Well Gang, today we are going to take a bit of an excursion into a bit of history in the UFO/Paranormal field. I put this out to inform many of you newer folks what kind of stuff has ended up shaping this field and why so many people get "turned off" by it. Some of these names may not mean much to you but you can find a lot of information on the web if you are so interested. Now ... lets take a look at something that "went off" like a nuclear explosion back in 1997 with the Heavens Gate fiasco.
April 10, 1997
Aftermath of Heaven's Gate: Who Is Responsible?
by Don Ecker
Since the story broke on the mass suicide of the Heaven's
Gate Cult led by leader Marshall H. Applewhite, a media feeding
frenzy has broken out across the entire world. UFO Magazine has
been besieged by media, ranging from all the national
television networks and major print publications to many news
organizations in Europe, all searching for answers. All were
asking the same basic questions: How could this happen? Who do
you think is responsible?
Friday morning, March 29, I arose very early to keep a
doctor's appointment. Turning on the radio to a local Los Angeles
A.M. station, I heard a short interview conducted with noted
skeptic James "The Amazing" Randi. Randi, always a strident
debunker concerning UFOs, was vociferously laying the blame for
the tragedy on talk show host Art Bell. Bell, a popular late
night talk show host, heads up the Monday through Friday program
"Coast to Coast with Art Bell."
If you are not familiar with Bell or his talk program you
may not make the connection on how he could bear any culpability
with this bizarre mass suicide. What could be the connection?
First, a few words about UFO Magazine. What places us
in a position to comment on what is happening in this confused
field? Begun in 1986 by Vicki Cooper Ecker and her former partner
Sherie Stark, the magazine was created when both saw a need to
report on this subject in legitimate manner, because no one else
was doing so. Over the years, UFO Magazine has garnered a
reputation for reporting on the UFO subject in a no-holds-barred
manner. Not always acquiring friends because of our
straightforward approach, we feel that this subject is much more
important in the scheme of things than most will give it credit
for. Over the years, we have done expose after expose on people
and cases that have genuinely harmed the field--exposes on the
likes of George Green and the Phoenix group and their
anti-Semitic tripe, Bo and Peep and the Heaven's Gate
cult, Milton "Bill" Cooper and his claims of secret Navy
documents on the JFK assassination and evil grey aliens, and a
particularly hardy specimen of kook once known as Mel Noel,
a.k.a. Guy Kirkwood and his claims of flying Air Force Sabre Jets
chasing UFOs, the truth about Harley Byrd and his obnoxious
claims involving Admiral Richard Byrd, and many more over the
course of our 11 years of publishing.
These stories and others separating the signal from the
noise in UFO research have been given the space they get nowhere
else. Over the years, we have broken some of the most amazing
"true" UFO cases that received little or no exposure in the
"straight" media; cases that should have made the front page of
newspapers around the world: the amazing former Soviet Mars
probes "Phobos I and II" apparently struck by a stupendous "15-
mile object;" stories like STS-48, the Discovery space shuttle
and the anomalies it encountered in orbit during the September,
1991 mission--later claimed by NASA spokesmen to be "frozen
urine" from a waste-water dump--stories that have impacted
national security like the Hudson Valley Sightings in New York
state, where tens of thousands of witnesses observed (over about
a three year period) one or more "huge" UFOs that witnesses
claimed were at least as large as a football field!
Yet reasonable media coverage of these obviously newsworthy
UFO incidents never came. For example, in the Hudson Valley case,
an object was seen hovering over the Indian Point Nuclear Power
plant, and according to former security officials, "shut down the
security system." This breach of security took place with nary an
inquiry from any media source. But now, with the tragic death of
39 misguided if not deranged people, the media floodgates have
opened.
But the signal to noise ratio looks as bad as ever.
Art Bell's radio show opened like usual on Thursday
evening, Friday morning November 14 and 15. However, something
happened that ended up impacting ufology and the general media
like nothing else in years. Bell received a call from Chuck
Shramek, a listener in Houston, Texas who works in radio and
has an interest in amateur astronomy. According to Shramek, he
had observed the Hale-Bopp comet through his 10" Schmidt-
Cassegrain telescope and imaged the comet with a CCD camera.
