FLYINGSAUCERY

PETER BROOKESMITH PRESENTS HIS REGULAR SURVEY OF THE LATEST FADS AND FLAPS FROM THE WORLD OF UFOLOGY

THERE IS NO SENSE IN TRYING

“…but it’s all right, Ma – I’m only dying…” Ufology has a way of killing off some, even if not all, of its brighter stars, who make fine contributions to the subject and ere long depart in disgust. So the field is left with a collection of halfwits and buffoons who loudly lay claim to the Truth, but who curiously enough fail to agree on almost everything except that the aliens are here, and some of them come from Zeta Reticuli. Should you doubt my words, read Robert Sheaffer’s Bad UFOs blog reports on the 2017 International UFO Congress in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Part of his bad news is that the bar was intolerably expensive. Otherwise the gathering was treated to a collection of mostly has-beens churning out the same old stuff they’ve been peddling for years, decades in some cases. And bats they mostly are. (Comparisons with noble members of the House of Lords should be stoutly resisted.) Those attending were treated among other things to Col Charles Halt doing his Walter Mittyish shtick over Rendlesham, Stan Friedman remorselessly oblivious to the debunking of the Fish star model (see FT242:50-52), someone else unmoved by all rational (and conclusively provable) explanations of the Phoenix lights of 1997, and one Ted Roe, who in the course of a self-regarding discourse remarked that in ufology one must restrain those who “start attacking peoples’ image”.

This is a bit rich coming from Roe, who late last year expended much energy dissing Isaac Koi for operating under a pseudonym, and threatening to expose his real identity. (Roe now denies doing any such thing, guffaw, and went on to accuse Koi of lacking integrity.) In early December an understandably upset Isaac released this statement:

“Goodbye: I seem to have greatly annoyed Ted Roe about a month ago when I posted a brief comment on Facebook about his new IAUPR group. Without wanting to bother you all with the details, he has subsequently posted on various Facebook pages attacking my use of a pseudonym (referring to me as a ‘fictional entity’, ‘it’ and posting ‘Who the f—k is Isaac Koi and why won’t he comply w the standards we do?’). …

“Even more worryingly to me, given my concern not to have clients know about my interest in ufology in case this adversely affects my income, he has now posted today – after various people were kind enough to support me in the relevant discussion on Facebook (including Edoardo Russo, Curt Collins, Rich Hoffman, Paul Dean and others) – called those supporting me ‘little butt sucking followers’ and said ‘just watch how I make these malcontents famous anytime someone searches their name’.”

Charming. Isaac posted a 100-odd page document on his Facebook page and the Above Top Secret (ATS) website with all the grisly details you might require. For those short of time, I commend Curt Collins’s summary of the byzantine background to the case on his excellent website (www. blueblurrylines.com/2016/12/erica-lukested-roe-and-attack-on-isaac.html). One of the pivotal arguments in this infantile brouhaha was over that famous German 1950 April Fools’ joke (for another from the same year, see p37), the photo of a little alien held by two betrilbyed B-movie G-men in trench coats, (below) which someone had whimsically identified as coming from “the Cape Girardeau, Missouri, UFO crash on April 12, 1941”. The original of this doctored picture has long since been found, by the way.

Isaac’s great strength has been his sedulous persistence in tracking down and putting online archaic ufological newsletters, journals and magazines, all with copyright clearance, for all to view for free. Now, some may think this a trifle nerdy, a facet of the philatelic tendency in the field, and that his concern that knowledge of his interest might adversely affect his appeal as a barrister is a little overwrought. We don’t, for instance, recall that Harry Harris, Mancunian solicitor and egregious devotee of our dreadful libel laws, ever suffered from his promotion of questionable abduction cases. So Isaac’s (in)voluntary retirement is a loss, especially to those of us who might not, without his efforts, have been able to appreciate, for example, what a brilliant production UFO Brigantia was – ufology as comedy, indeed. If ufology is to survive – if only as comedy – it needs young guns to succeed the kind of superannuated sclerotics who appeared in Arizona. Isaac was one such new kid in town, doing something worthwhile, and he will be much missed. He is survived by his website, and his many posts on ATS.

SURPRISING SILENCE

I had thought that the discovery of TRAPPIST-1, a dim star 40 million light years away, with no less than seven rocky Earth-like planets circling it, one of which seems to be a fine candidate for nurturing life in some form, would have the ETHers squeaking with joy, and proclaiming it ‘proof’ of their ill-founded beliefs. But one finds not a peep from the usual suspects. I doubt this silence has much to do with a sudden access of knowledge or wisdom, so must be content with finding it odd, if mildly encouraging.