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From: Andy Roberts <Brigantia@compuserve.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:09:38 -0400
Fwd Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 09:48:39 -0400
Subject: Re: Max Burns Hoax Exposed


Y'all,

Well, you've got to laugh and admire at the gall of whoever was
behind this hoax (which takes several readings before the full
ramifications sink in). No doubt there will now be a flurry of
'outraged' decent ufologists who are appalled at such a hoax
being perpetrated on the 'UFO community'.

They will be wrong.

There is a long tradition of hoaxing within ufology and
associated subjects, and careful hoax experiments can only be
helpful. For example The Warminster hoax, MJ-12, the various
crop circle hoaxes etc have all been tremendously useful in
showing us just how witnesses experience, how investigators go
about their business, how the media (both general and
ufological) report a case and how the rumour mill spreads and
mutates.

This is very useful stuff to know indeed because when done under
controlled conditions, where all the information is known and
carefully documented, these hoaxes tell us a lot about as-yet
'unidentified' cases.

However unpalatable this may seem it is true. The Burns hoax is
just one in a long line of instructive exercises which we ignore
at our peril.

Ey ooop, they've started already:

Roy Hale misperceived:

>These people who were at the BUFORA lecture looked pretty
>innocent to me' they were probably revelling in their own self
>delight on their purposeful entrapment of Max. (Thank god I took
>pictures at the lecture)

Will Roy now practise psycometry over his photos of the BUFORA
(Sponsors of Max Burns) lecture to determine who the
hoaxers were? As far as I can see Max acted on the messages
entirely of his own free will. Again and again, making no attempt
to verify any part of what he was being told.

>How long must this BS carry on? You talk of Max and him hoaxing
>this whole incident, I think you have to read your own e-mail,
>wasn't it yourselves who made contact with Max regarding a crash
>site? Wasn't it yourselves who told Max that you were part of a
>military team who had knowledge of this incident? Wasn't it
>yourselves who led Max to believe the BS you were writing?

Forgive me if I'm wrong Roy, but it wouldn't have been a hoax if
the above wasn't true. What's your point exactly? Surely Max
acted on his own free will in this matter, could have chosen not
to have replied time and time again to the hoaxes, could have
seen through the obvious James Bond-isms in the text, and so on.
But he chose to let his beliefs lead him by the nose. If Burns,
or indeed any other investigator, is lacking in the nous to spot
and obvious hoax, (and I'm sure we're all saying to ourselves
'huh, *we* wouldn't have fallen for that'), then what does it
say about the level of investigative abilities?

>Who appointed you the self guardians of ufolgy? Who gave you
>this high & mighty platform? Who the hell are you to judge all
>UK ufologists who happen to believe in the ETH as mad hat
>believers and crackpots? When will the likes of yourselves climb
>down from this high horse you have been sat on for some time!

Roy goes into rant mode and reads from the initiation document
to his UFO club! Righteous indignation won't solve cases Roy,
nor will it affect the reality or not of the ETH.

>Do you have day time jobs? Who funds this crap?

Would it matter if the perpetrators were unemployed
or brain surgeons? I don't see the relevance. Presumably
the people behind the Piltdown Man hoax were all educated,
employed people. Your point is?

>Does anyone blame Max for answering your poxy e-mails? If you
>had spent 27 months on a case and then you received such info,
>would you ignore it?

Good point Roy - no I might not ignore it but I'd sure as hell
take precautions to check things out. C'mon Roy, if someone told
you you could make contact with a military source by standing
reading The Times at the side of a resevoir wouldn't you just
have a teensy-weensy bit of doubt?

> Oh what a sad day this is' this really is
>the death of uk ufology as we know it

Someone ought to trademark the expression 'death of UK Ufology'
as it is used so much by different people!

>I can understand why
>people are leaving the field of research with BS like this being
>churned out.

In my experience people tend to leave ufology when they don't
find in it what they believed was there. Hence why there is such
a huge turnover (certainly in the UK) of good researchers.

>The jam: Going underground:

I'll see your crap Paul Weller quote and raise you a Robert
Hunter:

'Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if
you look at it right'.

As the hoaxer/s say: 'caveat lector' (surely related to Hannibal
Lector judging by the way Burns was chewed up and spat out!)

Happy Solstice Trails

Andy