Pictured beside the comet was an object that Shramek could not
identify. He described it as an object resembling Saturn, hence
the nickname, "SLO or Saturn like object."
Shramek forwarded this photo to Bell's website, where it
was put up for all to view and download. Within 24 hours this
"Hale-Bopp companion" story had traveled around the world via
the Internet.
Shramek had told Bell that he had tried to identify this
object via his astronomy software on his computer, with no luck.
Within several days, however, this story ignited controversy
across the web. Among people jumping into the fray was Alan Hale,
one of the two discoverers of Hale-Bopp. Hale accused Shramek of
"promoting government conspiracies" and then "promoting the works
of fringe writers like Richard Hoagland and Zecharia Sitchin."
Stung by such criticism, Shramek retaliated with the remark that
the likes of Hale were "butthead astronomers."
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Courtney Brown appeared on Bell's
program along with his assistant Prudence Calabrese. Brown, the
author of a book and director of a remote viewing facility called
Farsight Institute, teaches at Emory University. Calabrese had
been billed as a "physicist." (though actually a student and
Brown's webmaster for his "Farsight Institute".) Both Brown and
Calabrese claimed to have both verbal confirmation and physical
proof of the comet's companion object, from a "top ten," highly
respected and renowned astronomer. Brown and Calabrese claimed
this astronomer had seen and documented the comet's companion.
The physical proof offered by Brown was in the form of a
photograph he sent to Bell, which Brown claimed he received from
this astronomer. Brown stipulated to Bell (and also Whitley
Strieber, who appeared on the show and also received a copy of
this photo) that the picture "must" be kept secret until this
astronomer held his own press conference, in which the whole
story was to come out. Brown stated that the conference would be
held within a week or so.
Up to this point, Bell had allowed these guests free rein in
discussing this material. Bell has never been strong on
challenging information put out by his guests. Brown, whose
"Cosmic Voyage" is concerned with his alleged
prowess at "remote viewing," claimed he and others from the
"Farsight Institute" had remotely viewed this "companion" object,
and said it was several times the size of Earth and filled with
aliens. President Clinton, according to Brown, was reluctantly
agreeing to make an official pronouncement (per Farsight's
"remotely viewed" information).
It should be noted that in the last several years, Bell has
had on his show a number of guests who, at the least, present
very questionable claims, and in some cases outright lunacy. In
1995, it had come to UFO Magazine's attention that one of the
guests Bell was about to host was one "Dr. Harley Byrd," who
claimed to be the nephew--or possibly the grandson--of famed
arctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. In connection with us,
video producer Russ Estes had already interviewed Harley Byrd. An
expose on Byrd was documented on Estes' video, "Quality
of the Messenger." Then Estes and I heard that Bell was about to
have Byrd on his show, knowing what a genuine lunatic Byrd was.
At that time, both Estes and I had already been to the LAPD,
the sheriffs depts. of both L.A. and San Bernardino counties, the
Postal Inspector and the FBI, because subsequent to production of
"Quality of the Messenger," Byrd "flipped out" and had gone on a
massive harassment campaign against us. And not only us. Walt
Andrus, Jim Dilettoso and a number of others were harassed by
Byrd with obscene letters, telephoned death threats, and so on.
At one time, Byrd was arrested and convicted of public indecency
(he exposed himself to some people in a park). Our concern was
that Bell had a national show, and since I was also a broadcaster
concerned with trying to keep the UFO subject as "legitimate" as
possible, a warning to Bell was in order.
When Estes called him up, Bell immediately took an
antagonistic stance. Estes offered to send Bell photocopies of
proof that Byrd was not related to Admiral Richard Byrd. Among
others interviewed, Estes had spoken to Harley's own father who
told him that Harley had been "disturbed" and under therapeutic
care for a long time. Bell wasn't interested, but then tried to
get Estes to come on the program to "confront" Byrd. When Estes
declined, Bell called my office in an attempt to get me on the
show to confront Byrd. I had no interest in that, either--after
all I had my own show to worry about.
