Ray Stanford - August 29th

[Gareth]

Chris one of the most promising aspects of the interview for me was the notion that you would help Ray understand some of the ins and outs of computer technology and digital media. I hope you will do this when you get the chance? It was obvious that Ray (through no fault of his own) just hasnt had the experience or exposure to digital media that would allow him to easily and readily shoot off an email with copies of audio and image files.

It was first obvious during the discussion of audio during the White Sands description that Ray didnt understand that posting audio to the forums didnt mean sending off his one and only copy. Also when talking about his powerpoint presentation Ray made it clear that he had no intention of making the material in the presentation available to the non-scientific public. I truly believe Ray just does not understand the ease with which digital media (such as the images he has presumably had digitised for the pp preso) can be manipulated.

There is absolutely no reason at all why Ray should have a problem with allowing copies of any image files he is using in that presentation to be posted to the Paracast. I truly believe that Ray just does not understand how easy it would be (without compromising any original data).

Chris I trust (and hope) that you will do what you can here. Despite what Ray says as far as "not wanting to be an entertainer", at the end of the day he was still more than happy to talk up the veracity of his data. I feel like he should either not mention this magnificent data, or mention it and be more willing to (and even eager) to share it with us plebs. I understand he has probably hardened somewhat over his years, but we are a community of interested people that are (for the most part) open to this stuff.

 

[pong]

The Giant Panels

Wow, Ray Stanford's rapid-fire romp through the '70s―when UFOs were everywhere―was a gas. Ray played a serious role in ufology back then and it was great to hear his excited recollections of events that most of us have just read about. Ray's head is such a storehouse of info from the saucer heydays I hope he can make more Paracast appearances and share more "living history" with us. Keyhoe, Hynek, Hall and many others have passed. Let's take advantage of one of the original "ufologists" that is still thankfully with us.

In the middle of the show, Chris suggested that Ray describe the enigmatic "lighted panels" that were seen near the top of Oscura Peak at the White Sands Missile Range. It was the summer of '78 and Ray had been tipped off that UFO activity was at a fever pitch at the Range. After driving to White Sands, Ray and his friends observed a series of very large panels erected on the mountain, maybe ten stories tall. What were they? Were they flashing coded messages to UFOs? Ray believes they were. Could they have been the actual inspiration for the "communication panels" erected near Devil's Tower in Spielberg's famous movie? I was all ears when Ray described the panels and also talked about the Keyhoe remark: that insiders told Keyhoe that 1978 could be a "contact" year. Well, I still want to know more about those giant panels . . . Did Stanford take any photos of them? Would Andy Kissner know more? Gene: get Kissner on the show.

At the end of the show Ray said he wanted to publish more of his evidence. He said he even has a PowerPoint presentation with many hundreds of slides. But no, he explained, this scientific evidence must not be presented on some lowly Internet website. He was not an entertainer, he said. Ray seems to feel a website would just be a place where important data would be overlooked and/or unduly criticized by the unwashed masses. He insists his research must be presented in a professional journal like Nature and be peer reviewed. Peer reviewed?

Oh my, Ray. I'm afraid we need to send you to Paracast Re-education Camp. It's time to get your feet back on the ground. Nature is not going to publish your work. The Journal of High Energy Physics is not going to publish your work. Scientific American is not going to publish your photographs. You have been and will continue to be ignored by American science as James McDonald, Stanton Friedman and Bruce Maccabee have. Want to be published in a science journal? Cast your net in France, Russia, Chile, Brazil or maybe China. But don't waste your time with American scientists or science publications. They're too busy studying the explained to waste their time thinking about the unexplained. UFOs, they instinctively know, are bad for your career.

Consider putting your data and conclusions on a well-designed website, Ray. At least take advantage of the best, low-cost communications tool we have. Throw your best stone into the Internet ocean and you'll be surprised how many hundreds of useful ripples you can make.

 

[Hoffmeister]

I think there should a little more mirror gazing and a little less criticism in that regard from this bunch.

So you're saying we're all nuts??

 

[trainedobserver]

So you're saying we're all nuts??

Just you bubba. Just you.

I've already confessed to being a little crazy.

 

[Hoffmeister]

Just you bubba. Just you.

lol, i won't argue with that

 

[alzo]

Look no offense to Ray,
PowerPoint slides are only good for guiding an audience and showing a few graphs. You need more "meat",PowerPoint isn't going to cut it.
A 5000 page PowerPoint presentation is going to put an audience to sleep. If your going to do it make 50, 100 page presentations so as not to overload the audience and please please please backup often or it's all going to end in tears and a lot of lost work.
Btw Chris & Gene great work keeping everything focused.

 

[trainedobserver]

A 5000 page PowerPoint presentation is going to put an audience to sleep.

