And here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/06/mufon-racism-and-dodging-questions.html

While it might seem that I’m waging a war on MUFON, such is not the case. I wanted to hear from James about his reasons for resigning. I wanted to know why several others had also quit MUFON. And I realize that the real work, of investigation UFO sightings and gathering data, is done by those at the lower levels who volunteer their time and money to learn what they can. I suppose you could say that most of us see the direction of MUFON changing for the worse.

Next week’s guest: Philip Mantle

Topic: His work in UFO investigation and his publishing activities.

Are Some Tales Just too Wild to Believe: Corey Goode and Andrew Basiago

When I interviewed Jan Harzan recently, I expressed my concern about the direction of MUFON and some of those invited to make presentations at the Symposium. I thought that some of the speakers were less than credible, thinking specifically about one man who seemed to claim to some sort of time travel before I realized there were two. Harzan’s response was that he wanted to give the membership a chance to hear the tales and decide for themselves if they believed them or not. The thinking here, I believe, was present an interesting program that provided data on the alleged secret space program, even if the evidence of such a thing didn’t exist, other than some testimony from some rather dubious sources. Besides, it would draw in more paying attendees but really has little to do with UFO research.

One of those speaking is Corey Goode, whose bio seemed to be more like that of Ender Wiggin. For those of you who don’t read science fiction, Ender Wiggin was a six-year-old boy who was recruited into the International [Space] Fleet in the fight against the Buggers, an alien race that had invaded the Solar System, twice. The fight would be taken to them, on other planets in other star systems. Ender was a genus at strategy and tactics and something of an empath, though that it never actually spelled out in the book. Instead, at the moment he comes to love his enemy, that is the moment that he destroys them… though by the end of the book, he is the one who saves that alien race from extermination. I mention this because of some of the parallels that I see among the speakers at the Symposium.

According to the bio of Goode, found at the MUFON website, under Symposium and Speakers, we learn:

Identified as an intuitive empath (IE), Corey Goode was recruited into Military Special Access Programs (SAP) at the age of 6. This program groomed Corey to be drafted into a Secret Space Program called “Solar Warden” in 1986. For the next 20 years Corey was assigned to a research vessel as well as being pulled into multiple other related assignments. This was designated as a “20 & Back” assignment which involved age regression (via Pharmaceutical means) as well as time regressed to the point of beginning service.

In 2015 Corey Goode was featured on a ground breaking new series on Gaia TV called “Cosmic Disclosure”. Corey has been sharing his experiences in these SAP’s in what has now become 7 seasons of Cosmic Disclosure.

I’m sorry but I don’t believe any of this except maybe that his name is Corey Goode. He has no evidence, or maybe I should say no reputable evidence, that any of this is true. I can’t file FOIA, I can’t see the headquarters or the office. Nor do I believe that the Navy had built “space carriers,” which if true would have required a crew of hundreds. Why are there no others talking about this? Obviously there has been no repercussions for Goode violating his oath. He hasn’t been prosecuted for it which show have inspired other “whistleblowers,” though none have come forward.

Andrew Basiago : Time traveler.

Even worse, if possible, is the tale told by Andrew Basiago, an attorney who claims that he, too, as a child was involved in some strange things including time travel, “jumping” to Mars through some sort of apparatus that might have been controlled by the CIA. According to him:

His talk will include the origins of Project Mars of the 1980s in Project Pegasus of the1970s; the program's goals; the training seminar; the identity of the young Americans who were the speaker's fellow trainees; NASA's involvement in selecting the jumpers; the desired traits of those to go off-planet; the origin, structure, function, and location of the jump rooms; what the CIA's threat assessment about the Martian civilization revealed about the true history of US probes to Mars; the dangers faced by jumpers; the speaker's acclimation jumps, exploratory jumps, and ultimate mission; the characteristics of three Martian humanoids; the identity and testimony of seven jump room whistle blowers; and the involvement of Buzz Aldrin, Barack Obama; Richard Nixon, Howard Hughes, Stansfield Turner and Ross Perot. Attention will be given to President Obama's disinformation ploys concealing his participation in the program; whether the jumps were made to Mars or a “synthetic quantum evironment” (sic) in time-space; and the politics in exopolitics that have prevented the Mars jump room story from being given the standing in Ufology that it deserves and that the speaker's work has earned.

