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The Walt Disney UFO Special

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Decker

Decker

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Staff member
While I was the Director of Research for UFO Magazine, in January of 1995, I was invited by the Walt Disney World outfit in Orlando, Fl. to put on and host a 2 week "UFO Symposium" in Orlando, Florida. I invited the then top of the line UFO researchers, speakers and investigators to come to Florida for this event. Here are some photos from it .. then more.

Don-Speaking.jpg Here I am hosting.

DisneyPanel01.jpg Here are just some of the speakers. Russ Estes, Vicki Ecker, Yvonne Smith, me, George Knapp, Kevin Randle, Zecharia Sitchin.

DisneyPanel05.jpg Here are Jesse Marcel Jr., Don Schmidt, Bruce Cornet, Wm. Bramley, Bud Hopkins, Barry Taff, Stanley McDaniel.

Each group of speakers were in for one week. It had to cost Disney some bucks, for sure. Now, if you knew about this .. here is what you didn't know.

Disney conducted NOT ONE BIT of PR for this. At the height of the symposium we may have had maybe 10 or 12 in the audience. This whole thing was for their then brand new attraction of an evil alien beaming in to earth. The "Extra Terror- estrail" whatever. Which by the way we did not get to experience because the damned thing wasn't working yet. Now, everyone was there and invited by me .. but some were pissed off because of the low attendance. Bud Hopkins split in mid-week and never even told me thanks. Oh yea, I almost forgot. Now, you might think I made a tidy little sum for this. After all I busted my ass for well over a month prior to this, took time outta UFO Mag's schedule to go down there leaving Vicki very short handed, etc. Well, if you heard stories about Disney being a bunch of extremely cheap bastards ... you heard right! I never made a penny ... but they did give me The Mousker, their version of The Oscar.

The Mouse.jpg

Oh yea .. one more thing. So they shot a documentary about this under the Disney label hosted by TV star Robert Urich. The final insult was when I was not even asked to be interviewed for it. I guess that is why I have, since then, a SCREW Disney attitude for evermore. Yep, being in UFOs is fun and easy too!!

 
One for the history books Don, that's one hell of a heavy hitter panel of speakers, Damn wish we could get a panel like that nowadays. Then Disney doesn't promote the conference and puts out a crap TV special like THAT? Now this IS truly a mystery.
 
I posted this same special in the UFO forum, apparently it was aired once in 5 states, I imagine they were states close to Florida where the attraction the special was designed to promote was located, but I definitely didn't have the insider history that Don posted so thanks for that.

So here's my question, I can see Don recommending Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt as they are relatively grounded researchers who do good work, but how the hell did Clifford Stone get involved? Not only involved, but I would say that he was featured more prominently than long time researchers like Randle and Schmitt, I find that a bit odd to say the least. I'm curious if Don has any knowledge of how and why they chose Stone to participate?
 
Cliff Stone was there because I had invited him. This was prior to Stone going off the rails in a big way. Back then he was really known for his document finding skills. This was a bit prior to Clifford's stories becoming so wild. That happened as the decade rolled along and it became obvious that Cliff suffered from the Walter Mitty syndrome. There was a time when he was respected for his research and the documents he uncovered.

Decker
 
No, the Disney UFO special was aired once and then never again. Someone "taped" it on VHS tape and it was uploaded to YouTube.

Decker
 
Dang, sorry to hear that, what a waste...

For years I was told that the ridiculous UFO Cover-Up Live show was never commercially released, but I eventually found a VHS tape called UFO the Unsolved Mystery which was actually the same show released professionally by Kodak. Who knows? Maybe someday this will find a similar fate too...
 
I believe this special was called Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland. Was under the impression that it was made as a promo serving to advertise the New Torrowland ride/attraction at WDW.
 
Jeff Davis said:
I believe this special was called Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland. Was under the impression that it was made as a promo serving to advertise the New Torrowland ride/attraction at WDW.
Click to expand...

It was in connection with the WDW UFO Summit.

Decker
 
I read about it here a while back. extraordinaryintelligence.com/6756/extraordinary-intelligence-com/rare-disney-documentary-about-ufos/

Looks like youtube scammed the video, or possibly someone's going to release a pay for it bootleg.

Either way, Thanks for putting it back up!!
 
I seem to remember some kind of rumour that this Disney special had some kind of official sanction, but that was withdrawn?

Am I barking up the wrong tree there Don?
 
Goggs, someone had to give it their official stamp of approval, because it was shot during the summit. I had dinner with their head honcho during this thing and they were all for it. (Oh yea, and by the way ... ha ha ha ...) I asked that guy if it was true that ol' Uncle Walt really did have his head removed ... and was waiting to be resuscitated when science finally caught up, by the head being frozen! The guy never answered but just laughed.

Decker
 
Don, I mean government approval - do think there could be anything to that?

Walt's head in a bucket....that's soo.....futurama!!!
 
goggsmackay said:
Don, I mean government approval - do think there could be anything to that?

Walt's head in a bucket....that's soo.....futurama!!!
Click to expand...

Government approval? Sheesh, no way of knowing but I doubt it. The thing about Disney's head has been around for decades. He was weird enough, although not known at the time, that in fact that could be true.

Decker
 
Decker said:
Cliff Stone was there because I had invited him. This was prior to Stone going off the rails in a big way. Back then he was really known for his document finding skills. This was a bit prior to Clifford's stories becoming so wild. That happened as the decade rolled along and it became obvious that Cliff suffered from the Walter Mitty syndrome. There was a time when he was respected for his research and the documents he uncovered.

Decker
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. That's interesting, I knew there was a time he was respected, but I had no idea he was known for his document finding skills. What I knew about him mostly came from his involvement in the whole Disclosure project and the stuff about 57 varieties of ET, but now I want to go back and see what he uncovered prior to going off the rails, as you've put it. Thanks again.
 
Here are several more photographs from the Disney event. I was checking my files and I thought perhaps some of you might find these interesting.

Decker

Disney-entrance.jpg This was the entry to the event at Disney.

Disney-entranceVic&Russ.jpg Here was Vicki with Russ Estes.

PanelGroup.jpgThe Panel Group with rear-McDaniel, Bramley, Schmidt
front- Cornet, Stone, Taff.

Randle&Estes.jpgKevin Randle and Russ Estes

JimmyDoohan-1995.jpgI bumped into Commander Scott (Jimmy Doohan from Star Trek) while there.

LarryFawcett.jpg Larry Fawcett dropped by.

Decker
 
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