X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Greenewald

This week was a two-part show with John Greenewald, inspired by the renewed interest in the Dr. Eric Davis notes about an alleged meeting with Admiral Thomas Wilson. We began, however talking about the recent events at the top of the MUFON organization and how that might hurt them in the long run. You can listen to the shows here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39906317

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39906311

We then talked about John’s theory that the notes Davis took read more like a

John Greenewald

Hollywood script than the notes of a meeting. John explained his theory on that, and that he’d, in the past, emailed Davis a number of times without response. John also mentioned why he didn’t accept the notes, finding fault with Davis’ discussion, in another interview, of classified documents. Davis had said that classified documents wouldn’t be released for 25 years, even under FOIA. Both John and I knew that wasn’t correct.

 I mentioned Davis’ claim that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. I have investigated that, and the alleged witness, Robert Willingham, and determined the case to be a hoax. You can read about my investigation here:

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/absense-of-evidence.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/mj-12-and-cognitive-dissonance.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/roswell-festival-part-two.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/willingham-1978-interview.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/heressomething-that-relates-to-my.html

Well, I think that proves the point if not bury it completely. Willingham’s claims annoyed me because of his creation of an Air Force career that he didn’t have and wearing of medals that he hadn’t earned (with the exception of those awarded by the Civil Air Patrol).

In the second hour, we shifted to the idea of Disclosure and to the AATIP program. John provided some information that the sightings from the USS Nimitz might not have been anything of an extraterrestrial nature. He cited documents that he had recovered through FOIA. Some of the earlier documents didn’t actually mention UAPs (the new term for UFO) but suggested terrestrial explanations. John did make it clear that there is not, at the moment, a clear solution for what was seen, only that there is some ambiguity in the witness statements and the evidence.

I said that I had thought, upon the first release of the videos, that we were moving closer to Disclosure, but John thought that hadn’t really moved us in that direction. He, like me, just don’t believe that Disclosure is close. Assuming for the moment that there is any great UFO secret to disclose, the government and the military have no motivation to disclose anything.

John did say that he thought of Disclosure as more of a personal event, meaning that each person could look at the evidence and decide what it meant. For some, the evidence of alien visitation was solid and for others the question was still open… neither of us actually thought about the skeptical point of view that there was nothing to disclose and therefore would be no Disclosure.

Next up is John M. Tiller who is a member of Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies and who edited their latest publication. We’ll delve into their mission and what that latest publication revealed.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of SCU, but have done little with them in the last year. If you have any questions, submit them through the comments section here.

Jan Harzan and the Decline of MUFON

Jan Harzan, the Executive Director of the Mutual UFO Network, was arrested by Huntington Beach, California, police on July 3 on charges of soliciting sexual activity with a thirteen-year-old girl.

According to the Huntington Beach Police website, Harzan solicited the minor to meet with him for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. Instead of the young

Jan Harzan

girl, Harzan was arrested by detectives who were there to take him into custody. He has been charged with multiple felonies.

Harzan became the MUFON Executive Director in 2013, and since that time, MUFON has undergone a number of changes and endured several scandals that rocked the organization. In 2018, John Ventre, the MUFON Pennsylvania State Director and a member of MUFON’s “Inner Circle,” posted several racist comments on his personal Facebook page after learning about a Netflix series that he claimed promoted white genocide. Ventre wrote, “The last things blacks want is for white males to organize and that’s not too far away!”

In Harzan’s tepid response, he worried about the social media world in which we all now live rather than the racist nature of the comments. Harzan wrote, in part, “there is no justice in hate.” After an internal rebellion by a number of MUFON’s state directors, including the resignation of a few, Harzan’s statement was withdrawn, replaced by another and Ventre was removed from his leadership positions in MUFON.

Just last month, Ken Pfeiffer, MUFON Rhode Island and Vermont State Director, posted a number of allegedly racist comments to his Facebook page. MUFON took no action because they found no evidence of bigotry in his posts.

The Inner Circle caused additional trouble for Harzan and MUFON after Ventre’s rant. Although described by Harzan as a “donor level perk” without any real clout in the operation of MUFON, the website described it differently. According to that website, “Inner Circle members provide advisory guidance to MUFON and are included in annual conference calls, attend private functions…” which sounds like something more significant than a donor level perk.

Importantly, the website added, “You’ll meet other Inner Circle members at MUFON who are kindred spirits [emphasis added] and you’ll participate in Inner Circle Only events.”

