When Stan Friedman died, I had thought that it was inappropriate to mention many of the stunts that he had pulled during his UFO career. I thought that I might do something later, but as time passed, it seemed that the motivation had passed. Besides, he was no longer here to attempt to explain his actions, so I just never got around to writing anything about it.
All
that changed when I listened to Richard Dolan and Kathleen Marden trash Philip
Klass with rumors and half-truths. It stuck me that nearly everything they were
saying about Klass could be said about Friedman with the exception of the wild
claim that Klass had been a Soviet asset… which has become something of the go
to position when assassinating someone’s character in the world today. Accuse
them of collusion with the Russians.
Philip Klass
Oh,
don’t get me wrong. Philip Klass had pulled some fairly dirty tricks in his
Ufological career. I did a long post about this a number of years ago when
challenged to provide proof of my claim about that. You can read that here:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/12/philip-klass-and-fbi.html
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/09/philip-klass-and-his-letter-writing.html
In
the interest of full disclosure, I did know Klass on a personal level. While I
was attending a DIA school in Washington, D.C., Klass took me sailing on the
Potomac River. I visited him at his home, and over the years we had shared the
dinner table several times. I had a long correspondence with him as well. The
last time I saw him was in St. Louis in 2000 at the MUFON Symposium. He asked
me to help him to his room. At that time, his health had deteriorated to the
point it was difficult for him to get around.
This
is, however, about Stan Friedman. I had known him for thirty years and if I
remember correctly, first met him while in Roswell to tape a segment for Unsolved Mysteries. We had a number of
conversations and even shared a meal or two. There
was no air of competition
then. That would come later.
Stan Friedman
The
animosity probably began when we met, along with Don Schmitt, in Illinois. I
had approached Avon Books with a proposal to write a book about the Roswell
case. An offer had been extended and it wasn’t much of a secret. Friedman
suggested that we all work together. His name would go last on the book, he
would receive a quarter of the money, and would provide assistance with
witnesses.
We,
meaning Don and I, had already had a taste of that assistance. Don had been
attempting to find Bill Rickett of the Roswell CIC office. Friedman said not to
bother because Rickett had died. Don did locate a telephone number and was
talking to Mary Rickett, asking her questions, when she interrupted and asked,
“Would you like to talk to Bill. He’s sitting right here.”
There
are other examples of this, but they are really about trivia. Instead, let’s move
onto other, more important issues. After we decided, that is Don and me, that
we wouldn’t accept Friedman’s offer, he chose a different path. He sent to the
publisher, Avon Books, and our editor, John Douglas, a letter dated June 11,
1990. There were a number of allegations in the letter. Friedman wrote:
I
have been to Roswell twice in the past year and perhaps unfortunately have
shared some of my recent research with Randle and Schmitt. As [Bill] Moore
would have told you there was talk of a book by him, Myself and Jaime Shandera
updating the Roswell story…
As
you can tell from the enclosed paper I was not happy with the Roswell Incident
because of the inappropriate material that was included, the misquotation of
myself, and the absence of the contractually obligated acknowledgement of my
major contribution. I am
certainly anxious to see the Randle Schmitt book to see if once again my
contribution is undervalued and if there are many factual mistakes, flights of
fancy, lifting of my research much of which remains unpublished. I think
the story needs to be told, but with full credit for my and other
investigations… After all, by the end of 1985, Moore and I had located 92
persons connected with the event. It is difficult to believe that S and R
didn’t depend strongly on that base for their book…
Anxiously
awaiting a copy of the manuscript for review only.
There
are two points that need to be made. First, I spent nearly 24 hours on the
telephone with the publisher’s lawyers, explaining how, where and when, we
interviewed the witnesses. Finally, one of the lawyers asked if I had tapes and
I said, “Both audio and video.” That ended the problem.
Friedman letter to John Douglas
But
remember how Friedman complained, “I am certainly anxious to see the Randle
Schmitt book to see if once again my contribution is undervalued and if there
are many factual mistakes, flights of fancy, lifting of my research much of
which remains unpublished.”
