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From: Terry Evans <tevans@tranquility.net>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 09:17:30 -0500
Fwd Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 08:57:20 -0400
Subject: Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos


 >From: Jerry Black <blackhole60@hotmail.com>
 >To: updates@globalserve.net
 >Subject: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos
 >Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 22:13:35 PDT

 >Bruce Maccabee,  you continue to be an embarrassment to the
 >field of ufology. You very well know that William G.Hyzer has
 >proven that Photograph #19 was a double exposure. Yours and
 >MUFON's contentions that there was a dent in the hood, that the
 >top of the hood was muddy, that there were bricks in the back
 >of the truck, luminosity coming down the road… all these
 >contentions are just that: contentions.

I am not sure if I agree with Mr. Black that Dr. Maccabee (what
is your degree in?) is an embarrassment.  But I think he hurt
his credibility with the Gulf Breeze case...for starters.

I think it is suspicious that over time the Anti-Walters camp
found a loop-hole in his story.

Dr. Maccabee came up with another "why it is" story. i.e "Its
that bricks... no, its the dent, no its the mud...." A good
investigator would have already been aware of this and figured
it into the investigation at the time, not upon criticism.

 >William G. Hyzer, with all of his sophisticated equipment, has
 >proven that there was no luminosity coming down the road,
 >contradicting Jeff Sainio's contention with 12-years of
 >experience in the field of photographic analysis.

 >You continue to use a smear tactic on Photograph's 1 through 5.
 >The only thing, Bruce Maccabee, that has been smeared in the
 >last 10 to 15 years has been your reputation. Your dubious
 >analysis of the New Zealand video, your ridiculous analysis of
 >the Guardian video [to which later, one of MUFON's top
 >investigators in Canada, Tom Theofanous, had proven to be a
 >hoax], and lastly, your ridiculous investigation of the Gulf
 >Breeze case. As I stated before, these crossover's in ufology
 >are ridiculous.
 >
 >As far as I'm concerned, anyone who accepts $20,000.00 in an
 >ongoing investigation should disqualify himself from further
 >involvement with the case.  Realizing, of course, that Walt
 >Andrus would never have the professionalism to dismiss you, you
 >should have been disqualified from any further investigation of
 >this case upon acceptance of this sum of money. Also, your good
 >friend [who is no longer in the field], Bob Oeschler, accepted
 >$5,000.00 early-on in the investigation for some work he did on
 >the Ed Walters' photographs, which obviously had nothing to do
 >with evaluating the Gulf Breeze case.

Mr. Black is correct. Taking the money puts DBM motives in
question. It doesn't matter when he took the money, the deal
could have been cut long before the case was completed.  The
honorable thing to do would been to refuse any payment.

As for Mr. Oeschler, didn't he take that money allegedly for
having some photos reprinted?  Seems to me that it would not
have cost $5,000 to do what he did.

 >So it turns out that Ed Walters, in the end, had two people
 >indebted to him: Bruce Maccabee and Bob Oeschler.

 >So I would say that with your three strikes, Bruce Maccabee,
 >that you should be out: New Zealand, Guardian and Gulf Breeze.

 >Jerome Clark can continue to say that he has all the respect in
 >the world for your intelligence, your knowledge and your
 >ability. But if he's talking about this in relation to ufology,
 >he does not know what he is talking about. This is why I am
 >going to add Jerome Clark's name to the list of "The Old  Boy's
 >Club." This is a clique where nothing derogatory is said about
 >another member, no matter how badly their cases are investigated
 >or what ridiculous statements they make. They simply do not
 >speak ill of one another, and these are: Stanton Friedman, Budd
 >Hopkins, Bruce Maccabee, Walt Andrus, and now Jerome Clark.

Its a matter of survival.  In the Press Corps, if you come out
and say something the President does not like, it could be
totally true, but not liked, then you are out on your ear.  No
more White House assignments... thats the kiss of death.  The
same holds true for the Good Ole Boys in the UFO community. Its
very important to not say anything bad (but true) about anyone
else in the club because it might put you on the outside and
that might mean not getting some morsel of "valuable" info...
"left out of the loop" so to speak.

 >As I said, this is the first time you were subject to a test to
 >determine if your photo-analysis work would stand against the
 >work of another who is not in the field of ufology. As far as I
 >am concerned, you miserably failed that test. On top of that,
 >you accepted $20,000.00 for writing a chapter in a book before
 >the case was even finalized. Further, you had the audacity to
 >insult the intelligence of the UFO community by co-authoring a
 >book called "UFOs Are Real, Here's the Proof."