Joining Ventre and Harzan in this Inner Circle was J Z Knight, described as a New Age leader who channels a 35,000-year-old Lemurian warrior named Ramtha. While that sort of belief is not a disqualifying characteristic, her attitudes which were “filtered” through Ramtha said “To screw [though she used far stronger language] over God’s chosen people”, meaning the Jews. She said they’d earned enough cash to have paid their way “out of the… gas chambers by now.”

Ramtha, speaking through Knight, added that Mexicans “breed like rabbits,” all gay men were once Catholic priests and that organic farmers have questionable hygiene.

To make matters worse, another member of the Inner Circle was David MacDonald, who owned a flight service that provided a platform for those who wished to join the Mile-High Club. While certainly not as egregious as the racist and homophobic comments made by other members of the Inner Circle, the sexual nature of that activity has now come back to haunt MUFON.

Chris Cogswell was the MUFON Director of Research who resigned because of what he termed the “racist culture” at the organization. He said that the leadership at MUFON had been problematic for years. The attitudes of some of the State Directors and the members of the Inner Circle certainly reflect that.

Before all this came to the attention of the UFO community, MUFON had been involved in earlier scandals. John Carpenter, one time MUFON’s Director of Abduction Research, sold confidential information and notes about the abductees he interviewed and hypnotically regressed to a third party. According to some of those abductees, they had been told that the information would remain confidential. Carpenter admitted that he had received cash payments from Robert Bigelow through the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, on multiple occasions, but, he said, his clients had not been hurt and that he had just supplied notes rather than cases. However, in a letter dated June 29, 1996, Carpenter wrote to Bigelow, stating, “Personally, I want to thank you, Bob, for your assistance regarding the 140 cases I mailed to you.”

For those interested in this rather tangential tale, the complete story, including the documentation, can be found here:

ufotrail.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-carpenter-affair-for-the-record.html

Although MUFON did not profit, directly, from Carpenter’s cooperation with Bigelow, MUFON did enter into an agreement with Bigelow Aerospace, again sharing information that the volunteers and unpaid field investigators had collected. MUFON was paid for the information but that money did not trickle down to those volunteers. This all began under the administration of Walt Andrus, the original International Director. John Schuessler, who took over from Andrus as this story began to break at the turn of the century may not have been aware of these arrangements. The April 2001 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal announced that Carpenter had resigned his position as the Director of Abduction Research, which tended to end that scandal.

One question arises from all this. What, exactly, is the mission of MUFON? Originally it had to do with the scientific investigation of UFOs, but in the last decade, it seemed to have shifted into creating financial streams of compensation for the MUFON corporation. Scientific investigation has been lost under the stewardship of Harzan.

One of the best examples for this redirection is the list of speakers announced for the 2017 MUFON Symposium. Here the criterion seemed to be who could fill the seats without a thought given to the reality of the story. For those interested in this episode see:

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

In 2018, X-Zone’s Rob McConnell created a petition calling for the removal of Harzan as the Executive Director. Response was tepid with some of those in the organization, defending Harzan and his leadership.

The petition didn’t gain much traction when it was first announced. Ironically, two years later, the MUFON Board did react to the arrest of Harzan faster than they did when Harzan had almost justified Ventre’s rant. In a matter of hours, they announced that Harzan was out and that there is no place for him in the organization in the future no matter the outcome of his current trouble. Harzan had not been convicted of a crime, only that he had been charged with multiple felonies.

The problem here is that the Board replaced Harzan with David MacDonald, a member of the Inner Circle. According to the information available, MUFON had taken the precaution of creating a way to rapidly transfer power from the west coast if there was a catastrophic event to their California headquarters. I was told that it took little more than the push of a button for the operation to shift.  

MacDonald’s selection did not meet with universal approval. As one member of the UFO community put it, “…this seems to me to be an incredibly tone deaf appointment by the MUFON board considering what just occurred with Jan Harzan. 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 [Harzan]?”

The speculation by some of the MUFON membership is that the organization might not be able to survive the latest scandal. At worse, it could fragment with some of the State Directors, or regional officers organizing on a smaller level. At best, it could see MUFON return to its original mission of scientific investigation and an elimination of some of the more controversial elements of the paranormal that has crept into the MUFON hierarchy.

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.