To be fair to Ray he never said how many slides were in there, just that it would never be finished. I said 5000 because I've sat through a few presentations I would have sworn were that long.

IMHO, one of the first things he needs to produce is an executive summary document which can be easily reproduced and decimated to peak interest in the main body of information.

 

[bmadccp]

While I understand your frustration with Standford and Phillips, I think you're being overly antagonistic here. We should give the guy some time and respect his concerns and wishes about sharing everything before he is ready to do so, particularly as he seems to plan to do so in the future in a controlled manner.

I do marvel that both Standford and Phillips have been at this for decades and by all accounts have gathered some startling and substantive evidence but haven't actually published it. Standford says he is preparing some mammoth power point presentation on the subject. It sounds to me like he could use help hammering his information into a form that could readily be published and reviewed by the people he wants to get it in front of ... a huge power point presentation might be that effective a means of doing so. Also, there is the matter of time. How much more time does Ray think he has to do this?

To add to your point, I have to say that it seems like releasing photos and/or videos to that "paranormal crowd" can be a double edged sword. Certainly the photos/videos would be neat to see but I've not seen a photo yet that someone hasn't called crap, or faked. Sure, most seem to be crap and faked and as a result of this (often) ascientific scrutiny of these things, I don't know what to believe/trust. It may very well be that you or I have seen pictures of the "real deal" but if even one self proclaimed "expert" calls them bogus, it casts doubt on the evidence. And it seems as if there is ALWAYS at least one "expert" willing to call a photo fake. Who to trust?

I think if I were in Ray's shoes, I'd want to keep the stuff close to the chest too, at least until I could get it in the hands of the most legit authorities possible for first hand scientific scrutiny (mainstream science). I wouldn't want it put out on the net for the armchair debunkers to chip away at. Even if the photos are solid, the scrutiny they would draw by putting them out might unjustifiably taint "mainstream" scientific opinions.

I guess in other wortds, If I were a serious investigator with what I considered as solid data, I'd run far and fast from the UFO community. Nothing good seems to come out of the community these days, so why would someone serious get tied up with it? I also believe that there are people deep in the "community" that are heavily invested in making anything that might be "real" look like crap, laughable.

At least that's the way I see it. The community seems to be made up mostly of armchair/weekend "scientists", debunkers, fringe goofballs, dough-eyed believers and people too invested in their own theories to be able to see reason. I'm sure there are good people out there, out to find some real truths for themselves, but I (for one) can certainly see why researchers like Ted Phillips and Ray Sanford want as little to do with the "community" as possible.

I also think that for some people, no amount of evidence will ever be enough, so why try to satisfy them? but that's just my opinion.

 

[Artyom]

Great interview Gene and Chris! But i think Ray will be the next guy in the line I'm gonna wait the priceless information from, as you may guess the first one is Ted Phillips -

 

[Brian Now]

I think both Gene and Chris did a pretty good job asking questions and directing the interview. It's as if some of their comments and questions were to head off complaints they knew the forum would have if they didn't. For Ray and others reluctant to post or publish their "data" I would remind them the standards to which even tabloid journalists hold themselves. They might say they have the goods on X doing Y with Z, but even they know they must put out a photo, document or a name on the record eventually .

 

[crabtown]

Woof.

No amount of compelling storytelling constitutes one iota of evidence of the paranormal. Ray's stories are fun to listen to and think about and speculate over, but not worth a steaming pile of goat droppings in advancing the case for the reality of the purported phenomena. It's just more of the same old pattern of what passes for evidence in ufology: intriguing tales which do not stand up to serious scrutiny. Because every shred of ufo "evidence" to date has proven to be ambiguous, inconclusive, hoaxed, misinterpreted or just plain wrong, one is justified in hypothesizing that there will never be conclusive proof of the phenomena. Based on this hypothesis, I maintain that Ray Stanford is either delusional or lying and that he will never release any conclusive evidence.

My entire hypothesis can be blown out of the water with just one piece of unassailable evidence. Does anybody really think that's going to happen? Has it ever?

But, by all means, keep the anecdotal evidence coming. The stories have a great deal of entertainment value as a peculiar form of fiction in which there is a built-in disposition of the reader to suspend disbelief and lose himself in the fictive world for a time. And, in a way, the whole field of ufology provides a wealth of fodder for those of us with a fascination for human nature. Why do humans believe in things for which is there is no real evidence? What makes people make up stories? These are interesting questions to ponder and if one can ponder them while listening to thrilling tales of the paranormal, what's not to like?

 

[Kevin Daly]

I wasn't going to bother to comment (which is why I didn't at the time), but since I happened to be passing by...not that I have anything to say that hasn't already been said, but this is my take for what it's worth.

