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UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: Steven Kaeser <steve@konsulting.com>
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 20:22:32 -0400
Fwd Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 23:13:40 -0400
Subject: Re: The Question of UFO Witness Anonymity

>From: nick@emailme.at.address.below (Nick Humphries)
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: The Question of UFO Witness Anonymity
>Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 15:40:10 GMT

>No offence, Linda, but it seems to me that it was Budd Hopkins that first
>"outed" you in public, and without your permission as well. Yet you still
>claim that it was the dastardly debunkers who did it.

>Which would you consider more serious: a photograph of you published and
>declared as being an abductee (so _anyone_, who knows you or otherwise, will
>now instantly recoginise who you are and what your claims are), or someone
>revealing your real surname (in which case only those that know you will make
>the connection)?

>I would say that the photograph would be more damaging, and Hopkins is to
>blame for that. The photographs came before the revelation of the surname,
>therefore I can only conclude that Hopkins was ultimately responsible for
>throwing you into the limelight.

>It appears that you'd rather blame it all on debunkers instead of the
>primary proponent - I wonder why?

I would suggest that photographs of subjects are often included in
psychological
journal articles if they are relevent to the topic, and rarely (if ever) are
their real names used.  In the long run a photograph would only alert those
who know the person as to their involvement, not the entire world.  It might
be argued that one is more likely to get "grief" from someone you know (as
opposed to a complete stranger), but I can find out a lot more about a person
with their name and location, as opposed to a photograph.  Linda's real name
wasn't even mentioned at the MIT Abduction Conference, where Hopkins used it
as an example of an independantly witnessed abduction, even though the real
names of several others were.

If memory serves, it wasn't Linda that began this discussion on UpDates
this time around. We have been focusing on the propriety of preserving the
anonymity of "experiencers" who allow their stories to be told, not trying
to lay blame on how Linda's name was made public. Linda has apparently come
to terms with the manner in which that occurred.  I would agree that "Linda
Cortile" was in the spotlight prior to her real name being revealed, however,
a vast majority of those seeing the picture with that name attached would
have assumed that it was her real name.

On the other hand, Hopkins is ultimately responsible for the release of the
name since he was the researcher directly involved and had control (or at
least should have) of the information.  This doesn't mean circumstances
beyond his control could not occur, and it appears that is exactly what
happened.  Linda, meanwhile, has laid blame elsewhere when taking those
"circumstances" into account.