UFO Spin in the U.K.

[Skymon876]

I love watching these 10 page deep internet chains. The latest is a back and forth jousting match between Robert Hastings and David Clarke located here: http://www.theufochronicles.com/2010/08/ufo-spin-in-uk-hastings-response-to_20.html

This one is likely to end up being a 25 page reply and rebute internet dispute between Clarke (who is the so called MoD expert on declassified documents) and people like Friedman and Balthaiser getting so ticked off that they burst a vein in their forehead.

This will be good. I find it entertaining.

Sorry if you don't but I do.

 

[Ted Roe]

I think it was Clark who did an excellent critique of the "Condign Report"..... will check it out. Here the UKMOD admitted that UAP as reported by witnesses exist... "that UAP exist is indisputable"... and nobody sits up and pays attention. The media fail to notice. UFOlogy remains ignorant for the most part and nothing comes of it. Note all of the aviation related cases... the Condign Report said that they were a hazard to aviation and that the CAA should be advised... and..... nothing.
One has to wonder about the intellectual capacity of the UFO crowd in general if they can't get moving in the right direction with these and other revelations in the public domain...

 

[Skymon876]

These jousting matches and internet chain emails sure can get in depth and dramatic. I remember when the Pickles Brothers were caught hoaxing with Source A. That message chain lasted for weeks.

You figure if UFOLOGY did not spend so much time FIGHTING in Chain Email threads then we could make more progress.

 

[Kandinsky]

It looks like both Clarke and Hastings have valid points.

Clarke is a very objective researcher. He's got a working relationship with the MoD as far as we can tell. To some, he's classed as a debunker and I disagree. He's set the bar for acceptable evidence very high. This doesn't mean he's dismissive of the entire phenomena and has researched domestic UK incidents. His article on the Little Rissington pilot report shows objectivity...http://www.drdavidclarke.co.uk/LRiss.htm

Hastings also makes valid points about the 'candour' of the MoD and other UK authorities. In 52, Churchill asked the Secretary of State for advice about 'flying saucers.' The reply memo referred to the conclusions of the 'Flying Saucer Working Party' ( http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4DC94062-B533-4E9D-85C4-D87CA3CB2D3B/0/ufowpr07.pdf). It also explained how the US had found nothing unexplainable and had ceased investigating the UFO phenomena. The memo implies the UK weren't 'in the loop.' Blue Book was running and continued until 1968. Naturally, the question remains about who knew what.

My impression of Clarke is that he doesn't believe everything has been released in the MoD archives. He's questioned the missing images and gun camera footage, but favours the idea that boxes of evidence were destroyed in the early 60s to make space.

I'm on the fence.

 

[paraschtick]

It looks like both Clarke and Hastings have valid points ...

I'm on the fence.

I have my problems with Clarke. He came out a few years ago when that British pilot Richard Bowyer who saw the mile wide UFO over Guernsey and said that it was actually a trawler which Bowyer misidentified. Yeass ... experienced pilots are always misidentifying trawlers many feet below them as mile wide ufos in front of them in the sky ...

As you say about those boxes of evidence. He is the kind of person who believes that things like that are always down to incompetence rather than evil intent. He probably "believes" like Nick Pope does that 9/11 was really carried out by Arabs in a cave in the Middle East somewhere, and they were just incredibly lucky when Norad and the entire defensive structure of the US was stood down that day ...

[Oh and every time I see him or hear him talk, the hackles go up on the back of my necks ... which generally means I'm right ... so there ]

ps I'll go with Hastings any day over Ol' Clarkie boy ... 8)

 

[Kandinsky]

I have my problems with Clarke. He came out a few years ago when that British pilot Richard Bowyer who saw the mile wide UFO over Guernsey and said that it was actually a trawler which Bowyer misidentified. Yeass ... experienced pilots are always misidentifying trawlers many feet below them as mile wide ufos in front of them in the sky ...

Well I'll remain on my fence where the view takes my mind off the splinters.

I had a long report on the Bowyer sighting that left the sighting as unidentified. Funnily enough I'm reminded of the official explanation for the Red Bluff UFO sighting. Apparently the witnesses saw a reflection of Mars in a temperature inversion to explain the red beam the witnesses described. The white lights on the reported craft were a superior mirage of two stars. Maybe they were and maybe they weren't....sometimes the explanations sound as extraordinary as the reports.

I hope you checked the Clarke link...it's a great account and not so well known.

EDIT: Here's the released files of the incident...the last document adds another witness to the object... http://www.thewhyfiles.net/pdfs/ufo_sighting_channel_islands_23apr07_enc.pdf I can't think where I got the full report from.