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Sun 17th Jan 2010 - John Carpenter on Leonard Stringfield

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Is it just me or would the government have a lot of interest in actively promoting the idea to the UFO subculture that there's been many crashes and bodies recovered?

I mean, then the beings would be mortal, the technology fallible, and possibly defeatable... just like the 50's sci-fi movies where good old American ingenuity can save the day?

As for Stringfield, lots of smoke but no fire. Reports locked away awaiting a decision on what to do with indeed. Sounds like the whole disclosure movement. "We just might get an answer any day now!"
 
Ironically, last night as I was reading Dolan's latest book UFOs and the NSS, I hit the Stringfield era. Quite a synchronistic moment. It's in chapter 3, "Great Expectations" (around page 163). There certainly are a lot of bizarre stories around this fellow. Lots of bodies in deep freeze, aliens meeting military leaders etc.

Dolan writes,

"Some criticized Stringfield as being overly gullible, others were suspicious of his unwillingness to name his informants. To be fair, confirming every lead was not within Stringfield's means; he mainly sought to collect and disseminate the information. He conceded that some of his sources could have been hoaxing him, but he believed most were legitimate."

So there you have it. My take is, whatever his motivations, Stringfield was no dummy.
 
Dear Mr. Steinberg,

Those are very insightful observations on your part regarding the Carpenter interview. I have just joined the Paracast community, and this is my first ever posting here, so please bear with me... I reside in Pisa, Italy and recently discovered your on the Internet. I think you could have been a little tougher on Mr. Carpenter, although I do not mean this as a criticism of you personally, for I sincerely admire your work. Mr. Carpenter seems to assume that the intelligences behind UFOs and abductions are extraterrestrials; that recovered memories of "Greys" in hypnotic regression are true memories, while memories of 4-foot squirrels or leprechauns are "screen memories." Those who are interested in cryptozoology might wonder whether the 4-foot squirrels were the real memory and the "Greys" the screen memory. In any event, Carpenter's comment dismissing leprechaun memories with almost a chuckle will raise the interest of those like Dr. Jacques Vallee who have argued for a relationship between ancient sightings of leprechauns and fairies and modern-day UFOs and "ETs." Like Mr. Carpenter, I also have a PhD behind my name, and as a scientist I find it less fantastic to believe in 4-foot tall squirrels than in extraterrestrials that have independently evolved in a different solar system to be basically human in form--two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two arms, two legs, etc. Even taking into account such processes as convergent evolution, the possibility of independent anthropoid evolution in another solar system cannot be taken seriously. As for the late Mr. Springfield, one may consult the works of Dr. Vallee to discover that he would not even share information with Dr. Hynek, and all Springfield's claims remain unsubstantiated. Furthermore, many of his so-called "independent" eyewitnesses were no such thing. Just as in the case of Roswell, few if any of the witnesses can be considered independent, for the vast majority came forward only after Marcel had gone public and books on the claims were already in circulation.

I do not mean any of this as a personal criticism of Mr. Carpenter, but I am distressed at the readiness to believe religiously in unsubstantiated claims, to assume that we already know the answer to a question that might even be unanswerable in the end. Do we really think that ETs advanced enough to manipulate human consciousness would be so inept at permanently erasing memories, and that their craft would be crashing in the hundreds (a database of hundreds of modern UFO crashes exists)? Lastly, if I am not mistaken, here in Europe as well as in America the professional field of psychology uses hypnosis mostly for behavior modification, not for memory reconstruction--the latter is rarely allowed into the courts anymore.

Keep up the good work Mr. Steinberg, and please be a little tougher with some of your guests--Europe is listening with interest.

Dr. Sami Saladin

Pisa, Italy
 
Your Paracast Newsletter -- January 16, 2010

Also, just to follow up with something that came up on the show, Carpenter sent Gene the scan of the Cooper document, and it's actually a MUFON Journal article signed by Cooper, but which does NOT support Carpenter's claim that Cooper directly witnessed the craft landing on the tarmac. Carpenter was wrong. Gene can post the doc if he pleases.

dB
 
Your Paracast Newsletter -- January 16, 2010

Also, just to follow up with something that came up on the show, Carpenter sent Gene the scan of the Cooper document, and it's actually a MUFON Journal article signed by Cooper, but which does NOT support Carpenter's claim that Cooper directly witnessed the craft landing on the tarmac. Carpenter was wrong. Gene can post the doc if he pleases.

dB

So there's no question about it later on, I asked Carpenter for written (emailed) permission to post the scan, although he promised to do that on the show. In any case, there's nothing in this scan that contradicts what we have all heard about Cooper and his belief in UFOs.
 