And no, I don’t believe this tale either. There is no credible evidence for this. But like Goode, he attracts a crowd with his preposterous tales of Martian humanoids and predators that are so fierce that his superiors gave him a cyanide capsule to commit suicide if trapped rather than a large caliber firearm to protect himself.

But Harzan said that he wanted to give the MUFON membership the opportunity to listen and decide what they wanted to believe. Fair enough… then why is the same courtesy not extended to Michael Horn, who believes that Billy Meier has been in contact with space aliens? Shouldn’t he be allowed to present his tale to the membership so that they can decide for themselves?

The real point, I suppose, is that if we expect to earn the respect of various other groups (journalists and scientists just to name two), we have to be careful in what we accept as reality. We can’t believe something because we want to believe it, especially when it is so outrageous. The driving force should not be a potential to make money off the claim. While it might be nice to give a platform for some of those with extreme views, we ought to be sure that their views are based in our shared reality and not in science fiction. Unfortunately, that is where we now find ourselves because it really is all about the money.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jan Harzan and MUFON's Inner Circle

Jan Harzan

This week, given the controversy that had erupted in May, I invited Jan Harzan back to talk about that, among other things. I covered the part of the program that dealt with the MUFON Inner Circle in a much longer post that can be seen here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/06/mufon-racism-and-dodging-questions.html

The last part of the program dealt with some of the speakers who had been invited to the MUFON Symposium. While it seemed that Harzan admitted that some of the tales being told were not as credible as others, he also suggested that MUFON had an obligation to provide its membership with diverse opinions and let them decide for themselves what they wanted to believe. You can listen to Jan Harzan here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/12180631

(And if you have trouble with the link, try YouTube and A Different Perspective, Kevin Randle, Jan Harzan. That should get you to the proper interview.)

I had hoped that MUFON might use discretion in selecting the speakers, especially given some of the wild tales being told, but it seems that most viewpoints are welcome, no matter how far out… except for those that are not welcome… While I am not a fan of Michael Horn and his drumbeating for the Billie Meier contact case, apparently MUFON agrees with that assessment. They have not provided Horn with a platform which makes me wonder how they decide what is credible enough for their Symposium.

Next week: Mark O’Connell

Topic: His biography of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, The Close Encounters Man.

Hangar 1 and the Roswell Case

By a somewhat strange coincidence, I happened on an episode of Hangar 1 just a couple of weeks after I had interviewed Jan Harzan, MUFON Executive Director. I hadn’t realized that the opening of the show made such a big deal out of “MUFON’s Archives” stored in this huge warehouse-like hangar. Harzan told me that when the producers arrived, they asked where the files were and the current director said, “Over there in Hangar One,” and a title was born. Many of MUFON’s files are

no longer in a hangar… and the hangar shown on the beginning of the program does not exist as a MUFON warehouse.

Yeah, that’s splitting a hair because television is a visual medium and the producers of television shows are in need of stunning visuals which that hangar is. I can live with that as long as we all understand that Hangar 1, as described, does not exist.

But then they delved into the Roswell UFO crash and fell badly off the rails. It started with the mispronunciation of Mack Brazel’s last name and continued on to invented quotes for Jesse Marcel. The Chaves County sheriff, George Wilcox, did not go out to the ranch managed by Brazel and upon his return alert the intelligence officer at Roswell. Instead, Brazel brought some of the debris into the office in Chaves County and the sheriff then called the base alerting, indirectly, Major Jesse Marcel. The sheriff did not go out because the Brazel ranch was in Lincoln County.

Hangar 1 brought in General Nathan Twining, who, in 1947, was the commanding officer of the Air Materiel Command, and later the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They point out that Twining had created the first official UFO investigation and cloaked it in secrecy… but failed to mention that in the letter in which he calls for the creation of that study, he also cited the lack of crash recovered debris.

They talked about Glenn Dennis’ missing nurse, never revealing that the search for her failed and upon that point Dennis then changed the story about her, her name and why he had given us the name he did. They showed a drawing of the alien creature claiming it was made by the nurse but, of course, it wasn’t. The drawing was made by Walter Henn under Dennis’ direction. I happen to have the original

drawing, with includes a couple of changes made by Don Schmitt, also under Dennis’ direction. (Given the circumstances, I might own the copyright on it.)

