Showing posts with label Jan Harzan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jan Harzan. Show all posts

Thursday, July 27, 2017

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:


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:


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:


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


And here:


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.

Tuesday, July 04, 2017

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.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

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:


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:


(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.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

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 21st 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.

Monday, May 08, 2017

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:


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):


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:


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