Treasure Quest and Cork Graham

Once again, I’m annoyed. Yes, this happens all the time now and this annoyance has to do with Treasure Quest, that once had “Snake Island” appended to it but that is no longer relevant. As happened before when Keith Plaskett left a comment to one of my posts about Treasure Quest, Cork Graham did the same. Like

Keith Plaskett

Plaskett, he was on the first two seasons when they were searching for the Treasure of the Trinity. While my interest was now on the third season and what happened to the fourth, I thought he might be able to shed some light on that.

I found his Facebook page and sent him a message telling him that I hosted a radio show/podcast version of A Different Perspective. I thought he might be interested in appearing to talk about his experiences on Treasure Quest. His response was, “Would love to be on your show.”

In my response to that, I asked a couple of questions, which revolved around the third season. I knew that he hadn’t been seen on camera but thought he might have some insight into why, after the discovery of the Inca artifacts at the end of season two, and the suggestion that they were now close to finding hundreds of millions of dollars, the emphasis of the show switched to the Sacambaya treasure in Bolivia worth a ridiculously estimated two billion dollars. I also mentioned that I had interview Plaskett about Treasure Quest.

His response was, shall we say, less then complementary about his fellow castmates on Treasure Quest. Yes, I said castmates because that seems to be a better term for who they were. It was clear that Graham didn’t like Plaskett or Plaskett’s friend Jeremy Whalen. I did notice that Graham’s book, found on Amazon (of course) had a one-star rating from Plaskett, which isn’t surprising. Graham mentioned he wished he could hear Plaskett’s interview which was easy for me to arrange. I just sent him the link found on this blog. In fact, you can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/16969223

In my email to him, I did say that Plaskett had told me that they didn’t know what was going to happen each day until they got the scripts. Graham wrote back, saying, “Let me make this 100 percent clear: this was a fully scripted show, with 100 percent hired actors, created by Discovery in order to complete against History Channel’s Curse of Oak Island.”

He also wrote, “I’m definitely willing and able to come on your show, but only after you’re squared away with the knowledge I’ve already put out in an attempt to correct all this major FUBARy [fouled up beyond all recognition… and the “F” really stands for another word, but I used the G-ratedT version] sold to audiences around the world…”

I had wondered if the whole Plaskett “flashback to Vietnam,” had been scripted as well. If true, that offended me greatly. Graham wrote, “Plaskett had gone through two bottles of rum by the time we were on set the morning of the shoot that not only led to Plaskett replaying his memories with the 82^nd as a combat engineer in the VN jungles, amplified by the booze…”

Graham suggested that Plaskett was to hold back and suffer from dehydration, but the Vietnam memories that surfaced had nothing to do with what was in the script. You might say that was something of a bonus that provided a better hook

The mission where the silver bar was allegedly
found.

for that episode of the show, which, again is offensive.

For those who remember that, they had allegedly been trekking through the jungle from their boat, heading for this mission where a silver bar had allegedly been found, suggesting it was part of the Treasure of the Trinity. What we all learned was that the mission wasn’t some ruin deep in the jungle, but was a tourist attraction with a paved highway running near it and a town not all that far away that had a Sheridan Resort Hotel. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/03/treasure-quest-reality-show.html

Graham then slings a number of other allegations that are serious criminal offenses that I’m not going to repeat here. He told me in the email it was all in his book, so if you are interested in them, you can read the allegations there. He wrote, “Let me know when you’re done with the book and you’ll be more than ready to ask questions that would have been asked of Plaskett, as he was my source on much of this…”

I didn’t like being told what I must do for my show, and his trying to set the rules. I pointed out that the guests normally made copies of their books available to the host. This was the first time that a potential guest had required me to buy the book so that I could be “more than ready to ask questions…” I also pointed out that the appearance on the show provided the author with hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of free advertising for their book and I was surprised that he expected me to buy a book that would, basically, reinforce what I already knew. True, there would be new details and new examples of the staged nature of the show, but then again, Plaskett had told me that and I had reported it.

That was the last I heard from him. He seemed annoyed that I had set the terms for the show, but I made it clear the offer to appear was still viable. After not hearing from him, I sent a short email, again extending the invitation. His response was that work was piling up and thought that the last part of July or first week in August would work.

Well, I understood that our lives sometimes get in the way of doing a radio show or podcast. I try to remain flexible and provide a guest with a number of options. This was a story that I wanted to tell and I was willing to make some accommodations, as long as it was understood that it was my show.

After several weeks, I sent him an email for the last two shows in July or the first one in August. His response? “Thanks for the opportunity to chat with you on your show, Kevin, but at this time I’ve got so much work to do… that I’ll have to pass.”

