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| 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.
It seems that there are significant portions of your interview that have been cut from the YouTube video. Check out the cut at around timestamp 34:40.
ReplyDeleteIs there another link we could try? Thanks much.
Tim -
ReplyDeleteIf I get the timing wrong on the commercial breaks, they sometimes have to cut me off... we picked up the discussion, but there was nothing significant cut. An alternative link would be at the xzbn.net, and you can either click on my name or A Different Perspective and find a link there to the interview.
James Clarkson should start his own organization focused on solid investigative and scientific techniques. It's long overdue in ufology. It wouldn't need to be a large organization either. Just an honest one.
ReplyDelete