This
is exactly what he did in his book, Crash
at Corona. There is a long quote from Bill Brazel, describing what his
father, Mack Brazel, told him about finding the crashed object, and then a
longer section that described what Bill had seen and found. The descriptions
are on pages 84 – 85 of the original hardback edition of that book. This
information came from an interview conducted by Don and me, at the Outpost in
Carrizozo, New Mexico, on February 19, 1989. There is no reference to of our Brazel
interview found in that book. It was lifted without permission or
acknowledgement and is blatant plagiarism.
Left to right, Kevin Randle, Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt at the Outpost in Carizozo.
To
make it worse, Friedman altered the interview by inserting a word into Brazel’s
description of the four military men who came to see him. To make the testimony
conform to that given by Gerald Anderson, Friedman put in the bracketed word
“black” because Anderson told Friedman about a black sergeant who chased them
off the crash site on the Plains of San Agustin.
Then,
to explain this insertion, he claimed that Brazel had used a racially charged
word to describe the sergeant. Bill Brazel, however, never had identified any
of the soldiers as black. In a 1992 interview, when I asked him specially about
this, Brazel said that none of them were black. Friedman had changed the testimony
to suit his own beliefs and then lied about the reason for that change. You can
read about that here:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2008/09/black-sergeants-and-stan-friedman.html
Friedman,
of course, backpedaled on his claims about our book once he received a letter
from my agent’s attorney. In the July 30, 1990, letter, Friedman pointed out,
“I did not allege plagiarism or infringement of copyright… I have had a number
of friendly discussions with Kevin and Don concerning the book and am quite
satisfied that my rights are not violated.” (Please note here that we are now
Kevin and Don rather than Randle and Schmitt.)
That
is far from the only example of Friedman taking our research without credit or attribution
in his book; only the largest and most obvious. He quotes from Marian
Strickland, a neighbor of Mack Brazel, about his treatment while a “guest” of
the Army. Again, the information came from Don and me without credit nor
attribution. We interviewed her in January 1990 and again in September 1990. We
also took Don Berliner to meet with her but Friedman fails to mention it.
This
all came to a head in 1993 when Dick Hall, of the Fund for UFO Research, got
involved. He asked for evidence of my allegations and published his results in
the May/June 1993 issue of the International
UFO Report. He wrote:
Randle
alleged that Friedman and others, apparently acting in concert, had attempted
to interfere with the publication of the book UFO Crash at Roswell (then in
preparation) by contacting the publisher, Avon Books, making charges of
plagiarism and generally impugning Randle’s character and integrity. I asked
Randle for documentation, which he provided. I asked Friedman for an explanation,
and he never replied…
Other
repeated ad hominem attacks shall go unmentioned. The concerted
effort to derail the Randle/Schmitt book is indefensible.
Friedman
and the Lecture Circuit
There
is another aspect to all this as well. I had been invited to make a
presentation in Cincinnati in the early 1990s. The hosts told me on the morning
of the presentation that Friedman had called them, asking why they had invited
me. He said to them, “Didn’t you want a scientist?”
I
said that they should have said, “Sure. Do you know one?”
But
there was really no way to change things around at that late date, even if
Friedman had been successful in his attempt to get them to cancel my
presentation. It hints at a larger problem.
Now,
it can be said that I can’t prove this little interchange took place and that
is true. The main host died a number of years ago. However, I’m not the only
one who has had this problem. I have a letter, provided by Robert Hastings, who
is well-known on the UFO lecture circuit and as the author of UFOs and Nukes.
In a letter dated July 25, 1989, John J. Romero, Jr., Hasting’s attorney, wrote:
This
letter shall acknowledge receipt of your [Friedman’s] correspondence dated May
26, 1989. In your letter, you state that you have not accused Mr. Hastings of
fraud and that you have not defamed him. You further stated that you have “no
intention of defaming him in the future…
In
your letter of May 26, you suggest that our concern may be without merit.