Here is the take away from all this. I have communicated with two members of the original cast of Treasure Quest and both have been quite clear that the show was scripted. The Discovery Channel held auditions to recruit the cast, that they massaged the situations to build tension (like trashing the boat but not having it stolen and the dehydration of Plaskett for extra  drama), and that they wrote the scripts to provide that tension (sure as the loss of a knapsack with important research papers in it). Their research into the “treasures” was less than complex and when they didn’t have information, they simply made it up. According to Graham and hinted by Plaskett, the producers salted the area so the cast members could keep the narrative going, and when that failed, they changed directions, meaning the new search with a slightly different cast for a different but much more valuable treasure.

I have gone over much of this stuff time and again on this blog. When Plaskett had his melt down in the strip of jungle, we found out that there was more than just the cast traipsing through the jungle. There were cameramen, sound engineers, a doctor, and who knows how many others were with them. In one of the shots of them working on Plaskett, you see several people standing around, not to mention those actually doing something.

You can read about Snake Island and the trouble with the various episodes with the problems here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/12/treasure-quest-season-four.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/08/treasure-quest-end-of-season-two-recap.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/10/treasure-quest-season-finale-payday.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/treasure-quest-latest-what-snooze-fest.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/treasure-quest-and-secret-road.html

I could go on, but just type Treasure Quest or Sacambaya Treasure into the search engine found on the left side of the blog and you can read the various postings about the show over all the seasons.

As I pointed out as they began season three in Bolivia, they weren’t very clever about hiding the truth. We’re told they had to use burros to pack into the area where the Sacambaya treasure was hidden. But their whole research was based on a story told in a travel guide written a hundred years ago. There simply is no evidence that the treasure ever existed. You can read about this here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/08/treasure-quest-season-three.html

But the real point is that later in season three we learn that after a stroll of thirteen hours they arrived at a small town. And then they drive back to their search area in a truck, and they take an excavator with them. Did no one at Discovery think that we’d put it all together to realize they could have, and probably did, drive to the search area in the very beginning and that the trek with burros was for the drama. Bogus from the word “Go”.

While I think Cork Graham would have made an interesting show, and although he agreed, with enthusiasm to appear, he bowed out when he learned that I wasn’t going to cave to his demands. I’d run the show and he, as the guest, would not. I wish we could have done it, but as they say, “These things happen.”

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Steiger

This week I spoke with John Steiger, a long-time friend who has just published a book of plays called The UFO Trilogy – Dramas for the Stage. You can, of course, listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/37816825

Although I hadn’t planned on spending so much time on the Roswell “trial,” the discussion just went in that direction. John’s idea was to present the Roswell case

Sheridan Cavitt. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

as a civil trial by questioning the “witnesses” on the stand. Although the majority of the witnesses are those who saw some aspect of the Roswell debris, or participated in the recovery of that debris, there were witnesses on the other side, including Sheridan Cavitt, Charles Moore and Irving Newton. We did spend some time identifying who the witnesses were so that everyone would be able to understand the relevance of the people called to testify.

The second drama is a Board of Inquiry that is investigating the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. Here there are only three witnesses, Jim Penniston, John Burroughs and Charles Halt. Each has his own act, and providing their perspective on the observation and landing of a craft. The idea was to have a single

John Burroughs.
Copyright by
Kevin Randle

interrogator, but fill out the other four Board slots with members of the audience. As John put it, they might have the best seats in the house.

The last of the dramas is “Will to Believe: The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Investigation.” This involves the Budd Hopkins’ investigation into the Linda Cortile abduction which might have included a Secretary General of the United Nations. John expressed his concern for the accuracy of the information as reported by Hopkins originally. I would have been a little more forceful, suggesting that this case wasn’t nearly as strong as Hopkins might have suggested.

I fear that we didn’t have enough time to properly examine the last two dramas. All three are intriguing. The dramas are available in a single volume which can be found at Amazon, quite naturally. They were published by Flying Disk Press, and in the interest of full disclosure, my recent book, The Best of Project Blue Book has the same publisher.

Next up is Rob Swiatek, who will be telling us a little bit about the beginnings of MUFON, which is the outgrowth of an accusation levelled a number of months ago. Of course, we won’t be limited to that and will delve into the current crop of UFO sightings as well. If you have questions for Rob, submit them here and I’ll get them asked during the program.

