Goggs, you seem like a nice guy. Chris and Gene let you come in and play co-host from time to time so I understand why you want to dig down deep, take the position you are taking, and essentially defend Chris and his guru Ray. This is the same reason Chris just buys everything Ray sells him, loyalty can sometimes be blind. With all do respect, I think you need to go back and re-read what I wrote.
You suggest there have been many good photos and films that universities are not falling over. I totally disagree here. I have not seen anything persuasive and certainly nothing close to what Ray claims he has. As I mentioned before, academia is not interested in UFOs and refuses to devote any time to it, because thus far the evidence...the evidence, has been very mundane and in my opinion weak. The whole "trickster" nature of this phenomena has been discussed as a possible explanation as to why good photos don't exist, and why the evidence seems to be lacking, so I am on firm footing when I suggest that the evidence is very weak. UFOologists have gone to great lengths to come up with theories as to why there aren't good videos, why the phenomena seems self-concealing and so forth. Let's not forget that.
However, you missed the part where I said we need to take into consideration Ray's claims. He says he has motion picture footage of a daylight flying saucer shooting a plasma beam at him!!! Nothing, and I mean nothing of the sort exists in the cache of UFO evidence today. Moreover, he claims to have photographs of motherships and egg shape crafts with their "landing gear" visible. So again, I argue that evidence THIS compelling would open some doors and stir some curiosity. Just like the odd circumstances and appearance of the Atacama mummy led Greer to Stanford University and resulted in Stanford University doing solid analysis work, I am suggesting the sheer sensational nature of Ray's supposed evidence would create similar interest.
So again, we don't need a University to be currently studying UFO research or publishing UFO papers to be helpful here. Rather, we just need a University or credible institution that can first authenticate Ray's film and talk about the objects on that film. Was it altered, or are these objects just anomalies of the film, can we triangulate the distance and size of the objects etc....this is all dry science stuff that has nothing to do with UFOs. Same goes with the propulsion and plasma. Again, you don't need a "UFO department" to look at an odd flying object shooting lasers at a man holding a camera to be able to draw some real conclusions. Again. you simply have to go to the physics department and sit down with one of their particle or plasma professors. So again, this is all dry science stuff that is already being done daily, we just need it applied to Ray's evidence.
Outside of blind loyalty and bias, I am not sure how any reasonably intelligent person could even read this and disagree with it. What I am suggesting is standard operating procedure and head and shoulders above hiding the evidence and only showing it to a few trusted devotees who share the same thoughts on this subject as you...That is the stuff of cults not research.
The Roswell slide debacle should have shown everyone why you don't share evidence with only as small group of kool-aid drinkers while sheltering it from any unbiased 3rd party examination. Chris and company love to knock those involved in the Mexico City carnival, but fail to realize that is exactly what they are doing when it comes to Ray's work. Chris even uses the same excuses. Ultimately when pressed why Carrey and Schmidt didn't "release" the pictures to everyone, they both cried "well Adam Dew owned the photos, they are ultimately his property and he wanted to do it his way." That is the same line we hear from Chris, "oh well Ray is being Ray, it is his evidence and I can't force him to do anything." Meanwhile, both parties were all too happy to hype their evidence up on UFO podcasts and message forums, but suddenly go limp when someone suggests submitting it to a real institution for research, then the excuses flow. We now know why the Roswell group was shy of unbiased 3rd parties examining their slides, I am suggesting Ray probably has similar reason. The minute anyone with a lab and a brain can examine it, I would imagine the walls will come crashing down. Sometimes it is more fun to sit up on a pedestal with all the answers, all the evidence, and look down on everyone else. That's what is going on here. Ray, in his mind, gets to "know" while everyone else doesn't. To him, that makes him some authority and gives him insight others don't have. This is probably delusional, but no less intoxicating...
I am simply saying get the evidence in front of educated 3rd party researchers and let them have a go at it, otherwise, shut up.
I'm confused - you say academia thus far has been unimpressed with any evidence and therefore sees no need to be actively involved in UFO research.
