THE UFO FILES
PETER BROOKESMITH surveys the latest fads and flaps from the world of ufological research
Much might be said about the recently deceased Stan Friedman [you’ll find his obituary on p28], and many have, most of it mysteriously complimentary comment. It’s a mark of how odd is the world of ufology that it’s possible for someone to have an enormous impact, be wrong about just about everything he tackled, and yet garner fulsome acclaim when he falls off his twig. So, ever contrarian, I come not to praise Stan, but to bury him.
Stan, working as an uncredited researcher for Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore, more or less single-handedly re-animated the longforgotten Roswell Incident – not, I hasten to add, because he made stuff up, but because he believed people who did, and a whole troop of them came out of their burrows for a couple of decades, to the great distraction and, when they proved to be liars, enormous embarrassment of mainstream ufology. Then Stan fell for the original, 1987-vintage MJ-12 papers, the bastard children of Roswell, and never wavered in his belief that they were the real deal, despite all sorts of proof that they were hokum. He was to his credit rather less impressed with later soi-disant MJ-12 fakery, but nonetheless espoused such batty ideas as that transistors were reverse-engineered from alien technology filched from the Roswell wreckage. He also had to stretch logic beyond breaking-point in fingering those he thought composed the original MJ-12 panel, particularly in accusing arch-debunker Donald Menzel of being among that crew. Then he fell for the Aztec crash legend, the underlying facts of which are, not to put too fine a point on it, non-existent. Even to make his version of Roswell work, he had to have two flying saucers bump into one another and come scrunching down in different places. Stan was forever going on about being scientific, but he never seems to have had much truck with Occam’s Razor. Perhaps his biggest flaw in that respect was failing to admit that data from the Hipparcos satellite blew the Fish Model, which indicated that the aliens who supposedly abducted Betty and Barney came from Zeta Reticuli, out of the sky [see FT225:29 for Stan’s view, and FT242:50-52 for Brett Holmann’s critique]. Pestered relentlessly about this, the best he could do was say it was ‘very interesting’ and that he’d look into it. If he ever did, he was remarkably silent about it. Stan wasn’t one to be confused by the facts if he could help it.
Nor did he seem to be aware of more abstract arguments. He never really justified his notion that aliens might exist in the first place, because (I guess) he never
understood – or never felt the need to understand – the contingencies involved in (a) evolution to intelligence (b) the cultural evolution of a technological society. He seemed to think these were somehow inevitable, which they are not. And he never really took on sceptical arguments, preferring to call anyone who disagreed with him a “nasty, noisy, negativist”. I’ve always wondered what might be “positive” about believing in alien visitation, if you ignore the contactee movement, up at which Stan anyway turned his nose – which is an historiographical mistake in itself.
In person, Stan was affable, and generous with sharing material if he had it and you didn’t – although later he could be publicly (and twistedly) sarcastic about your apparent ignorance. On another level he could be obnoxious, as in his threat to sue our own Jenny Randles for libel. He maintained that she had been defamatory in describing some of his ufological assertions as “outrageous tripe”, which seems to me to be fair comment, none of which incidentally mentioned our man Stan by name. Oh, one wishes one could have seen him stand up in court and attempt to defend his bizarre beliefs in the face of a demon barrister’s thumbscrew-like cross-examination, no doubt to much mirth from the pricier seats. Unfortunately, Jenny didn’t have the funds to defend herself – which, one suspects, Stan and his legal advisers knew perfectly well, which in my view made the whole nasty episode worse, and less than honourable. So, Jenny was punished by unscrupulous process, not by the majesty of the law, and
coughed up to keep the bastards off her back. If you want the full skinny, the whole dismal, complicated tale is hilariously told by David Langford at https://ansible.uk/writing/ uniconze.html. Stan Friedman’s ufological faults, abundant as they were, were not much worse than those of others one could name, if one extracts his huge ego from the mix, but this one strikes me as unforgivably odious. So, RIP if you can, Stan.
AND IN OTHER NEWS...
Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson, who are not, as the younger ones among you may suppose, a couple of bluegrass fiddlers, are having their alleged 1973 abduction, while fishing in Pascagoula, Mississippi, commemorated with a nice plaque. The TTSAAS/Nimitz/etc controversy rumbles on, with almost everyone involved now disagreeing with everyone else involved, including Pentagon officials, and as with bullfighting and bearbaiting, the less said the better until something sensible comes out in the wash, which in this case it may never do. So, I may have to revert to Trappist mode on that one, for a while. Ray Santilli has popped up to say that his fake alien-abduction movie is genuine after all. Sure, and President Trump has just sold the Brooklyn Bridge to a consortium of the Israeli and Iranian governments, who will jointly collect tolls and donate the proceeds to, um, Jeremy Corbyn. Bob Lazar has emerged from his murky past and is still wittering about his stash of solid Element 115, alias muscovium, half-life 0.65 seconds, I believe. Nothing ever goes away in ufology – which is why it’s all so much fun.