And a follow up for last week... Philip Mantle, by way of Robert Fischer, supplied the following link to an interview with Charles Hickson. It might be of interest to those of you who were intrigued by last week’s interview with Calvin Parker about their abduction in 1973. You can listen to it here:

https://archive.org/details/TheForceBeyond_201609

The General Exon Quotes... Again

I had some fun the other day that had nothing to do with the Fourth of July holiday. I received an email from a woman who had stumbled across an article about Brigadier General Arthur Exon. She wanted to know the source of the quotes I had published. Her tone was nearly accusatory. She wrote, “… I'm wondering if you have any corroborating source material for what you are attributing to General Exon?”

Arthur Exon. Photo by Tom Carey

She went on to explain that her father had been a close friend of Exon and that her father said that reports he had ever discussed Roswell were “completely false.” She added that her father had once asked Exon about Roswell and that he, Exon, refused to talk about it. She said that it was hard to believe that “during those later years he would not have told my dad that he went public with military secrets.”

She then wrote, “I would so appreciate a response. I’d like sources that I can trace.”

I emailed her almost immediately, which is something I rarely do. But I thought of this inquiry as a treat. I told her that I could provide the source of the quotes in two words. “Arthur Exon.”

I went on to explain that I had interviewed Exon in May 1990. Don Schmitt interviewed him a few weeks later. Both interviews were recorded, though Don’s was intermittent, given his recorder and the lawn mowing going out just outside the window. A few months later I met Exon at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base but it wasn’t recorded, given the circumstances.

To make this even better, I mentioned that I had a letter from Exon attesting to the accuracy of the quotes. Stan Friedman, in one of his many attacks on my integrity, said that I had misquoted Exon. I told Friedman that I had the quotes on tape, but he said he didn’t care. Exon had told him I had misquoted him and Friedman was going to continue to push that point.

I sent a copy of the book, UFO Crash at Roswell, to Exon where the “offending” quotes were published and copies of the taped interviews, as well as the transcripts. Exon responded with a handwritten letter saying, “Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal direct knowledge than my recordings would indicate on their own.”

I also sent her a link to an article that Greg Sandow had written about the Exon episode. Kal Korff, that perigone of journalistic integrity, had made several allegations about Exon’s testimony. Sandow, a disinterested third party, responded to those allegations at length. For those interested in that, you can read it here (reprinted in the post with his permission):

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Greg+Sandow

With that, I believe that the questions about the source of the information was established. We had the tapes, I had the letter from Exon, and later Tom Carey became involved so that he heard many of the same things and took a picture of Exon as well.

There is one other thing that came from all this. Friedman never again raised the issue of misquoting Exon. I believe that was because he’d look a little bit vindictive by continuing the allegation when Exon himself had called the quotes accurate.

In the end, I gave her the information about the sources she could trace, provided documentation that the quotes were accurate, and told her I would be interested in her response to all this. She sent a longer email, giving some additional information about her research. The important line in all this was, “E[xon] intimated, though he could not claim first-hand experience, that it was all true.”

I will note that is not exactly true since Exon did talk about having flown over the crash sites, sometime later and could describe that he had seen burned areas and tire marks. Not exactly reporting on the downed craft, or the soldiers cleaning the area, but of some interest to us all.

But I think the questions about what Exon said have been laid to rest once again. I am certainly glad that I recorded the conversations and Friedman’s allegation inspired a handwritten response from Exon. It put all this to bed… again.

Frank Williams and Levelland

Some time ago I interviewed Robert Sheaffer about UFOs and I brought up the Levelland landing and EM effects case. Robert said that four of the witnesses had been discredited. I asked for the source and he provided it. You can read about all that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses.html

and here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/levelland-and-four-witnesses-part-two.html

and you can listen to the interview with Robert here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/29233178

As you can see there is some question about the original source of the material. It seems, based on what I have found, that all four of the mentioned witnesses were

not discredited. However, there is a problem with one of them. Here’s what I know about Frank Williams, or more accurately, what Williams was reported to have said or done:

At about 12:05 a.m. or maybe a few minutes later, Frank B. Williams, of Kermit, Texas, reported that he had seen a large, egg-shaped object sitting on the ground. Williams said that his engine quit and his lights faded immediately. The object was pulsating as it glowed and it seemed that the lights might have been synced to the pulsation of the craft. He said that every time the object came on, his car lights would go off.

Williams got out of his car and the object rose to about 200 or 300 feet with a roar like that of thunder. It stopped glowing and disappeared. When the object was gone the headlights came on and Williams was able to start his car.