My answer to that is that how is 'academia' going to know what quality of evidence is even available if they are not prepared to even look at any, let alone try and record any themselves. If the general mindset of academia was made say in the 1960's for instance, and at that time it was unimpressed, then there is now 50+ years
more evidence available to look at, and 5 decades have gone by in which places of learning could have been researching the subject of UFOs, time in which considerable headway
might have been made had they been bothering to try.
Let us remind ourselves that while perhaps the number of decent photos or videos of possible UFOs is way short of where many of us would like it to be, there are 100's of pretty good quality photos (pre-digital) that at least appear not to be obvious conventional airborne craft, balloons, atmospheric phenomena etc and that is at least a start. Of course, add to that the countless multiple witness sightings made by people who would be listened to if they had to sit on a jury in a capital murder case. Cases exist with multiple police officers chasing the same object, in different vehicles looking from very different vantage points. Cases of sightings backed up by one or more quality radar sets. If the same people were reported to have said they saw an elephant, they would not be doubted.
I have not drank any Ray Stanford Kool-aid and believe me, I find his reticence to share incredibly frustrating, I also worry due to his age and health that he could die before releasing anything or 'finishing' his work. I do think the Stanford situation is a little more promising than others in the history of Ufology who have claimed possession of smoking gun evidence and never shown it to anyone - no, people have seen varying amounts of his evidence and his work. I do not know names but according to Chris, certain scientists have been shown some of Ray's work regarding his explanations of UFO propulsion. It is these kind of people he apparently does wish to show his work, not us, the average joe interested in the subject.
He has also claimed that his work might have serious defence implications - as in discoveries he would not want enemy states to get their hands on but obviously I have zero idea if there is any merit to any of that.
With Stanford my position is really just to be hopeful, cross my fingers his health holds and maybe, just maybe, one day we might see some of it. I really am no more or less a supporter of Stanford than that. He has stated tantalising things before and maybe he shouldn't unless he is gonna spill the beans but really he doesn't broadcast those statements publicly that much - nowhere near say, the number of times Greer has claimed to have zero-point energy machines etc and yet he has never shown as much as a single nut or bolt - ever! There are people in Ufology who go around all the time claiming this and that and never coming up with the goods and while Stanford may be guilty of that a little, it really is just a little and not often at all.
I certainly do not just agree or follow anything Gene or Chris do because they toss me scraps of airtime like an adoring puppy
as you seem to insinuate but that is for people other than myself to decide. I do not get paid for every appearing on a show and nor am I bound to 'toe any party-line' believe it or not. It is the case however that I consider our Paracast hosts to be pretty level-headed about most of Ufology and I happen to agree with them, as do many others.
You talking about the scientific particulars of what Ray Stanford claims to have on film and what claims to have discovered from those films - yes I agree that one could basically forget any UFO connection and have a physics dept take a look at the evidence and proposed science Ray has claimed to have identified from it - all I say in relation to that is that I actually think many physicists might be a little reluctant, if they knew that it came from what is claimed to be photographic evidence of UFOs, taken by a long-term UFO researcher. It is the unavoidable UFO connotations I believe may be a major sticking point. Astronomers and atmospheric physicists are very likely to state the subject of UFOs is total bunk and they wouldn't have anything to do looking at any such photos, or proposed explanations of this and that from Ray Stanford.
Watch any UFO documentary that includes Rendlesham or whatever and you can be sure that some astronomer such as James McGahey or a modern-day Phil Klass clone will be trotted out to assure the public that everyone involved mistook the Orford Ness Lighthouse for a spaceship. That seems to me to encapsulate the attitude of science to the subject of UFOs.
I can honestly say that short of being an expert photo analyst myself, which of course I am not in any way, shape or form, it is my opinion that while far from being hundreds and hundreds, I have seen scores of highly interesting UFO photos. Maybe not photos that amazing science could be performed on, but nonetheless photos that appear to show structured craft flying in our skies that do not appear to be hoaxes, or built by humans. I reserve the right to be wrong of course.