The upshot was Byrd appeared on Bell's show and within an
hour, even Bell had more than he could deal with. He "lost" the
telephone connection and then claimed he could not re-connect
with Harley.
Later, in 1996, Major Ed Dames was the guest on Bell's
program several times. Dames is noted for being a "remote viewer"
who had been connected to the DIA's remote viewing project. Many
people have assumed that Dames was a project remote viewer, but
he was actually a "monitor," who didn't remote view himself but
assisted the remote viewers. What made Dames' a unique
talk show guest was the amount of "doom and gloom" he claimed to
have seen.
Even though Dames claims 100 percent accuracy, I and others
know he's "missed by a mile" in some of these predictions. On
March 21, 1993, Ed Dames appeared as a speaker at a conference on
anomalous trauma. During a Q&A session, Carolyn Duce-Ashe asked
him to respond to a rumor about a big UFO event that was to occur
in New Mexico sometime in August. Dames responded, "No, it will
happen between NOW and August." Dames then began telling a
bizarre tale of hibernating aliens. He claimed that remote
viewers in his company, PSITECH, had remotely viewed a "platform
coming in over our shoulders." Dames said he and his team were
amazed to see this object and another land in northern New
Mexico. According to Dames, the objects were transporting a race
of dying aliens from a planet suffering a eco-holocaust. All
planetary resources were had been wasted, and the remaining
aliens were suffering violence against one another. Suddenly,
their skies filled with UFOs, and the new aliens took the females
and hybrid children and put them into some "goop," storing them
not far from Earth. The original idea, Dames told the listening
public, was to move the ET refugees to Earth--but at the time,
Earthlings would have responded with violence. Now, Dames said,
the aliens were conditioning humans to accept their presence.
Dames compared this scenario to the television series "Alien
Nation."
Dames then told the audience that President Clinton (more
remotely viewed data--this time at the White House!) per
his PSITECH team, would make a reluctant announcement to the
world. An entire article on the Dames claims ran in UFO Magazine,
Volume 8, Number 3, 1993. He now denies having said any of the
above.
cont. next msg.....
April 10, 1997
Aftermath of Heaven's Gate: Who Is Responsible?
by Don Ecker
Since the story broke on the mass suicide of the Heaven's
Gate Cult led by leader Marshall H. Applewhite, a media feeding
frenzy has broken out across the entire world. UFO Magazine has
been besieged by media, ranging from all the national
television networks and major print publications to many news
organizations in Europe, all searching for answers. All were
asking the same basic questions: How could this happen? Who do
you think is responsible?
Friday morning, March 29, I arose very early to keep a
doctor's appointment. Turning on the radio to a local Los Angeles
A.M. station, I heard a short interview conducted with noted
skeptic James "The Amazing" Randi. Randi, always a strident
debunker concerning UFOs, was vociferously laying the blame for
the tragedy on talk show host Art Bell. Bell, a popular late
night talk show host, heads up the Monday through Friday program
"Coast to Coast with Art Bell."
If you are not familiar with Bell or his talk program you
may not make the connection on how he could bear any culpability
with this bizarre mass suicide. What could be the connection?
First, a few words about UFO Magazine. What places us
in a position to comment on what is happening in this confused
field? Begun in 1986 by Vicki Cooper Ecker and her former partner
Sherie Stark, the magazine was created when both saw a need to
report on this subject in legitimate manner, because no one else
was doing so. Over the years, UFO Magazine has garnered a
reputation for reporting on the UFO subject in a no-holds-barred
manner. Not always acquiring friends because of our
straightforward approach, we feel that this subject is much more
important in the scheme of things than most will give it credit
for. Over the years, we have done expose after expose on people
and cases that have genuinely harmed the field--exposes on the
likes of George Green and the Phoenix group and their
anti-Semitic tripe, Bo and Peep and the Heaven's Gate
cult, Milton "Bill" Cooper and his claims of secret Navy
documents on the JFK assassination and evil grey aliens, and a
particularly hardy specimen of kook once known as Mel Noel,
a.k.a. Guy Kirkwood and his claims of flying Air Force Sabre Jets
chasing UFOs, the truth about Harley Byrd and his obnoxious
claims involving Admiral Richard Byrd, and many more over the
course of our 11 years of publishing.