Although it was reported that Williams had actually gone to the police station to make his report of his sighting, other sources suggested he had telephoned the police instead. Don Berliner, writing in Official UFO nearly twenty years later seemed to confirm that Williams had only called the sheriff rather than visiting him.

Williams, it seems, then fell off the face of the planet. According to newspaper sources, Sheriff Weir Clem, the Hockley County sheriff, which included Levelland, wanted to interview Williams the next day, November 3. Clem asked his counterpart, Winkler County Sheriff L. B. Eddins, which includes Kermit, to search for Williams. “Eddins said he ‘turned Kermit upside down’ today, even to having an appeal broadcast on the Kermit radio station but he was unable to find Williams or any trace of the man having lived in Kermit.”

What can we deduce from this?

First, it could be suggested that Williams lied about who he was because he didn’t want people to think he was crazy, but felt the need to report what he had experienced.

Second, it could be that he lied about where he was located for the same reason given above.

Third, he might have lied about both his name and his location for the same reason given above.

Finally, he could have made the whole thing up for reasons of his own.

Given the timing, that is, Williams had called the Sheriff just after midnight, there is no way that he could have heard about the other sightings. They hadn’t made the news at that point. Unless there had been some discussion over the police radios and Williams was able to monitor those radios, then his report is independent of the others.

However, that is just not a good argument for Williams. The sheriff, either Clem or Eddins, couldn’t find the man, and they had resources that should have allowed them to do it. Although it seems that Clem did speak with Williams, by the time they were ready to gather additional information, Williams was gone. We have nothing more on which to judge his tale or his credibility.

That, of course, does not negate the other three witnesses that were named with Williams, nor those who interviewed by the Air Force, law enforcement officers or by various newspapers. Those other three specifically, Long, Wheeler and Alvarez, hadn’t disappeared as had Williams.

What might have happened is that the information about Williams, which was published and which suggested he might not have existed or had been involved in some sort of a prank, suggested that others might not have been real as well. Long, for example, was from Waco, Texas, several hundred miles from Levelland, though he was attending college in Lubbock. Given that he didn’t tell his story until the next day, suggested the possibility of contamination. The Sheriff accepted Long’s report as real.

Anyway, we can, if we wish, eliminate Williams from the mix or assign a lower importance to it, but that in no way negates all the other stories that have been told about the Levelland case. Yes, this has taken us deep into the weeds, but in the effort to be fair, I thought I would point out that Williams is sort of a non-witness. It means that Robert was not completely off base, only that he extended his net a little farther than the data warranted… And I have discovered a little more about this aspect of the whole Levelland event.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Calvin Parker (Second Interview)

This week I spoke with Calvin Parker who appeared on the show several months ago. We began with a brief recap of his original experience. For those who might not have been familiar with his story, you can listen to that earlier show here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Calvin+Parker 

We talked about other witnesses to the case, that is people who had seen the original abduction in 1973. These were people who had not come forward then, but

Calvin Parker

who had made comments later. According to Calvin, Philip Mantle followed up on some of this, locating several witnesses who either saw Charles Hickson and Calvin carried into the craft, or had seen the craft. You can listen to that show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/35411741

I had wanted to talk with him about something he had said at the end of the last show. He had mentioned then of another experience that took place twenty years later, in 1993. This seemed to be another encounter and he thought that it was with the same crew that had abducted him in 1973.

I also was curious if anyone had written anything down in 1973 that might provide some documentation about the events. Calvin suggested that the Coast Guard had some sort of record from 1973, but it seems that the event then was not directly related to the abduction. There should also be a Coast Guard record from the 1993 event because his wife called the Coast Guard when he didn’t come home for hours. While they hadn’t gotten the search off the ground before he returned, there should be a record of the missing person call having been made. And, of course, a record of the search being cancelled when Calvin returned home about 3 a.m. This all becomes clear when you listen to the interview.

Next up is John Steiger, who had created a series of plays, courtroom dramas, to examine, in that sort of arena, the evidence for some of the most famous UFO cases including Roswell and Rendlesham. This is an interesting way of looking at the evidence. If you have questions, append them here, and I’ll attempt to get them asked during the program.

In following weeks, I hope to talk with another former cast member of Treasure Quest for his insights into that program. For those who missed it, I spoke with another cast member, Keith Plaskett months ago. You can find the link here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Keith+Plaskett