 >I notice that in dubious cases like Ed Walters and Whitley
 >Strieber, there is one common denominator: other people's
 >stories and photographs are used in attempt to validate the
 >claim in question. Mr. Strieber has done the same thing. In
 >fact, his last book "Confirmation," was exactly done for that
 >purpose. I will state for any and all UFOlogist out there: you
 >cannot use the photograph or story of another person to validate
 >a separate story or claim. Certainly, it may be interesting if
 >someone has a photograph that looks similar to the those taken
 >by Ed Walters, or a story similar to that given by Whitley
 >Strieber. But in the end, the primary claim is to be evaluated
 >on its own merits, disregarding any other photographs taken, and
 >disregarding other stories, similar or otherwise, to the claims
 >in question. And yet, in these dubious cases, claimants always
 >try to point to other cases or photographs to vindicate their
 >own. You will notice in the Travis Walton case, Walton never
 >once tried to use another persons abduction claim to support his
 >own. In the 1976 Casey County, Kentucky abduction incident, the
 >three women involved did not rely upon the claim of another
 >person in an attempt to bolster their own experience. Both of
 >these cases, as far as I'm concerned, stand as highly regarded
 >cases.

 >It is a shame that you, Bruce Maccabee, had to
 >co-author your first book with Ed Walters, who is
 >responsible for one of the most elaborate UFO
 >hoaxes of the 90's. You have embarrassed yourself,
 >and have embarrassed the UFO community.

 >In a separate letter I will be addressing to Jerome Clark where
 >he [and also Bill Jones of Ohio MUFON] want to know why I am so
 >upset with some of the leaders in ufology; these are the exact
 >reasons why.

 >Finally, in your comments about Art Hufford you said that he
 >still may have seen the same thing Ed Walters photographed - you
 >are missing the point. He couldn't have seen the same thing
 >unless the Ed Walter's UFO had portable windows.  Given your
 >readiness to accept the claim of Ed Walters, I am assuming that
 >you believe this to be a possibility too. Regardless, there is
 >no way that Art Hufford saw the same object seen in Ed's
 >pictures. First of all, Ed's were models, and secondly, even if
 >you believe in Ed Walters, there were no windows in the UFO seen
 >by Art Hufford. And to this day, an article just recently listed
 >in the Pensacola Journal, he states the same ridiculous
 >statement again: "I saw the same thing in the Ed Walters
 >photograph." The case of the wanna-believers in Gulf Breeze goes
 >on and on and on.

 >But most importantly, Bruce Maccabee, you stated in your letter
 >that there were two other people, a man and a woman, plus a
 >genteman named Truman Holcombe , who had a good view of an
 >object that they perceived to be the same object in the Gulf
 >Breeze photograph. But as I stated earlier, the only issue I had
 >with Art Hufford is that he was an investigator on the case. It
 >would have made no difference if Hufford did see windows on the
 >object, because each case is handled individually - on its own.
 >Just because Art Hufford may have seen an object with windows in
 >it or had perceived it to be the same shape and size of the Ed
 >Walters object, this does not mean Ed Walters photographs are
 >genuine.  The same goes for the other three people; just because
 >they felt as if they had seen something similar to the Gulf
 >Breeze photographs does not vindicate Ed Walters.  The
 >conclusions to be drawn from the Gulf Breeze case are based on
 >the evidence presented by Ed Walters only. Each case stands on
 >its own merits.

 >That is why you have tried so hard in your book, "UFOs Are Real,
 >Here's The Proof,"  to use other photographs from other cases to
 >vindicate Ed Walters. Please recall that in 1970, Bill Spaulding
 >investigated a photograph given to him which showed an alleged
 >UFO hovering over a house. A copy of this picture was put in a
 >midwestern newspaper along with the story of a young man who
 >took the picture. Some weeks later, Spaulding analyzed the
 >photograph and found a string holding up the object. The young
 >man denied it, and his parents were very upset. After a second
 >analysis, he reaffirmed that there was definitely a string
 >holding up a model. Afterward, the young man, age-15, then
 >confessed that it was a model and he had done this for a joke.
 >During the three or four week period of time that this story had
 >developed, six to seven people in that town had reported seeing
 >exactly the same object that the boy had photographed. Well
 >since the photograph the young boy took was a model, these
 >people obviously could not have seen the same object as
 >photographed. The question is, what did they see? Was it power
 >of suggestion? Was it the idea that they wanted to believe so
 >badly that what the boy saw was real that every object they saw
 >looked like it? I am not a psychologist and don't know the
 >answer to that, but that is one of the reasons why, regardless
 >of what anyone else reports that looks similar or exactly like
 >pictures taken by a separate subject, that does not confirm or
 >make pictures taken by the subject real. Again, a UFO case is
 >based upon the evidence presented by the person being
 >investigated, and not by other pictures of objects or reports of
 >other objects, unless of course, the object is sighted under
 >simultaneous conditions.

 >Interestingly, in all the pictures that Ed Walters took at his
 >home, not one neighbor ever reported seeing any objects that Ed
 >Walters photographed. Not one. There again, that does not mean
 >that Ed Walters photographs are not real, but it is interesting
 >to note that not one neighbor saw any object that Ed Walters
 >photographed.

Mr. Black makes some important points and he should not be
dismissed.

Terry Evans