Not just the debunkers, who honestly are a poor bunch these days and do not put the work in like the old guys did. Also involved in this misinformation -downright lying, twisting of facts or making cases up, are the Ufologists. Not just the new generation who get their education in UFOs from trash books and online blogs or You Tube but the alleged "above board, dedicated seekers of truth".
To find that one case I had supported for years was based on lies by a Ufologist was bad enough but then a second case was bad. Imagine finding out that dozens of reports are "tainted" when you have spent decades (almost 5 now) building up files and a data base of Close Encounters of the Third Kind/Alien Entity encounters and find that the 'investigation' consisted of....reading a newspaper item. No investigation or talking to those involved even if they lived not far from the "investigator".
What I did was look back into my rather large archive of reports and picked out ones that were rarely touched on or never reported in the English language. There were highly interesting cases from Germany that had never even been mentioned by Ufologists simply because they had no interest in anything that was not in English.
Spain, France, Italy, Finland, Norway and other countries had some extraordinary accounts that have not appeared in English. I contacted many of the original investigators -those still alive or willing to talk to me (again it was nice that many in Europe and Australia remembered me from the 1970s/1980s but finding out that most of my contemporaries had died was a little bit of a shock!).
One thing that I found is that there are two camps in Ufology.
Camp 1 -they do not believe any of the UFOs or encounters reported to them are proof of anything other than a psychological condition or natural phenomena that they know nothing about. When I asked why they were still involved in Ufology if it was all "crap" I was told "To make sure the truth is told". However, if you look at a report already concluding what it is then that is not a "scientific approach".
Camp 2 -even meteorites were extra-terrestrial space craft. America seems to be the only place where the mass abduction of humans appears to still be accepted despite proven falsehoods and "stacking" the evidence. I was dumbfounded to hear "40 year veteran Ufologists" state in online interviews "and then we have these little guys getting out of these saucers -what's that all about? I don't know!" That is a quote. My guess is that the decades "in" Ufology did not involve anything but chasing lights in the sky because how the hell do you look into a phenomenon but only look at 50% of what is reported? That does not make someone a Ufologist but a rather blinkered hobbyist.
I was once a "true believer" and just accepted that the Ufologists who wrote for Flying Saucer Review (not beyond a little hoaxing or tampering with accounts themselves and seldom if ever actually following up when reports were explained) or had books published were carrying out investigations. They were not.
At one point I almost destroyed all of my archive because I could not trust any of the reports. My late friend Franklyn A. Davin-Wilson told me once that: "You check everything as many times as you can. You have one source? Check what a second one says and keep checking any source you can find but if you can contact the witness directly." And I do. Every case I write on has a full list of references which means that others can do the same checks and add to it -if they can.
I have tracked down 'lost' or very rare photographs and for each case I write about I have searched for days or weeks to find a photograph of the actual person involved. That is very important because if you can see the person involved you understand that they are a normal human beings. People like us who went through an extraordinary event
I deal with reports mainly where there is more than one person involved as it rules out hoaxing, hallucinating/altered state conditions. However, if you have one percipient and there are reports of someone seeing a strange light object ascend from the encounter location and someone else reports that they saw a light following a car on the road -the percipient's car- then that means something interesting happened.
Liberty, Kentucky involved three percipients and some of the above. And there are other cases.
IF the people or person involved is affected physically and then displays classic post traumatic stress disorder -how is that explained? How does someone or a group develop radiation sickness or other ailments while driving out on a rural road? In my books I have looked at this in more detail than I believe (and I have a lot of books) any other person dealing with UFOs has. "Ruth syndrome" can explain some reports (and not just of UFO encounters) and it is very important to understand possible explanations because if you can rule them out what are you left with? Genuine encounters?
When I look into a report, re-open it to look at the facts that can be found and are checkable, I do not go looking for evidence which proves or disproves it. There are certain cases I always felt were..."hogwash" until I looked into them myself. That was a bit of an eye-opener.
I will let you all into a secret: when I began my work on Looking at the Evidence for Alien Visitation my intention was to prove once and for all how the subject was full of hoaxing and fakery. It was a modern delusion. However, I had to proceed as open minded and examining the evidence. One case I looked at I ended up concluding that "something" really did happen. However, I was not going to accept that and dug deeper....then deeper still and I could not prove that the case was a fake. I jumped in on the debunkers sites and quotes and one by one those fell apart. So I went on to the next case and same thing -I had chosen "classic cases" because they were so reported on debunked that if I could prove they were fake then I would have achieved what I set out to do but by examining and using the evidence.
By the time I had finished the manuscript I was not happy. Fare from proving cases were fake I was doing the opposite. So I went back to report one and started again. I actually restarted the research four times checking in case I made errors or there were misquotes and anyone who knows me will tell you that once I sink my teeth into something I will keep biting and digging and in some cases it took me 30-40 years to prove they were hoaxes (made me poor but...).
Why am I looking at these reports rather than alleged constructed craft? I decided back in 1975 that this is what I would look at; if there were alleged alien craft flying around the skies then they must have a crew/pilots and they would give us a better insight into what we were dealing with rather than a light in the sky. I hit obstacles -people who would not accept any entity other than one of Adamski's Venusians or Saturnians. I encountered racism against percipients, lies against them. Outright lies and nasty "I heard that..." type comments. I had Ufologists including people I thought were friends, call me a "UFO Nut" because of the research.
My books are designed for everyone not just the people who wanted to throw lots of technical jargon around because it makes them seem above everyone. I have had two Ufologists criticise me for "explaining things as though talking to someone in the street" and that I accept. Why spout of big words or technical jargon -any I use I explain in the text- that only someone with a Phd might understand? It is important that everyone understand the evidence and situation which exists and then they can decide whether they believe it or not or, at best, know what is going on just in case they are driving along that quiet country road one night....
What do I conclude? Really you need to read the books. If a report appears to be genuine does that mean I can say 100% "aliens!" -no. Because we are going by testimony and the effects on those involved. "Derek" was a UFO sceptic so I let him have a copy of UFO Contact? then heard nothing until two months later. Derek had been digging into my references and doing his own checking and he wrote: "How the **** can you present this evidence and then say you will not state it was aliens involved?" Apparently I had turned the die hard sceptic!
I present the facts and evidence but it is up to the reader to decide on what they think not for me to tell them. Of course, a full set of the books was purchased by someone and the address was Pentagon Washington, DC 20301-1400. No, they or he/she never let me know what they thought.
You have to decide for Yourself