These stories and others separating the signal from the
noise in UFO research have been given the space they get nowhere
else. Over the years, we have broken some of the most amazing
"true" UFO cases that received little or no exposure in the
"straight" media; cases that should have made the front page of
newspapers around the world: the amazing former Soviet Mars
probes "Phobos I and II" apparently struck by a stupendous "15-
mile object;" stories like STS-48, the Discovery space shuttle
and the anomalies it encountered in orbit during the September,
1991 mission--later claimed by NASA spokesmen to be "frozen
urine" from a waste-water dump--stories that have impacted
national security like the Hudson Valley Sightings in New York
state, where tens of thousands of witnesses observed (over about
a three year period) one or more "huge" UFOs that witnesses
claimed were at least as large as a football field!
Yet reasonable media coverage of these obviously newsworthy
UFO incidents never came. For example, in the Hudson Valley case,
an object was seen hovering over the Indian Point Nuclear Power
plant, and according to former security officials, "shut down the
security system." This breach of security took place with nary an
inquiry from any media source. But now, with the tragic death of
39 misguided if not deranged people, the media floodgates have
opened.
But the signal to noise ratio looks as bad as ever.
Art Bell's radio show opened like usual on Thursday
evening, Friday morning November 14 and 15. However, something
happened that ended up impacting ufology and the general media
like nothing else in years. Bell received a call from Chuck
Shramek, a listener in Houston, Texas who works in radio and
has an interest in amateur astronomy. According to Shramek, he
had observed the Hale-Bopp comet through his 10" Schmidt-
Cassegrain telescope and imaged the comet with a CCD camera.
Pictured beside the comet was an object that Shramek could not
identify. He described it as an object resembling Saturn, hence
the nickname, "SLO or Saturn like object."
Shramek forwarded this photo to Bell's website, where it
was put up for all to view and download. Within 24 hours this
"Hale-Bopp companion" story had traveled around the world via
the Internet.
Shramek had told Bell that he had tried to identify this
object via his astronomy software on his computer, with no luck.
Within several days, however, this story ignited controversy
across the web. Among people jumping into the fray was Alan Hale,
one of the two discoverers of Hale-Bopp. Hale accused Shramek of
"promoting government conspiracies" and then "promoting the works
of fringe writers like Richard Hoagland and Zecharia Sitchin."
Stung by such criticism, Shramek retaliated with the remark that
the likes of Hale were "butthead astronomers."
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Courtney Brown appeared on Bell's
program along with his assistant Prudence Calabrese. Brown, the
author of a book and director of a remote viewing facility called
Farsight Institute, teaches at Emory University. Calabrese had
been billed as a "physicist." (though actually a student and
Brown's webmaster for his "Farsight Institute".) Both Brown and
Calabrese claimed to have both verbal confirmation and physical
proof of the comet's companion object, from a "top ten," highly
respected and renowned astronomer. Brown and Calabrese claimed
this astronomer had seen and documented the comet's companion.
The physical proof offered by Brown was in the form of a
photograph he sent to Bell, which Brown claimed he received from
this astronomer. Brown stipulated to Bell (and also Whitley
Strieber, who appeared on the show and also received a copy of
this photo) that the picture "must" be kept secret until this
astronomer held his own press conference, in which the whole
story was to come out. Brown stated that the conference would be
held within a week or so.
Up to this point, Bell had allowed these guests free rein in
discussing this material. Bell has never been strong on
challenging information put out by his guests. Brown, whose
"Cosmic Voyage" is concerned with his alleged
prowess at "remote viewing," claimed he and others from the
"Farsight Institute" had remotely viewed this "companion" object,
and said it was several times the size of Earth and filled with
aliens. President Clinton, according to Brown, was reluctantly
agreeing to make an official pronouncement (per Farsight's
"remotely viewed" information).
