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the asparagus creatures

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of the ufo by charles lear in the world

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of ufology some stories continue on even

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after they've been convincingly debunked

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this is often due to a particular

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story's entertainment value

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and it should be remembered many ufo

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stories exist in an area between fiction

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and fact

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if we were to assign this area a genre

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name perhaps

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true science fiction might be

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appropriate the idea that a fantastic

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story could be true

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makes the story that much more

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interesting and suspension of disbelief

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is something everyone engages in when

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they want to be entertained

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one such story a biographical tale under

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the byline fred reagan

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appeared in the main 1953 issue of

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action magazine

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it could be held up as an example of

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what many paranormal enthusiasts call

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high strangeness however it seems to be

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what folklorists call

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a tall tale according to the article

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reagan was flying his piper cub over

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georgia

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a pulsating lozenge-shaped object came

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into his airspace and he collided with

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it

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reagan was thrown from his plane and

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started falling through the air

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then a sticky clinging force grabbed him

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and pulled him up toward the ufo

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he found himself inside a dimly lit room

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surrounded by strange beings

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they were around three feet tall and

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resembled huge stalks of metallic

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asparagus

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he lost consciousness when he came to a

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metallic voice spoke to him through a

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speaker

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using broken english the voice

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apologized for the collision

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saying it had been an accident it

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explained they were here to observe our

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primitive civilization

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and that their mission was peaceful the

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voice further told him

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that they'd examined him and found a

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cancerous tumor which they

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adjusted he was instructed not to talk

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about the incident

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as no one would believe him he then woke

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up in a hospital

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he was told he'd been found in a

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farmer's field the wreckage of his plane

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was nearby and had struck with such

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force

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that the engine was buried six feet into

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the ground reagan wasn't even scratched

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the article carried the following

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postscript atlanta may 16th

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fred reagan who made headlines last year

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when he claimed to have been a visitor

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aboard a flying saucer

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died today in the state asylum for the

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insane cause of death was determined to

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be degeneration of brain tissue due to

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extreme atomic radiation authorities are

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unable to offer an explanation

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the story turned up later in the

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september-october 1969 issue of flying

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saucer review

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in his article healing from ufos gordon

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creighton tells the reader that the

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account came to the attention of derrick

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dempster who was the editor of fsr from

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january 1955 to june 1956.

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according to creighton dempster and

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subsequent editors

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failed to publish the account no doubt

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because in those days

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it seemed altogether too preposterous

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and fantastic

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to be true creighton suggests that the

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story deserves further scrutiny

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the story was taken up by patrick hugh

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and appears in his 1996 book

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the field guide to extraterrestrials

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despite its having been debunked over

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two decades earlier

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jerome clark includes the story in his

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2003 book

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strange skies pilot encounters with ufos

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and describes its debunking according to

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clark canadian researcher kirk klemtzer

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made a search of georgia's vital records

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unit in 1972.

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he found no clipping that matched the

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one carried in the postscript he also

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found no record of a fred reagan who'd

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been involved

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in an aerial collision with the ufo t

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scott crane also did extensive research

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and found nothing to support the story

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he concluded that the story appears to

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be the rambling of a ghost writer's

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vivid imagination

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the old maxim considered the source

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certainly applies here

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in this case the source was a pope

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magazine directed towards a male

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audience

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in the 1950s there were many of these on

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the newsstands filled with tales of

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adventure

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the stories had titles such as cannibal

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crabs crawl to kill

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and mad monkeys man the lifeboats along

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with lord artwork on the cover

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with no other record of the incident in

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question it can be assumed with

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confidence that the story was made up

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despite its debunking this tale didn't

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completely disappear into obscurity

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it lives on and the creatures have

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become known as the george's stalks

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the stalks show up on the web in forum

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posts and is part of a list of bizarre

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non-gray aliens reported over the years

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in addition to the written descriptions

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there's an informative video for all

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those youtube researchers out there

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it's an example of the type of story

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that can confuse students of ufology

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that are new to the subject one could

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think of it as a test

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challenge to develop research skills one

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could also think of it as an

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entertaining example

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of modern folklore