Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here UFOs | Paranormal | Area 51 People | Places | Random Top 100 | What's New Catalog | New Books 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 Our Bookstore is OPEN Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 1997 -> Jul -> Here

From: Peregrine Mendoza <101653.2205@compuserve.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:09:36 -0400
Fwd Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:52:43 -0400
Subject: Secrets of Literary History


The Duke of Mendoza presents his compliments to the List.

> From: DRudiak@aol.com [David Rudiak]
> Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:55:47 -0400 (EDT)
> Fwd Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 14:00:36 -0400
> Subject: Brookesmith Smears Marcel

A recent cursory glance at the UpDates Website suggests that most of
this gripe by David Rudiak about my treatment of poor victimized
Jesse Marcel has been dealt with by others, notably John Stepkowski,
while I was away and off-line. For which thanks; which all and sundry
may take as notice that I'm not going to rehearse the whole business
again.

Now Mr Rudiak may think what he likes of my report of Robert
Todd's research (duly acknowledged on page 156 of my book, so
altogether honestly "swiped directly from Robert Todd"), and call me
a liar if he likes to do that too, since I suppose it must make him
a happier man than if he did not, and I am all for happiness if you
can find it. But when he suggests none too subtly that I am a
plagiarist I do raise an eyebrow.

Mr Rudiak may consider the following to be disinformation. He is
entitled to his opinion, although it does not follow, from that, that
his opinion is worth very much.

I first became acquainted with Reuben Stone (which is not his real
name either, by the way) in somewhat noisy and alarming circumstances
in October 1973. We found we shared several interests, from the
foolishness of fighting tank battles without infantry support to the
genius of Francis Child and Cecil Sharpe, and remained in touch over
the ensuing years. Neither of us then was much interested in the
paranormal, but Reuben was intrigued by what he read in The
Unexplained partwork (published 1980-1983) that I edited, and he
became something of a believer. In 1991 I was asked to find a writer
for a five-volume "promo" book series on the paranormal and thought
he might be interested in the job. He was. But the writing/publishing
schedule demanded more time than he anticipated, and I agreed to pen
the UFO volume in the series for him, on the understanding that I
might use the material in my own work in due course. I also gave him
some material (notably a "ghost story" from my father's book about
his days on square-rigged sailing ships in the 1920s, and another
concerning my old mum, the formidable and indestructible Dowager
Duchess, who appears in pseudonymous guise as "Mrs Martha Beckwhyte", plus
a few other previously unpublished stories that I was hearing at
the time) for other books in the series. It was not an altogether
happy commission for me, in that the brief strictly maintained that
a skeptical line should be taken in only one "story" in ten, but the
money was reasonable for the effort involved, and I had the time, the
interest and the references, and he did not.

Not many people know that.

Mr Rudiak may or may not find brightness in a drab, wretched
existence by fulminating about people who, he considers, don't do
their research properly and parrot opinions and so forth. Mr Rudiak
is as black a pot as ever sat next to a suntanned kettle. All he had
to do was ask me what my relationship with Reuben Stone was, and I
would have told him. But he didn't ask. And so he has not been saved
the embarrassment of being made to look, through his intemperate
insinuations, not entirely unlike an incompetent - and what is worse,
an ill-mannered - oaf.

I shall *not* be held responsible for a sudden increase in the
incidence of black helicopters buzzing Mr Rudiak's residence in the
next few weeks, although news of such a phenomenon would not surprise
us at "higher headquarters". We should, however - for a reasonable
pecuniary consideration - be glad to exchange his wreckage for
someone else's.

Yours &c
Peregrine, Duke of Mendoza
* The pen name "Peter Brookesmith" is a registered trademark of
Mendoza Tentacular Enterprises Corporation SA, Madrid, Spain
"A friend of the devil is a friend of mine"