Ufologists are a sloppy lot

Many of you know how much I denigrate the so-called “research” or investigational acumen of UFO devotees.

My plaint derives from how cavalier UFO writers and self-appointed “ufologists” are when it comes to recounting or providing details about UFO sightings.

For instance, in Harold E. Burt’s “Flying Saucers 101” [A UFO Book, published by UFO Magazine, Inc. 2000], Mr. Burt, in his account of the Lonnie Zamora/Socorro sighting, writes this:

“… the flame stopped and the craft drifted slowly over the mountains and disappeared.” [Page 284]

That statement would seem to support Anthony Bragalia’s NMIT Balloon/Hoax Theory.

But that’s not what Lonnie Zamora reported, as provided in Officer Zamora’s verbatim account, found in The Hynek UFO Report [Barnes & Noble, NY, 1997] where we find this, from Officer Zamora:

“Object was traveling very fast … The object seemed to lift up slowly and to get small in the distance very fast.” [Page 218]

And in that same transcript, Office Zamora said:

"After fell by the car and glasses fell off, kept running...Object was traveling very fast...I ran back to my car and as I ran back, I kept an eye on the object. I picked up my glasses (I left the sunglasses on the ground), got into the car..." [Page 218]

Some “ufologists” ignore this statement, which indicates that Officer Zamora saw the object leaving without wearing his prescriptive lenses, so his observation is beclouded by that fact.

David Rudiak, a doctor of Optometry, failed to note this for many years until I broached the matter at UFO UpDates in 2004.

 Then there is the significant early description of the “beings” that allegedly abducted Betty and Barney Hill.

Mrs. Hill initially said they had noses like famous comedian/actor Jimmy Durante – a large proboscis.

Her statement is always ignored, replaced by “ufologists” who want her beings to conform to the no nose physiognomy of their ET visitors, The Greys.

There are other gaffes or deliberate misrepresentations, many in the debris stories now being addressed at various blogs and in anticipation of a disclosure about what the Dee Proctor relatives are said to holding (from the 1947 Roswell crash).

Yes, as French über-skeptic Gilles Fernandez often writes: “That’s ufology.”

N.B. David Rudiak caught my errant syntax in the Zamora eyeglass account and I thank him. I've emended the copy above to make my point correctly.

RR