Please be advised that our position is based on the written statement of Ms.
Karyl Kumer, Director of Student Support Services of Central Florida Community
College. In her statement, Ms. Kumer unequivocally reports that you had previously
informed her that Robert Hastings did not know what he was talking about, that
he did not have the “real facts” and that “he was just another fraud.”
Ms.
Kumer is prepared to sign an Affidavit, under oath, concerning the substance of
that particular conversation.
And
to show that this was an on-going campaign by Friedman to take others off the
lecture circuit there is a letter dated August 1st, 1992 (A.D,) in
which Jim Mosely wrote:
Letter to Friedman documenting Friedman had lied about Hastings.
Re
Friedman – I can only tell you, as I would tell anyone who asks, about my own
experience with Uncle Stan: Back in 1966, the “marsh gas” flap in Michigan
indirectly propelled me to stardom in the UFO field, and I ended up lecturing
to over 100 colleges around the country, on the lucrative college circuit.
Then, around 1970, Stan started to appear on the circuit. He was indeed better
qualified than I was and I was getting tired of the thing anyhow – so I didn’t
mind being squeezed out – BUT I did mind his method: Several colleges told me
that after I was already booked, he would call more than once and plead that
they cancel me and put him on instead. Dirty pool, I say. When I finally
dropped off the college circuit in 1974, Stan once said to me on the phone, “I
don’t have to think of you as a rival any more.”
Letter from Moseley documenting that Friedman attempted to get Moseley's bookings cancelled.
The Gerald Anderson Fiasco
Those
of you who have visited here, or read any number of my books on the Roswell
case, know that Don and I never accepted the Gerald Anderson tale of seeing a
crashed saucer on the Plains of San Agustin. We had caught Gerald Anderson, one
of Friedman’s primary witnesses, in a number of lies, changes of his testimony,
and one of those flights of fancy that Friedman had been so worried about.
I
was the first to interview Anderson when he returned my telephone call and because
he claimed to be a first-hand witness to both the craft and the bodies, he
could be important. That he was five at the time of the crash was problematic,
and that he claimed the object crashed on the Plains was another worrisome
fact. Almost as soon as I had gotten off the telephone, I sent an email to
Friedman about Anderson and his claims. Because of what Anderson had told me, I
knew that Friedman would want to know about it. This just proves that
cooperation with Stan was always a one-way street. I’d send him information but
never got any of it back.
Friedman,
in his first telephone conversation with Anderson, told him not work with me,
that I was former Air Force intelligence and that I wrote romances. He said to
just work with him, cutting me out of the conversations and the investigations.
In fact, according to Anderson, we’d only spoken for 26 minutes and the
conversation wasn’t all that friendly, so this wasn’t a problem for him. I
countered the claim saying that my tape of the interview ran to more than 50
minutes and was, in fact, quite friendly.
John
Carpenter, brought in by Friedman to conduct part of the Anderson investigation,
suggested that my tape was running slow. To prove the point, Carpenter sent me
a copy of Anderson’s telephone bill showing a call lasting only 26 minutes.
This was one of the biggest mistakes that Anderson made during his UFO period.
Friedman,
of course, attacked me for calling Anderson a liar and suggested that I was
nothing more than an anti-abduction propagandist. I’m not sure what my opinions
on alien abduction had to do with the case at hand, but I suppose any mud that
you can sling is better than no mud at all.
Because
my telephone number was on the telephone bill, I took it to Southwestern Bell,
and asked if they could validate it. Becky Pim provided a copy of the bill from
their records. It did not match the one that Anderson had created. It verified
what I had been saying about the length of the call. Anderson had forged the
telephone bill. Eventually he admitted this when confronted by Carpenter and
the evidence I had provided. This was all laid out in the September 1992, issue
of the International UFO Reporter.
