UFO UpDates Mailing List
From: Dennis Stacy <dstacy@texas.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 00:47:07 -0500
Fwd Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 15:30:35 -0400
Subject: Re: Voyager Newsletter, Mogul Parchment Parachutes
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
>Subject: Re: Voyager Newsletter, Mogul Parchment Parachutes
>Date: Wed, 09 Jun 99 19:38:05 PDT
>>Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 18:17:16 -0500
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>From: Dennis Stacy <dstacy@texas.net>
>>Subject: Re: Voyager Newsletter, Mogul Parchment Parachutes
<snip>
>>No, logic such as this simply means that when you're dealing
>>with an anecdotal account the only fact you have is the anecdote
>>itself. Which anecdote may or may not be true in particular, or
>>may reflect varying degrees of subjectivity and misperception in
>>general.
>>The only evidence we have for Arnold's sighting is Arnold's
>>account of same.
>Not true. There's also the Fred M. Johnson's corroborating
>sighting.
>C'mon, Dennis.
<Huge snip already replied to.>
>Jerry Clark
C'mon, Jerry,
Corroborative by what standards of corroboration?
You leave the misleading impression that Johnson saw the exact
same thing that Arnold did at the exact same time, and in the
exact same place -- more or less -- thereby confirming and/or
corroborating Arnold's original account.
Yet your own account of the Johnson sighting, based on a letter
he wrote the Air Force two months after the fact (UFO
Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 141), is full of qualifiers ("they
may...he could well have seen," etc.). So which is it?
To support Johnson's credibility, you'll want to no doubt quote
the following from the FBI file as established fact:
"Fred Johnson...reported without consulting any records..."
Qualifier: there is no way the interviewing FBI agent could have
determined whether this was absolute fact or not. Obviously, he
is simply reporting Johnson's _claim_ that he hadn't consulted
any records, made moot, in the event, by Johnson's later
admission in the same interview that he had "noted an article
in the local paper...and communicated with the Army for the sole
purpose of attempting to add credence to the story furnished by
the man in Boise [i.e., Arnold]."
In the end this is not too fine a philosphical point. The
account has to be distinguished from the fact itself. To assume
that they are one and the same, that is, that Arnold's
perception and/or interpretation of what he saw is the actual
fact itself, and nothing but (no other interpretations
permitted), is ludicrous.
Regardless of whether Arnold, or Johnson, or both, were right or
wrong, there is no excuse for confusing or mistaking an
_account_ of a phenomenon with the phenomenon itself. The two
are separate phenomena and forever will be.
That was my point: Rudiak and Maccabee can mathematically
analyze Arnold's _account_ until hell freezes over. But it
doesn't necessarily tell us that much, if anything, about the
purported phenomenon itself.
Moreover, ufology is replete with cautionary tales. Mark
Cashman, who I greatly respect, recently revealed in IUR that
the 1965 (?) Beaver, Pennsylvania, photos were unalduterated
fakes. Until that time, however, he had the photo(s) on his web
page, subject to all sorts of luminosity analysis and other
"corroborative" evidence. The only problem, in the end, was that
the original account didn't match up with the phenomenon. In
fact, there was no phenomenon.
For another instructive story, read physicist Irwin Wieder's
account of the discovery that the infamous 1966 Willamette Pass,
Oregon, photo was also a patent hoax. Why did it take so long to
explain same? Because, as Wieder so bravely admitted, given the
witness's confirmed credentials, he was perfectly contented to
remain on automatic pilot, what he referred to as "a pure belief
mode." Again, the account and the (non-existent in this case)
phenomenon weren't exactly a one-to-one match up, because,
again, there was no stimulating phenomenon.
Does this mean, ipso facto, that Arnold is in the same league?
Of course not. Does it mean that he _could_ be? I'll leave that
up to you to decide.
By the same token, there's no compelling reason, granted Clark's
exalted UFO theology (in which witnesses are never confused
about anything, but always spot on), to argue that Arnold
shouldn't ascend to ufological sainthood post haste. Hey, the
guy was only human.
Or did I misread my scripture?
Dennis
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