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Karl Pflock on the problem with Ufology

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Kimball
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Paul Kimball

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In this clip from an interview I conducted with the late Karl Pflock in September, 2001, for Stanton T. Friedman is Real, he talks about what's wrong with ufology.


Karl's untimely death earlier this year was a huge blow to the cause of the serious study of the UFO phenomenon, precisely because he was one of the small group of ufologists who understood (or understand) the "big picture", and what ufology needs to do if it ever wants to be taken seriously.

Karl and I had our disagreements, as friends always will, but on the topic he discusses here, we agreed one hundred per cent.

Paul
 
I really miss Karl's deep felt enthusiasm...I wont ever forget seeing him as the skeptical voice on Roswell, yet becoming very emotional when he spoke about what it might be like for someone to find a crashed vehicle.

Good man.
 
jritzmann said:
Good man.
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He sure was, and I was glad to be able to call him a friend.

Here's another clip, wherein he discusses Greer, the Disclosure Project, exopolitics, and the "wrong turn" that ufology has taken.


Again, on this issue I agreed with him 100%.

Paul
 
Well it's fairly unquestionable that he's correct. I mean look around, from Greer to Meier..nothing much has changed except a few faces. Although I think a larger determining factor is money, always has been and always will be.

One of the other issues, and a large one, is accountability. There just isnt any to any great degree, and it's one of the big issues I push alot. Like Randle said, we keep having to relive the trash of the past.

I still say one good class action lawsuit against a fraud is all we need.
 
jritzmann said:
I still say one good class action lawsuit against a fraud is all we need.
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Isn't that a logical fallicy? I mean, in order for something to be declared "fraud" it must be compared to something "genuine". Insurance scams spring immediately to mind.
 
jritzmann said:
I still say one good class action lawsuit against a fraud is all we need.
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Keep an eye out on the Ray Santilli / alien autopsy sage - there may be some sort of lawsuit come out of that.

Paul
 
CapnG said:
Isn't that a logical fallicy? I mean, in order for something to be declared "fraud" it must be compared to something "genuine". Insurance scams spring immediately to mind.
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Not really. Here's the key part of the definition of "fraud" from Black's Law Dictionary (6th edition):

"An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right."

There's a lot more, of course, but that covers the basic essence of it.

Now, I can think of more than a few examples in ufology where someone could be successfully sued for fraud (the aforementioned Santilli pops to mind), where they've told untruths and then profited from them when others bought the scam.

Here's a good hypothetical - a person comes forward who claims to have top secret government documents(oh, say, like the MJ-12 documents). Better yet - he has the originals!! He sells them to someone - perhaps a television network. The documents are tested for age and so forth, and it's revealed that they are not authentic, as the paper was from the 1980s, but they purport to be from the 1940s. Ditto thetypeface.

Bingo. Fraud suit.

Paul
 
Doesn't that just devolve into a finger-pointing game?

"What? Fraud!? It's not MY fault... X told me these were genuine!", "What? Fraud!? It's not MY fault... " etc, etc.

I guarantee if it went to court the defence would argue that in order for the case to be considered fraud the prosecutor would have to conclusively prove there was a "truth" to be "perverted" (eg. provide conclusive evidence that MJ-12 actually existed by presenting genuine documents thus proving the existing ones were fakes. Not gonna happen).
 
CapnG said:
Doesn't that just devolve into a finger-pointing game?

"What? Fraud!? It's not MY fault... X told me these were genuine!", "What? Fraud!? It's not MY fault... " etc, etc.

I guarantee if it went to court the defence would argue that in order for the case to be considered fraud the prosecutor would have to conclusively prove there was a "truth" to be "perverted" (eg. provide conclusive evidence that MJ-12 actually existed by presenting genuine documents thus proving the existing ones were fakes. Not gonna happen).
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No offence, CapnG, but your legal analysis is wrong - you wouldn't have to show that MJ-12 existed - you would simply have to show that the defendant knew that the documents he had were fake, and yet presented them as genuine, and profited by it at someone else's expense. The same could be done with photos, or anything else, even far out claims. I can guarantee you that you could make a fraud case, if you could show the intent to defraud people based on false claims. It's been done with other paranormal hucksters (astrologists and fortune tellers in particular). I'm not talking, by the way, of a criminal trial, so there wouldn't be a prosecutor - I'm talking about a civil trial, where the evidentiary burden on the plaintiff would be lower, and the penalty would be monetary. Of course, I think you could probably find some good suspects for a criminal trial as well.

Paul
 
I take no offence, I'm by no means a lawyer. I just have trouble believing that any court, civil or criminal wouldn't simply dismiss the case out of hand the moment the subject of UFOs entered the picture.
 
CapnG said:
I take no offence, I'm by no means a lawyer. I just have trouble believing that any court, civil or criminal wouldn't simply dismiss the case out of hand the moment the subject of UFOs entered the picture.
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Capn:

Fraud is fraud. Courts don't dismiss cases just because of the subject matter (I've seen and read some pretty weird ones). They wouldn't bat an eye at UFOs - indeed, a couple of specifically UFO-related cases have made it all the way to the US Court of Appeals.

Paul
 
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