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UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: jan@cyberzone.net (Jan Aldrich)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 15:41:00 -0800
Fwd Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 16:08:24 -0500
Subject: Re: 'Rand' Document - Backgrounder

> From: Ktperehwon@aol.com [Karl T Pflock]
> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:31:30 -0500 (EST)
> To: updates@globalserve.net
> Subject: Re:  UFO UpDate: 'Rand' Document - Backgrounder

> >Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 09:07:05 -0800
> >From: Jan Aldrich <jan@CYBERZONE.NET>
> >Subject: Re: UFOR: Thorough vs paranoid.... (fwd)
> >To: CURRENT-ENCOUNTERS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

> >I guess ufology has no institution memory.  About every six
> >months someone "discovers" "THE RAND DOCUMENT"!!!! <Drum roll,
> >trumpets!> >>

> Anyone wanting the full story on why Kocher wrote his paper and
> some of the significant material therein will find same in my
> article in THE ANOMALIST 5. I interviewed Kocher at length for
> the article; interestingly enough, I was the first UFO researcher
> since 1968 to do so.

Karl Pflock may think my posting was aimed at him. It wasn't. In
the Archives of this list, earlier this year is an announcement
of the "discovery" of the "The RAND Document."  Recently, an
Isreali scientist announced another discovery of the "The RAND
Document" on the Current Encounters list.  Here is the last
message in an exchange I had with him:

                      *       *        *

Your quote at the end of your message, Sir, exactly describes the
problem in Ufology:

 When our knowledge is not in order, the more which we have of it,
 the greater will be our confusion.     Inspired by Herbert Spencer
 (1820-1903)

Please don't take my criticism personally.  I have simply pointed
out a failing in Ufology.  We have no "Ufological Abstracts" and
no index to government documents.  Most other material is poorly
organized and seldom indexed.  The sighting databases which exist
are helpful, but not representative.

We had proposed a project to gather all known government documents
into an archives and eventually place them on searchable CD-Roms.
Such a project would have made this material easily avaiable to
libraries and individual worldwide.  This was the favorite project
of one well-to-do patron.  However, his interest has now changed.

Some government documents are currently on CD-ROM, but these are
mostly images of pages.  People are unable to do keyword searches
in the text for relationships.

Efforts such as Ed Stewart's indexing projects get little or no
support.  If the 150 copies of the MUFON Journal Index and the
FSR Index he produced were sold, he would than be able to recycle
the money into printing the next index.

                    *      *      *
--
Jan Aldrich
Project 1947
http://www.iufog.org/project1947/