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From: Beverly Trout <btufo@netins.net>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 13:10:11 -0500
Fwd Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 17:44:30 -0400
Subject: UpDate: Report on MUFON 2000 Symposium


Comprehensive Report On The MUFON July 2000 Symposium


Copyright 2000, by Bob Soetebier


The July 14-16, 2000, MUFON (www.mufon.com or
www.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/MUFON/index.html) Symposium was held at
the West Port Plaza Sheraton Chalet in Maryland Heights in St.
Louis County, Missouri. As we had never before attended one of
the annual MUFON symposiums, my wife, Dawn, and I bit the bullet
and swallowed the symposium’s admission co$t. (We’ve obviously
been spoiled by Lou Farish’s excellent, and bargain priced,
Ozark UFO Conference which is held annually in April at the
Best Western Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs, Arkansas!)

We also attended the (extra-co$t) Friday evening buffet dinner
at the Sheraton Chalet. Our good friend Beverly Trout, Iowa
MUFON (www.mufon.com/iowa.html) State Director, joined us at our
chosen table. Bev showed us a recent issue of a Des Moines
weekly newspaper ­ with a full-page photo of her on it’s cover ­
that contained an excellent article about recent UFO sightings
and her Iowa MUFON investigative efforts.

Michael Bryan (sp?) ­ who, in addition to being the honorary
MUFON International “Ambassador-at-Large”, has self-published a
series of travel books ­ along with his friends Andy Abercrombie
and Joe Juliano (sp?), a blind physician and author of books on
diabetes, also asked to join us at our Friday evening dinner
table. All three are fun guys. (Even though I have seen Michael
­ almost always in the company of his good friend, George
Wingfield ­ every year since our first 1994 attendance at the
Ozark UFO Conference, I had never had the chance to really talk
with him.)

Missouri MUFON (www.mufon.org or www.mufon.com/missouri.html)
Assistant State Director Dave Rapp was in charge of the
audio-visual setup. Before the symposium started, Dave told me
that the Sheraton staff had not set up the symposium room as he
had requested. Instead they set it up seating catty-corner,
instead of dead-on. This put the single slide-viewing screen in
the far-left corner, with screen right under a bright light!
(The Sheraton staff told Dave they could not turn off that
particular overhead light because of the “fire code” as that
light was in the immediate vicinity of a Fire Exit, which the
screen was blocking!) Dave was able to get them to move the
screen out a few feet from the light -- but still blocking the
Fire Exit -- during the Sat. lunch break. Additionally, when
slides were being displayed on the one-and-only screen, the
general room lighting had to be turned down in such a manner
that there was almost no light upon the speaker at all.

Because of the catty-corner seating, and the relatively low
ceiling, a LOT of symposium attendees could not see the screen
well, if at all! However, thanks to our front-row seats, my wife
and I had a good view of the screen.

Before the start of the symposium, the Sheraton staff had also
gone ahead and already set up the long, raised speakers’ panel
table platform, which they were not supposed to do until later
Sunday afternoon. This apparently prevented elevating the
individual speaker ’s podium. Also a couple of wide, mid-room
pillars also completely blocked the views of not too few of
those seated beyond half-way back, too!

Because of the resultant room set-up limitations, the
maximum-capacity seating ended up being 400 instead of the 500
that Dave Rapp had told me was in the original plan. My guess
is that symposium’s total attendance was around 350 people.

One of the people in the audience was none other than late-night
radio “Coast-to-Coast” talk-show host, Mike Siegel. (Retiring
Art Bell had recently chosen Siegel as his replacement.) I had a
chance to briefly (not on-air!) talk with Siegel who seemed like
a very nice, personable fellow. Siegel did do some interviews
with some of the symposium’s featured speakers. He has placed
about a 30-minute “MUFON 2000” audio clip on his web site,
www.coasttocoastam.com)

After Missouri MUFON State Director Bruce Widaman’s short
welcome-to-the-symposium intro, out-going MUFON International
Director Walter H. Andrus, Jr., gave a brief address in which
noted his pending semi-retirement due to his need to attend to
his wife Jean’s failing health. Andrus praised his wife’s
long-standing help in his UFO-related efforts. He then turned
the podium over to John F. Schuessler, M.S., who was to assume
the MUFON International Directorship on the Sunday afternoon of
the symposium.

John Schuessler noted that Andrus had literally spent the last
30 years spending all his “free” time (including his and Jean’s
yearly vacations) promoting UFOlogy and MUFON. Schuessler noted
MUFON’s beginnings ­ at first as an adjunct to APRO, then about
a year later as a separate entity -- via Walt Andrus’ efforts,
for which Andrus enlisted Schuessler’s additional assistance.