Your Paracast Newsletter -- January 16, 2010

Right now I am negotiating a price for copies of all 7 status reports Stringfield produced. The guy got them off the former director of MUFON in <ST1:p<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
><st1:country-region w:st=
England </st1:country-region></ST1:p15 years ago and it sounds like he prints a set on his computer printer, binds them and sells them on ebay. He says none of the original text is changed including spelling errors. I'd like to get these out to everybody if I can a hold of them - maybe make a big PDF file. We'll see what happens. Oh and I got the Inside Saucer Post 3-0 Blue pdf at Above Top Secret.
If anybody wants it send me a pm.
 
The "3-0 Blue" pdf is here if anyone wants it. I'm not a photo expert but the image on page 17 looks like a scratch on the negative or something.
 
Also, just to follow up with something that came up on the show, Carpenter sent Gene the scan of the Cooper document, and it's actually a MUFON Journal article signed by Cooper, but which does NOT support Carpenter's claim that Cooper directly witnessed the craft landing on the tarmac. Carpenter was wrong. Gene can post the doc if he pleases. dB

Well that doesn't bode well for John Carpenter's critical ability on this stuff. He was absolutely sure about this on the show. What else is he absolutely sure about?
 
Well that doesn't bode well for John Carpenter's critical ability on this stuff. He was absolutely sure about this on the show. What else is he absolutely sure about?

Until I actually have a chance to talk with him about this (and I have left a message), I'll be charitable and chalk it up as possibly something that he just "misremembered."
 
Dear Mr. Steinberg,
" I also have a PhD behind my name, and as a scientist I find it less fantastic to believe in 4-foot tall squirrels than in extraterrestrials that have independently evolved in a different solar system to be basically human in form--two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two arms, two legs, etc. Even taking into account such processes as convergent evolution, the possibility of independent anthropoid evolution in another solar system cannot be taken seriously."

I listened to the description of the alien body lacking sex organs and, I assume, the means to eliminate waste and a mouth that barely seemed functional. It sounds to me like these are manufactured or created creatures. I can't imagine that they could have evolved naturally.

It's hard to image also how a creature that evolved on another planet could deal with the pathogens in our air (War of the Worlds), cope with insect bites, be adapted to our gravity, breathe the same gasses we do and be adapted to our atmospheric pressure. This also suggests artifical creatures that were created for the purpose of visiting Earth.

BlueCat
 
Anyway, I got written permission from Carpenter to post this scan of the newsletter page advertising Gordon Cooper's lecture, along with his signature.

Carpenter still believes, by the way, that Cooper was a witness to the sighting in which his film crew was involved, even though others, such as Tim Beckley, insist Cooper said no such thing.

cooper.jpg
 
@ Bluecat

That's a really interesting idea. Why risk your own safety on a backwater planet when you could design creatures for the environment to do your job?
 
That article clearly does not support Carpenter's claim.


post edit: oops, I should finish reading threads before commenting on them; Mr. D. Biedny already stated that the document doesn't support the claim.
 
That article clearly does not support Carpenter's claim.


post edit: oops, I should finish reading threads before commenting on them; Mr. D. Biedny already stated that the document doesn't support the claim.

Carpenter still insists, however, that Cooper claimed to have witnessed that landed UFO along with his film crew, and that he heard him say so during that conference at the MUFON affiliate. Obviously, the documentation doesn't bear this out, so I asked him for contact info for the people who sponsored that meeting, in case there's a recording or transcript that we can check.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:12 PM ----------

One more thing: The organization that sponsored that lecture, the New Hampshire MUFON affiliate, according to the item at their site: "IS NOW CLOSED FOREVER." That being the case, this is something that Carpenter will never be able to prove, unless he can get that video from another source.
 
Until I actually have a chance to talk with him about this (and I have left a message), I'll be charitable and chalk it up as possibly something that he just "misremembered."

Why would someone who is supposed to be objective make such a strong proclamation instead of just saying, "I have some documentation on that, let me see what I have"?

Now, I know I may be over-analyzing this, but it appears to me that Carpenter wants to believe that Cooper saw the incident and he also wants to believe that he has corroborating documentation. It seems he has filled in the holes with what needed to be there to support his belief, whether he needed documentation or past memories of things said by Cooper (pretty shaky).

It is apparent that there is an emotional element at work here, IMHO. I am actually not trying to slap Carpenter, we are all human. But I think if he steps back and looks at it himself, he may have reason to reevaluate.
 
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