The drawings made under the direction of Dennis, original artwork by Walter Henn,.

Then, in what I found outrageous, they begin to cite the secret or shadow government that was created at that time, July 1947, under the name MJ-12. They mention in passing that it is somewhat controversial but we all realize that is just a way to dismiss the claim of controversy. They suggest that everyone knows that it is real. This is where they completely lost me because the consensus seems to be that MJ-12 is a hoax. I laid all this out in Roswell in the 21^st Century, in which I devote the massive Appendix A to a comprehensive analysis of the whole sorry episode. I have found what I believe to be the fatal flaw which brings down all of MJ-12. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, MJ-12 is a hoax that began in the 1980s.

And we must never forget the Hangar 1 report of the “star soldier,” who claimed to have been abducted at 17, served for twenty years fighting the alien enemy on Mars, only to be returned to his bed 15 minutes after he left. This wasn’t part of the most recent episode I watched, but it is part of the series. This is fiction complete and total and to suggest any sort of reality to it makes the whole field of UFO research look bad.

Don’t get me wrong (though I know that many will), I don’t object to this show on principle, but only because they “report” everything as if it is a foregone conclusion for reality. They pay lip service to some of the criticisms of various investigations and sightings, but ignore most of that criticism. While this is supposed to be a documentary, remember what Jan Harzan told me during our discussion of it, “Television is not a documentary.” This is all television and they, MUFON, have no real control over what the producers say or do.

Or, in other words, it’s not their fault.

Here’s now what we know, based on some of what Harzan said. The show wasn’t really a documentary. You couldn’t do justice to the five or six cases examined in each episode, but it was good for business with more sightings being reported and more people joining the organization. They aren’t above running with a story that nearly everyone knows is complete fiction. I suppose we could deduce he was saying was that they did it for the membership gains and the money it brought in.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jan Harzan

Jan Harzan

Jan Harzan, the executive director at MUFON, was my guest. We did talk about the organizational structure of MUFON but we didn’t go into depth simply because such logistical details are of little real importance and not very interesting to listen to. That finished, we talked about some of the best UFO sightings, Hangar One, and the idea that MUFON had been infiltrated by members of the intelligence community as suggested by a former state director. You can listen to the program here:

http://differentperspective.rnn.libsynpro.com/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-ep-0039-guest-jan-harzan-exec-dir-mufon

The sighting Jan Harzan chose to talk about is one from Canada in 2013. This involved a large, dumbbell-shaped object that emitted some sort of electromagnetic signal. Although the witnesses, whose names are not provided, managed to take video of the object, when they reviewed the video, the object was not visible but some of the radiation emitted from it did seem to be recorded. Analysis of that video is being made, but when I asked for names of the witnesses, I was told about some of the scientists who had expressed an interest in the video, and about those who had attended a conference that had nothing to do with UFOs. Some of the attendees did think the video interesting but I still didn’t learn who the witnesses were. Without that information, it is difficult to validate the sighting. I was asked if I was calling the witnesses liars, but how could I do that when I didn’t know who they were, what they had actually said and if the details have been skewed by those reporting them? This case is labeled as 74282 and more details are available at the MUFON website. You find information about this here (if the link still works):

http://www.inquisitr.com/2867407/dod-whistleblower-scientist-reports-baffling-blue-plasma-ufo-sighting-mufon-rates-witness-extremely-credible-video/

I couldn’t remember if the tale of the “star soldier” had been part of the Hangar One series or one of the other nonsensical “documentaries” that have been aired in the last couple of years so I didn’t ask about it specifically. Turns out that it was part of Hangar One and you can read my take on it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Hangar+One

I did have a problem with Jan Harzan’s deflecting the blame for this series from MUFON to the producers. Sure, I know producers have their own agendas and that often it is in conflict with what some of those participating in the show have, but when he suggested this wasn’t a documentary but something else, I thought that was too much. Instead, he told me how many new members the series had produced and how the financial situation at MUFON had improved. The point that was missed was that Hangar One was being broadcast as a documentary that obtained its information in the MUFON files, and the star soldier was part of that whole process. The program was a disservice to UFO research even if it had been financially rewarding to MUFON.

Next week’s guest: Monte Shriver

Topic: Aztec UFO Crash