It should be noted that in the last several years, Bell has
had on his show a number of guests who, at the least, present
very questionable claims, and in some cases outright lunacy. In
1995, it had come to UFO Magazine's attention that one of the
guests Bell was about to host was one "Dr. Harley Byrd," who
claimed to be the nephew--or possibly the grandson--of famed
arctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. In connection with us,
video producer Russ Estes had already interviewed Harley Byrd. An
expose on Byrd was documented on Estes' video, "Quality
of the Messenger." Then Estes and I heard that Bell was about to
have Byrd on his show, knowing what a genuine lunatic Byrd was.
At that time, both Estes and I had already been to the LAPD,
the sheriffs depts. of both L.A. and San Bernardino counties, the
Postal Inspector and the FBI, because subsequent to production of
"Quality of the Messenger," Byrd "flipped out" and had gone on a
massive harassment campaign against us. And not only us. Walt
Andrus, Jim Dilettoso and a number of others were harassed by
Byrd with obscene letters, telephoned death threats, and so on.
At one time, Byrd was arrested and convicted of public indecency
(he exposed himself to some people in a park). Our concern was
that Bell had a national show, and since I was also a broadcaster
concerned with trying to keep the UFO subject as "legitimate" as
possible, a warning to Bell was in order.
When Estes called him up, Bell immediately took an
antagonistic stance. Estes offered to send Bell photocopies of
proof that Byrd was not related to Admiral Richard Byrd. Among
others interviewed, Estes had spoken to Harley's own father who
told him that Harley had been "disturbed" and under therapeutic
care for a long time. Bell wasn't interested, but then tried to
get Estes to come on the program to "confront" Byrd. When Estes
declined, Bell called my office in an attempt to get me on the
show to confront Byrd. I had no interest in that, either--after
all I had my own show to worry about.
The upshot was Byrd appeared on Bell's show and within an
hour, even Bell had more than he could deal with. He "lost" the
telephone connection and then claimed he could not re-connect
with Harley.
Later, in 1996, Major Ed Dames was the guest on Bell's
program several times. Dames is noted for being a "remote viewer"
who had been connected to the DIA's remote viewing project. Many
people have assumed that Dames was a project remote viewer, but
he was actually a "monitor," who didn't remote view himself but
assisted the remote viewers. What made Dames' a unique
talk show guest was the amount of "doom and gloom" he claimed to
have seen.
Even though Dames claims 100 percent accuracy, I and others
know he's "missed by a mile" in some of these predictions. On
March 21, 1993, Ed Dames appeared as a speaker at a conference on
anomalous trauma. During a Q&A session, Carolyn Duce-Ashe asked
him to respond to a rumor about a big UFO event that was to occur
in New Mexico sometime in August. Dames responded, "No, it will
happen between NOW and August." Dames then began telling a
bizarre tale of hibernating aliens. He claimed that remote
viewers in his company, PSITECH, had remotely viewed a "platform
coming in over our shoulders." Dames said he and his team were
amazed to see this object and another land in northern New
Mexico. According to Dames, the objects were transporting a race
of dying aliens from a planet suffering a eco-holocaust. All
planetary resources were had been wasted, and the remaining
aliens were suffering violence against one another. Suddenly,
their skies filled with UFOs, and the new aliens took the females
and hybrid children and put them into some "goop," storing them
not far from Earth. The original idea, Dames told the listening
public, was to move the ET refugees to Earth--but at the time,
Earthlings would have responded with violence. Now, Dames said,
the aliens were conditioning humans to accept their presence.
Dames compared this scenario to the television series "Alien
Nation."
Dames then told the audience that President Clinton (more
remotely viewed data--this time at the White House!) per
his PSITECH team, would make a reluctant announcement to the
world. An entire article on the Dames claims ran in UFO Magazine,
Volume 8, Number 3, 1993. He now denies having said any of the
above.
cont. next msg.....