See also John Carpenter’s article, “Gerald Anderson: Disturbing Revelations,”
in the March 1993, MUFON UFO Journal.
Even
though Anderson had admitted the truth, Friedman continued to support him,
suggesting that Anderson had created the phone bill to make me look bad because
of what I had said about him. This was an attempt to blame me for Anderson’s
bad act. It was because, frankly, I was telling the truth about him and
Anderson didn’t like it.
This
led, however, to a much more important point. Anderson had identified the
archaeologists that were supposed to have been on the Plains on that day in
1947. Anderson said the leader was Adrian Buskirk. Tom Carey, who holds an
advanced degree in Anthropology, set out to find Buskirk. He found a Winfred
Buskirk, who held an advanced degree in Anthropology. Using an “identi-kit”
sketch of Buskirk provided by Anderson, it was clear that Winfred Buskirk was Adrian
Buskirk. The problem was that Buskirk, in 1947, was not on the Plains of San
Agustin but in Arizona conducting research for his Ph.D. dissertation.
The
question was, if Anderson didn’t see Buskirk on the Plains, then how could he
identify him as an Anthropologist. Buskirk, it turned out, had taught high
school in Albuquerque in 1957, when Anderson was a high school student.
Anderson attended that same high school, and, according to Buskirk, had taken
his Anthropology course. That was the connection.
Buskirk
had been as curious as we were about the connection and called friends in
Albuquerque who were able to check Anderson’s high school transcripts. Although
Buskirk didn’t remember Anderson, the transcripts proved the connection. Anderson,
according to the documentation, had taken the Anthropology course. We’d
not only put Anderson in the same high school as Buskirk, we’d put him in the
same classroom.
Buskirk
provided the names of several officials in case I wanted to verify the
information about Anderson taking his, Buskirk’s Anthropology class, which was
the only Anthropology course offered. I talked with those officials, who were
looking at the transcripts as I spoke with them on the telephone. Anderson had
taken the Anthropology class. Anderson, of course, denied this and produced a
Xerox of his high school transcript, but it looked as if it had been modified,
just as he had done with the telephone bill. It was another example of Anderson
forging a document.
While
you could say that Friedman was just supporting a witness whose story he
believed, it is actually much worse. Friedman knew the truth about Anderson and
his faked tale of being on the Plains with Dr. Buskirk. But Friedman wanted to
preserve the story because it supported his theory of a collision between two
saucers with one crashing near Roswell and the other falling on the Plains.
In
a letter dated 19 August 1991, and apparently written at 9:00 a.m. Buskirk
provided the last bit of evidence proving this. He wrote:
Mrs.
Robert Klicker just called me from Albuquerque. She had received a call from
Jim Hulsman, who had checked the school records for us. (Apparently Dr. [sic] Friedman
had previously made inquiries of Hulsman).
Anderson
had called Hulsman to tell him that he did not want Hulsman or the school to
divulge any information about him. The conversation was, apparently, friendly,
but Hulsman felt he, and perhaps Mrs. Klicker too, had been threatened with a
possible law suit.
So,
while Friedman was calling me names and defending Anderson as a credible
source, he knew the truth. Anderson had identified his high school Anthropology
instructor as the man on the Plains, regardless of the evidence against that
claim.
To
make this worse, in a June 20, 1991, letter to George Eberhart, Friedman wrote,
“(it) is probably right that Winfred Buskirk is the man in the Indentikit
sketch… who would therefore be lying about where he was in July 1947.
Coincidence???” Note that Friedman is quick to label Buskirk a liar without a
shred of evidence that Buskirk was in New Mexico or lying. All the available documentation
places him in Arizona on the critical days in 1947.
Buskirk letter showing Friedman knew the truth about Anderson.
Tom
Carey took some flak for his role in exposing the truth about Anderson. In a
letter dated August 3, 1992, Dick Hall wrote:
Tom Carey (left) and Stan Friedman in Roswell.
