Linda Howe, another con artist of "ufoology"?

----- Original Message ----- 

From: A. J. Gevaerd (Revista UFO) 

To: World UFO Community 

Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 5:17 AM

Subject: Linda Howe again promotes a UFO hoaxer who wants to benefit
from someone else's hard work

A PUBLIC PROTEST

Linda Moulton Howe again promotes a known UFO hoaxer who wants to
benefit from someone else's hard work

It has been brought to my attention that Linda Moulton Howe has
published a story on her website Earthfiles.com where she describes
the most important moment in Brazilian Ufology, the disclosure of
secret UFO files by the Brazilian Air Force. Linda Moulton Howe tells
the story with a level of distortion and absence of fact only seen a
few years ago when she defended and promoted a known hoaxer as
genuine.

Here it is: www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=914&category=Environment

I could not believe what I was told and then I visited Earthfiles.com.
To my astonishment and absolute surprise I confirmed that Linda
Moulton Howe once again has produced a very unreliable kind of
journalism and presented completely distorted information as genuine
fact to the international UFO community.

Despite the fact that the disclosure of secret UFO files by the
Brazilian Air Force was announced weeks ago as an achievement of the
Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU), after 14 very long
months of hard work and determination in promoting the movement UFOs:
Freedom of Information Now and the gathering of 36,000 signatures in a
petition, Linda Moulton Howe completely omits those truly responsible
for the successful results of the campaign.

Despite the fact that hundreds of UFO websites reported the accurate
events leading to the opening of Brazil's military UFO files and
despite the fact that the international UFO community is well aware of
the legitimate info about the UFOs: Freedom of Information Now
campaign and its authorship, Linda Moulton Howe published her story on
Earthfiles.com distorting the information and omitting those actually
responsible for the most successful achievement that the Brazilian UFO
researchers reached with an enormous amount of work and sacrifice.
News of the success of the UFOs: Freedom of Information Now campaign
has been circulated to the international UFO community.

Instead of informing her readers appropriately, Linda Moulton Howe
chose to interview one of the only people in the Brazilian UFO
Community who had absolutely nothing to do with the campaign at all
and who only had, at the last minute, jumped in the boat not as an
invited guest, but only as a shameless opportunist seeking to benefit
from somebody else's hard work. Yes, you guessed right that fellow is
Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira.

Linda Moulton Howe's story on her website misleads her readers to
believe that Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira was invited by the
Brazilian military to the meeting that the UFO researchers had with
them. Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira was never invited and he never
took part in the campaign at all, as he is not recognized as a UFO
researcher in Brazil, but seen as a nuisance to the legitimate
Brazilian UFO community.

The UFOs: Freedom of Information Now campaign was launched in April
2004 as a genuine initiative done exclusively by the Brazilian
Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU) with broad support from the entire
Brazilian UFO Community. After 10 months of very hard work, last
January the military finally acknowledged this movement. The spokesman
for the military was Major Antonio Lorenzo and he contacted UFO
researcher and Brazilian UFO Magazine editor A. J. Gevaerd, inviting
him and the entire Committee for a visit to Brazilian Air Force
installations, in Brasilia, de Federal Capital.

Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira, contrary to Linda Moulton Howe's story,
was never contacted by the military and never invited. However, when
he knew that the meeting was scheduled to May 20, he and a partner
called the Brazilian Air Force department and demanded to be present
at the gathering. As the Brazilian Air Force, as public department,
cannot deny access to someone while open to someone else, he was then
accepted to come, with a visible embarrassment for him and the members
of the Committee.

Contrary to what Linda Moulton Howe believes or wants her readers to
believe, Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira attended the meeting as an
uninvited guest, much to the embarrassment of the Brazilian UFO
community. He asked no questions to the military, took no notes, and
made no remarks. He was not acknowledged at all. Urandir Fernandes de
Oliveira did not attend any of the personal meetings with the
military, and he did not analyze any documents.

All Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira and his partner did was take photos
and films and make sure that they would appear in photos and films
made by the members of the Committee and the press, in a incredible
effort to have their faces on the program Fantastico for an interview,
an interview in which Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira refers to Linda
Moulton Howe. The Fantastico program is the very same which, a few
years ago, exposed Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira' hoaxes and his
prison under the accusation of having sold 6,000 pieces of land that
did not belong to him.

Linda Moulton Howe presented Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira to her
readers as if he was some kind of spokesman of the campaign promoted
by the Brazilian UFO researchers, and as if he had played some role in
helping the Brazilian UFO researchers to achieve this historical
event. Instead of helping in any way, Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira
only criticized the campaign in the previous months before it reached
its goal of gaining the cooperation of the Brazilian military. Urandir
Fernandes de Oliveira helped with absolutely nothing. And Linda
Moulton Howe presents him as a person who played an important role in
the process. This is a shame and is insulting to those actually
responsible for the success of this very important campaign.

I think that I don't have to remind the members of the international
UFO community that a few years ago Linda Moulton Howe visited Urandir
Fernandes de Oliveira's farm in Brazil after Urandir Fernandes de
Oliveira's paid for Linda Moulton Howe's trip. She was delighted to
listen to his fantasy tales of abductions and contacts with aliens.
Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira's claims are largely known delusions or
hoaxes. She listened to no Brazilian UFO researchers, she spoke with
no members of the press or Brazilian UFO community, she did not
contact any of a number of people who could describe to her how
Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira fakes UFO sightings.

Instead, Linda Moulton Howe promoted Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira's
absurd tales in the USA, especially the hoax in which he was
supposedly abducted by aliens and tried to convince people of his
story with some burned bed sheets and small burns to the ceiling of a
room, through which he was allegedly taken to a mothership and
encountered 39 aliens races, including Jesus Christ. That hoax is well
known to the entire Brazilian UFO Community, which completely reject
his UFO-sect Projeto Portal (Gateway Project), created during the same
time the Heaven�s Gate was created outside San Diego.

As the head of the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU), the
group who initiated this campaign for the freedom of information, in
the name of all the other members of such Committee and being the
person who was contacted by the Brazilian military and invited by them
for this very important meeting in Brasilia, I cannot stand for
anymore of Linda Moulton Howe's unreliable journalism and will not
allow it or any other half truths or omissions to destroy or discredit
this critical freedom of information campaign.

The truth must prevail here at this very important and historical UFO
cooperative effort. The international UFO community must move forward
and we all must realize that there is no more room for lies,
distortions, and opportunists who do nothing and criticize the ones
who do.

A. J. Gevaerd, 

Editor, Brazilian UFO Magazine

Head, Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU)

www.ufo.com.br 


And from Royce J Myers of UFOWATCHDOG.COM:

All the info I have on the Urandir-Howe fiasco is posted
here:http://www.ufowatchdog.com/brazil.html

Be sure to go to the bottom of the page for the links. As for the
original claim that Urandir had been abducted byaliens, whatever
happened to all the scientific work that was supposed to have been
carried out?

Last I heard, Howe went to the lab where the stones were being looked
at and retrieved them without an analysis being completed.

I agree that Howe's past work had merit and I did at one time respect
her, but after a few experiences with her and her promotion of obvious
idiots (i.e.: Burisch, Urandir, etc.) andher pushing of making the
mundane into the extraordinary, she's completely lost her credibility
with me.  She even spent 7 hourswith the bogus 'Dr. Reed' at a UFO
conference and said she didn't know what to think about the story.
This is after I told her the guy was a con artist and provided her the
info.
I think Ted Oliphant pegged it right by referring to Howe as a media
entrepreneur.
Regards,Royce J. Myers 

UFOWATCHDOG website 

http://www.ufowatchdog.com