In the end Ray was a huge disappointment...he started well, but after a while my tolerance for "I've got great photographic evidence but no I'm not going to release it" was exhausted. And then we get on to sending telepathic messages and frankly by this time my brain was screaming "Bullshit!".
There is a very clear issue: evidence that is not produced is not evidence. It's simply a tall story.

I'd be fine with Ray just publishing his stories as fiction, they'd be very entertaining, but he doesn't have any serious reason to expect us to believe a word of them.

 

[stphrz]

I thought I would finally post in this thread to give a brief summary of my position on all of this and how it has changed.

Ray Stanford has made some extremely grand claims. These claims include compelling film and scientific evidence that give incredible insight into the nature of UFOs. Evidence he has had in his possesion for over three decades.

On these forums and elsewhere Christopher O'Brien, respected co-host of the Paracast has personally vouched for Ray Stanford. Chris has called Ray a gifted man worthy of admiration and respect.

I read all these things and took them seriously into account.

I saw the evidence Ray Stanford decided to have posted on these forums.

You want to know what I felt? I felt like a big fat carrot had been tied to the end of a string, dangled in front of my face and then snatched away.

So I bit their ankles.

If that was disrespectful so be it. If I came across like a spoiled brat, too bad. I offer no apology
.
I'll do it again.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe I should take an even more skeptical view of the paranormal in general and not let this stuff get to me. Maybe I should re-examine my current level of belief and not believe as much. Maybe I should take a more philosophical stance on it all and find the fascination in the emerging mythos or as Jacques Vallee puts it, the sociological aspects of the phenomenon.

Perhaps there, something of value can be learned.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I thought I would finally post in this thread to give a brief summary of my position on all of this and how it has changed.

Ray Stanford has made some extremely grand claims. These claims include compelling film and scientific evidence that give incredible insight into the nature of UFOs. Evidence he has had in his possesion for over three decades.

On these forums and elsewhere Christopher O'Brien, respected co-host of the Paracast has personally vouched for Ray Stanford. Chris has called Ray a gifted man worthy of admiration and respect.

I read all these things and took them seriously into account.

I saw the evidence Ray Stanford decided to have posted on these forums.

You want to know what I felt? I felt like a big fat carrot had been tied to the end of a string, dangled in front of my face and then snatched away.

So I bit their ankles.

If that was disrespectful so be it. If I came across like a spoiled brat, too bad. I offer no apology
.
I'll do it again.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe I should take an even more skeptical view of the paranormal in general and not let this stuff get to me. Maybe I should re-examine my current level of belief and not believe as much. Maybe I should take a more philosophical stance on it all and find the fascination in the emerging mythos or as Jacques Vallee puts it, the sociological aspects of the phenomenon.

Perhaps there, something of value can be learned.

I'm starting to think we'll never see the pictures or films that Stanford says he has. I think that over the past 30 years he has lead himself to believe that he has what he says he has, but when it comes time to show it to people that doubt it, he puts up a smokescreen of "scientific" evidence that he has presented in this forum.
Apparently he's having trouble digitizing the tape recording of the sound he mentioned, but I could care less about a sound that could be just about anything. I want to see those pictures and films. Those are what's tangible here. Those can be a starting point to get skeptics and believers alike on the same page. Only then will any truth be found.

 

[trainedobserver]

Maybe I should take a more philosophical stance on it all and find the fascination in the emerging mythos or as Jacques Vallee puts it, the sociological aspects of the phenomenon.

I think that is a good idea. Also, I think it is a good idea to cultivate a good sense of humor about it all.

I say give Ray the benefit of the doubt and allow him time to get his material digitized. I think regardless of their level of skepticism, everyone should continue to encourage and support Ray in doing that. More data is good.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I think that is a good idea. Also, I think it is a good idea to cultivate a good sense of humor about it all.

I say give Ray the benefit of the doubt and allow him time to get his material digitized. I think regardless of their level of skepticism, everyone should continue to encourage and support Ray in doing that. More data is good.

I really hope that he does manage to do so - I'm just started to doubt that he has anything. It really doesn't take much to get something digitized. Hoepfully I'm wrong and you'll all be pointing and laughing at me when those pictures show what he says he saw.

 

[stphrz]

I think that is a good idea. Also, I think it is a good idea to cultivate a good sense of humor about it all.

I say give Ray the benefit of the doubt and allow him time to get his material digitized. I think regardless of their level of skepticism, everyone should continue to encourage and support Ray in doing that. More data is good.

Nah.

I think from now on I'm just going to watch what the folks involved in paranormal research do and how everyone else reacts. The patterns up to now have been remarkably consistent. I'll only get excited when those patterns change.