I
also have to say that your paper titled “Propagandist of the Year” (1/19/92),
in which you call Thomas J. Carey a propagandist and make other insinuations,
is just the sort of accusatory, unscientific, and unprofessional paper that is
doing so much harm. Of course, many of your arguments are cogent, and important
to anyone trying to obtain a clear picture, but the tone is insulting and the
tactics – propagandistic! The cogency of some of your arguments gets lost in
the gratuitous personal put-downs. And there is irony in your accusation that
CUFOS engages in ad hominem attacks. You must have a very foggy
mirror.
I
have now read the CUFOS-FUFOR conference paper, and I have to say that Gerald
Anderson’s credibility is severely damaged thereby (not by ad hominem
attacks but by documented facts), and also your and Don’s [Berliner] integrity
if the CUFOS remarks about your failing to live of up to the terms of the
conference are accurate.
For
those who wish to delve into this episode a little more deeply and see the
manipulation of the data about Anderson, including Anderson’s lie about being a
Navy SEAL see:
http://www.roswellfiles.com/Witnesses/anderson.htm
Brigadier
General Arthur Exon
There
are almost endless examples of Friedman’s attacks, but there is space for one
more. Brigadier General Arthur Exon had been the base commander at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base in the 1960s. He had inside knowledge on some of the
workings of
the official UFO investigation, and provided information about it. That
information was in conflict with Friedman’s belief in the mythical MJ-12. Since
what Exon said tended to discredit MJ-12, that could not be tolerated by
Friedman. To fix this, Friedman said that he had called Exon after the
publication of UFO Crash at Roswell, read him the sections attributed to
him, and then began saying that we had misquoted Exon.
BG Arthur Exon
I
wrote to Friedman and told him we had the quotes on tape. He might not like the
quotes but there were accurate. Friedman responded on October 31, 1991,
writing:
I
will continue to say you misquoted Exon since that is what he told me. After
all the misrepresentations about what Anderson said both in your transcription
and in your article, even misquoting you own transcription [another allegation
that is unproved], as pointed out by John Carpenter, why should I believe
anything you say about what you have on tape?
I
sent a copy of the book and a copy of the tape to Exon. On November 24, 1991,
he responded. He wrote:
I’m
sorry that a portion of my interview has given you trouble. I will acknowledge
that the quick quotes does have me saying that my flights later, much later
verified the direction of possible flight of the object…
Although
I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you
gave more credence and impression of personal and direct knowledge that my
recordings would indication [sic] their own!
This
is much longer than I intended and seems to have focused on the early 1990s. I
have other letters, other quotes that are in the same vein. Allegations that he
has invented, sometimes out of whole cloth. In the 1995 MUFON Symposium
Proceedings, Friedman published “38 False Claims by Kevin Randle and Don
Schmitt.” Eventually, I inherited them all because Don’s name was later dropped.
Exon letter confirming the accuracy of the quotes.
As
but a single example of this Friedman wrote, “That S. T. Friedman knew all
about an RS [Randle/Schmitt] alien tissue sample.”
To
this day, I don’t know what that means and I never said anything of the kind.
Friedman made this up.
The
point here is that nearly everything said by Dolan and Marden in their
discussion about Philip Klass can be said about Friedman. Both Klass and
Friedman used the same tactics, wrote the same sort of letters, and accused
those with whom they disagreed of nefarious ideas and deeds. (Klass, said that
we were anti-American for challenging the government and, ironically Friedman
accused us, at one point, of being government agents.) Friedman, at his lectures,
often pointed out that I was only in it for the money and I as a fiction writer
I could create imaginative scenarios.
I
suppose that we all should now hold up to close scrutiny Friedman’s claims of
MJ-12, a crash on the Plains of San Agustin, and his support of other crash
stories. If he would manipulate the data as we’ve seen here, if he would
attempt to silence the voices of those who disagreed with him, and if would change
testimony of the witnesses to bolster his claims, what else might he have done
to promote himself and denigrate others? How valuable is his research given all
this?