After more praise for Andrus, Schuessler moved on to publicly
laud Las Vegas-based billionaire real estate magnate Robert T.
Bigelow’s, National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS).
Schuessler said he hoped to promote “sharing” info/efforts with
NIDS and the possibility of some sort of UFOlogical coalition
with NIDS and other UFO organizations. (From a few comments I
heard from other MUFONites, apparently not all share
Schuessler’s enthusiasm for NIDS.) He went on to note that in
the next year or two MUFON hopes to have its entire case
database on-line via its web site. (Apparently only general
case synopses will be available on-line for access by the
general public; specific case details will be accessible only to
registered MUFON members.)

Linda G. Corley, Ph.D., of Houma, Louisiana, recounted her
one-day interview with Jesse Marcel, Sr, and his wife, at
Marcel’s Louisiana home in her hometown at that time. Marcel
originally had apparently had no qualms of “going on the record”
for Corley about his having handled the Roswell crash material
for the audio-taped interview (which Corley was only intending
for a college project/report.) But, only a couple days after he
did the interview with her, Corley said Marcel frantically
called her and said he had told her all lies and demanded that
she not reveal the interview info to anyone! (Now that both
Marcel and his wife have passed on, Corely said she felt it was
time to completely bring forth what Marcel had told her in the
audio-taped interview.)

After the lunch break, the first Saturday afternoon speaker was
a NIDS (www.accessnv.com/nids) representative, Colm A. Kelleher,
Ph.D. As was anticipated, Kelleher’s talk was mostly a
gloss-over promo for NIDS. (Kelleher was conspicuously absent
from the late Sunday afternoon symposium Speakers’ Panel “Q&A”
session.)

Springfield, Missouri, abduction researcher John S. Carpenter,
MSW, touted a video (previously shown on the now-defunct
“Paranormal Borderline” TV show) showing an anonymous security
guard missing-time” incident. Another (also anonymous) security
guard was supposed to be the one who originally sent the
security camera video to the P.B. TV show. Apparently he
claimed to have witnessed (while monitoring the camera video)
the other guard’s over-one-hour disappearance after a bright
flash of light, and his subsequent tossing-his-cookies “return”
after another flash of light. (Exactly why the video-monitoring
security guard did not go and close the left-open gate, that the
other over-an-hour “missing” security guard had opened, remains
a question to me. Such laxity sure would seem like an obvious
breach of security!)

Louisiana MUFON State Director Gregory J. Avery, a practicing
lawyer, showed some video clips that he had taken outside his
office, his home and a home of a friend in Metairie, LA. Who
knows about the “chemtrails”…BUT, he DID have some VERY
interesting UFO video (taken with his $3500.00 3CCD digital
video camera) that showed up on more than one occasion in the
immediate vicinity of the “chemtrails.” One of the UFOs which
looked like a revolving black trash can came right out of a
small cloud and then made an abrupt turn and followed the
“chemtrail” edge. He also showed some “swarms” of black,
gnat-like UFOs that went in and out of the nearby clouds.
(Avery noted that video “pixel drop-out” could be eliminated by
the smooth, continuous movements exhibited by the numerous
objects.) For more info (according to Avery’s business card),
check out: www.louisianamufon.com (or via the general MUFON web
site, at: www.mufon.com/louisiana.html)

California Physicist Robert M. Wood, Ph.D., literally sped
through his slide presentation of the update on “new” purported
“MJ-12” documents. Moot point, though, as you really couldn’t
read them on the screen! That’s too bad because if they had been
readable, at least there might have been the option of getting a
copy of the video of his talk to review them. The saving grace
is the fact that there is plenty of “MJ-12” material on his
related web site at: www.majesticdocuments.com/

Bev Trout again joined us, and about a dozen of our other
friends, for Saturday evening dinner. We did so much talking
that I didn’t even have time to finish my food during the
two-hour break!

Beginning the Saturday evening symposium session was book
author, and Maryland MUFON (www.mufon.com/maryland.html) State
Director, Dr. Bruce S. Maccabee. In addition to his being an
optical physicist, and a consultant for the U.S. Navy, Maccabee
has authored such books as, UFOs Are Real: Here’s The Proof,
and, The UFO-FBI Connection. He did a very good job of
debunking the debunkers. He started off by exposing Dr. Robert
L. Park, author of the recent book, Voodoo Science: The Road
from Foolishness to Fraud. Maccabee’s enumeration of Park’s
numerous misrepresentations of the Roswell case alone made it
crystal clear that it is Dr. Park himself who is both the fool
and fraud! (Maccabee’s detailed comments about Park’s Voodoo
Science and be found at:
http://www.ufomind.com/ufo/updates/2000/jul/m27-014.shtml

Another UFO-book author (Crash At Corona, and, TOP
SECRET/MAJIC), and nuclear physicist, Stanton T. Friedman was
rehashing (again) the Roswell case, my wife and I bugged-out
after we sat through about half of his talk. Friedman is a very
good, and entertaining, speaker. But, we’d already heard his
Roswell talk twice before in our area in 1996 and 1998. (Oh
well, at least that gave us a chance to get home early that
night.)

