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From: Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk (Stig Agermose)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:08:47 +0200
Fwd Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 00:47:59 -0400
Subject: Ufologists Comment On Roswell Report (MSNBC)

Found at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/81152.asp

                                                                      =20
                               Beyond Roswell: Is the truth out there?=20

Investigators say 1947 incident doesn=92t represent best UFO case=20


                     =20
Fifty years after the first modern flying-saucer reports, the UFO
phenomenon continues to be fueled by thousands of sightings - as well
as denials, deceptions and disappointments.
            =20
And although the Roswell Incident stands as perhaps the most
spectacular flying-saucer story, the phenomenon goes far beyond the
desert town of Roswell, N.M.

"Roswell is lost in a fog of confusion with all sorts of bewildering
claims and counterclaims," says Jerry Clark of the Center for UFO
Studies, author of the definitive "UFO Encyclopedia." The second
edition of the multivolume encyclopedia comes out this fall.

"The problem is, no one began to investigate this thing until 30 years
later, when memories are hazy," Clark says. Even Kent Jeffrey, the head
of the International Roswell Initiative, says he now believes there was
no flying-saucer incident at Roswell - a claim that has earned him
blistering scorn in some UFO circles.            =20

Clark says the debate over the reality of Roswell will remain
"stalemated unless there=92s some startling new breakthrough."

The U.S. Air Force is on the verge of releasing a second review of
unclassified UFO files, but don=92t look for an amazing breakthrough.

Indeed, Air Force investigators reportedly will speculate that some
reported sightings of alien bodies are traceable to '50s-era
experiments involving dummies dropped from high altitudes to study the
results of the impact. =20

The earlier review said in 1994 that debris recovered during the 1947
Roswell Incident actually came from apparatus used in Project Mogul, a
top-secret operation to monitor Soviet nuclear blasts using aerial
sensors hung from weather balloons.=20

UFO enthusiasts say the shifting stories coming from government sources
only heighten their suspicions that the full truth has not yet been
told about Roswell. But investigators such as Clark say there are other
UFO reports that yield far more promise than Roswell.

"You really have to focus not on the most spectacular cases, but on the
hard evidence, something you can take into the laboratory," Clark says.
                                                 =20

According to the lore that has grown up around unidentified flying
objects, the first recognized sighting was reported on June 24, 1947,
by Boise businessman Kenneth Arnold. A trained pilot, Arnold said he
saw nine disk-like objects flying in formation over Mount Rainier in
Washington. It was that report that led to the creation of the term
"flying saucer."

Clark says Arnold=92s report has held up to 50 years of scrutiny.

"His sighting remains puzzling," he says. "It was a very good sighting."

More recently, UFO investigators have focused on a series of sightings
reported in Arizona on March 13. Dozens of observers, scattered across
100 miles, reported seeing a cluster of lights moving rapidly across
the night sky.

The Arizona incident stands as "perhaps the most dramatic UFO sighting
that has been reported to the National UFO Reporting Center" over the
past two or three years, says the Seattle-based center's director,
Peter Davenport.

Davenport has also gathered reports of a similar cluster of lights
passing over a wide area of Texas on May 5.

In Clark's view, the best-documented UFO case involves a sighting on
Jan. 8, 1981, in the French village of Trans-en-Provence. A farmer,
Renato Nicolai, reported seeing an object several feet in diameter that
landed in his garden and took off again after a few moments, disturbing
the soil.

"At the time, the French government had an officially funded UFO
research project," Clark says. The project, known by the French acronym
GEPAN, found that traces of phosphate and zinc were left at the site,
and that leaves from young plants in the garden showed a significant
loss of chlorophyll.

GEPAN concluded that while "we cannot give a precise and unique
interpretation to this remarkable combination of results ... we can
state that there is nonetheless confirmation of a very significant
event which happened on this spot."
=BF =BF =BF =BF=20
Clark says the story illustrates that UFO research can yield intriguing
results - provided it is backed up by money and expertise.

"The fact of the matter is that real science is really expensive," he
says. "It=92s expensive to go into the laboratory, it=92s expensive to hire
the services of competent scientists. ... The only reason why the UFO
phenomenon continues to be controversial is because we haven't put
resources into it."

Davenport, who is struggling to keep his center going with almost no
outside support, agrees heartily.

"Funding is a major, major problem," he says. "In my estimation, the
chokepoint is there." =BF                     =20



=A9 1997 MSNBC       =20