Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here Our Bookstore is OPEN Over 5000 new & used titles, competitively priced! Topics: UFOs - Paranormal - Area 51 - Ghosts - Forteana - Conspiracy - History - Biography - Psychology - Religion - Crime - Health - Geography - Maps - Science - Money - Language - Recreation - Technology - Fiction - Other - New Search... for keyword(s)   in Page Titles in Book Title/Author in Contents of Pages ---other searches--- Metacrawler Yahoo FAST Search Google Altavista Dogpile Inference Find Northern Light IWon.com MSN Search Las Vegas Sun Location: Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 1997 -> Feb -> Re: 'Libel'

UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Andy Roberts <101322.751@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 18 Feb 97 12:49:44 EST
Fwd Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 16:49:47 -0500
Subject: Re: 'Libel'

I'm sorry to bore list members with UFO politics but I can't let
Stan Friedman get away with this:

Stan Friedman wrote:

>Concerning Andy Roberts charge re my libel suit, he is off the wall.
>I sued the Manchester Evening News and Jenny and Bufora, (since she
>was acting in her role as their director of research) for defamation
>in a long and very nasty article appearing on a Saturday before my
>Sunday lecture in Manchester.

It wasn't 'nasty', it reflected opinion about someone who held very
strange beliefs. Are you scared of opinion Stan? Interestingly enough
more people became aware of the issues as a result of your lawsuit
than were before. Funny way of not wanting to be 'defamed'.

>There was  no Sunday paper in which an apology could be published.
>She initially tried to blame the newspaper. We obtained  copy of
>the letter she had sent the paper which was even more defamatory
>ten the article. An out of court settlement was reached and a
>full apology was published.

Mainly because the person acting legally for you in the UK has had
it in for Jenny for years and his actions appeared to be a personal
vendetta. The libel laws are, as most of us know, based on medieval
laws and are stacked against you from the word go - unless you have
lots of money. Also by your reasoning not only do you not allow
opinion to be expressed publically but you won't even allow it in a
private letter!

>There are laws about defamation. A bunch of misguided UK people
>tried to make it a free speech issue (it never was) and raised
>money to help Jenny... all the while misrepresenting the
>particulars of the case.

The 'bunch' of people may have been misguided but they were
misguided by the simple fact that an American ufologist, using
sympathetic legal contacts was out to stifle opinion about
what many ufologists world-wide still see as nutty ideas. Sorry
if you or the list doesn't like that way of looking at it but that's
how it is.

People are quite entitled to hold *any* ideas they want - the more
the merrier - but they must also accept that outlandish ideas in
particular attract the most cutting criticisms. What's the problem?
A great many well-known UK ufologists put money up for Jenny's
defence and some sci-fi people such as Dave Langford. Jenny was
fully aware of this but in the end due to family reasons chose
not to go through with it. A great pity to my mind as we would
have seen the bizarre spectacle of strange beliefs put on trial,
and according to legal advice taken at the time Jenny would have won.

>Even now, though touting free speech, they made it impossible
>for solicitor Harry Harris,  who handled the case for me, to
>speak at a recent UK conference.

This was a diffrent bunch of misguided people entirely Stan! I
presume you are referring to the recent Lytham St Annes conference in
which Harry Harris conned the organising group LAPIS - against their
founder members wishes - into letting him speak. It's true he *was*
virtually booed off stage but that was just because what he was saying
was boring and innapopriate. Few people there actually knew who he was,
cared less and just wanted some entertainment. Harry wanted to rant
about why he didn't agree with Dr Sue Blackmore's *opinion* on
abductions as expressed on a TV show a year or so earlier. The sequel
to this is he has caused so much hassle in the LAPIS group that even
the people who invited him in the first place now regret it. (for a
fuller outline of this see the next issue of BUFORAs UFO Times or
The New Ufologist 'zines).

>Free speech doesn'tmean freedom to reveal state secrets, incite
>a riot, or  defame a person.

Why not? You're on *very* dodgy ground now Stan. In two of those
circumstances it's your moral duty in many instances and the last is
debatable.

>The best defense against libel is truth. Jenny had none on her
>side. She had every opportunity to apologize and would not..

Why should she apologise for her opinions? Again, I'm sorry to make
a point of all this but it just typifies what *really* goes on in
so-called UFO research. And whether we like it or not UFO politics
make the subject what it is. The stories which could be told would
make the average consumer of ufolgy's toes curl, but I know the list
is sensitive!

Vallee was right to stay out of it all- but for us lesser mortals
who don't like to see wool being pulled over eyes we *should* expose
the petty arguments and even pettier personalities who are just out
for a fast buck or their five minutes of fame as a big fish in a
*very* small pool.

Andy