Ted R. Phillips, a long-time physical-trace-case investigator,
mentioned in his Sunday morning talk that he had finally
finished his report on the Delphos (Ron Johnson) Kansas case.
(Unfortunately, Ted had to leave for California that afternoon,
so he was absent from the Speakers’ Panel Q&A later that
afternoon.) For more info, you can check out Ted Phillips’
“Center for Physical Trace Research” web site at:
www.angelfire.com/mo/cptr

A 19-year-old Californian, John Greenewald, Jr., is an obviously
an up-and-coming “star” whose 5-year FOIA-investigative effort
has definitely shined a LOT of light for others to follow! John
has garnered thousands of UFO-related official government
documents via the Freedom of Information Act. He utilized his
laptop’s presentation software to illuminate some of the
results. John noted that he has posted approximately 80,000
pages of those FOIA documents at his web site: The Black Vault
(www.blackvault.com). He also announced that he will soon be
starting another FOIA-docs web site (www.jfksecrets.com) that
will deal with the conspiracy issues surrounding the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

During the lunch break I got to spend a bit of time talking with
our friend, “MUFON Journal”
(www.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/MUFON/journal/index.html) editor,
Dwight Connelly. We first met Dwight a few years ago when my
wife and I joined Dwight, Lou Farish and “FATE” magazine UFO
columnist Antonio Huneeus for breakfast at the Ozark UFO
Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Dwight and his very nice
wife, Carolyn (along with others), were spending much of their
time helping out at the symposium.

Having previously heard his excellent talk, I skipped Stan
Gordon’s reprise of the Kecksburg, PA, UFO crash. He really does
a very good/thorough job in his presentation. Stan did tell me
on the Saturday of the symposium that he was excited because he
had located a new Kecksburg witness with whom he would be
meeting in the next few months. Stay tuned! In the meantime,
for more info about the Kecksburg UFO incident, be sure to check
out Stan’s UFO Anomalies Zone web site at:
http://www.westol.com/~paufo/

Having previously heard his discussion of the Aviano, Italy, UFO
case (which has also been published in a past issue of the
“MUFON ournal”), I also passed on Washington State MUFON
(www.mufon.com/washington.html) Director Gerald E. Rolwes’
presentation. (By the way, from scuttlebutt heard at the
symposium, Rolwes also is a strong NIDS proponent.)

I better spent the hour-plus talking to Dr. Roger K. Leir while
he had a late lunch at the hotel dining room. Dr. Leir is a
California-based podiatric physician and surgeon, and the author
of the 1998 book, the Aliens and the Scapel ­ Scientific Proof
of Extraterrestrial Implants in Humans. (It notes in Dr. Leir’s
book that it was sponsored by Bigelow’s NIDS. However, Dr. Leir
made it a point to tell me right up front that he insisted on
being free to publish his material.) We covered a lot of
interesting bases (both above and below ground) during that
interlude.

An author, and recent Ph.D., from Iowa, Kevin D. Randle was the
last featured speaker. His talk was about an 1962 Las Vegas
purported UFO crash. His on-screen slides were a faded brownish
color and were extremely hard to see. (Thankfully, Randle mostly
stuck to discussing that old case, and generally refrained from
taunting the audience with his most recent extremely
controversial abduction hypothesis!)

After the symposium was over, Bruce Widaman asked my wife and I
to join him and Dave Rapp, and about 20 others, for a limited
(invitation-only) and in-the-round, brainstorming session with
Greg Avery and Dr. Roger Leir. No definitive conclusions were
arrived upon, but many helpful suggestions for further
consideration were well aired during the 2-hour session. . I had
already invited a few folks to join us for dinner Sunday evening
after the symposium. After the “brainstorming” session, Roger
Leir, Greg Avery, John Greenewald, Linda Corley, Bev Trout and a
couple others joined us after 9:00 p.m. for Mexican food at a
favorite West Port Plaza restaurant. Greg Avery had his digital
video camera with him and spent about 5 minutes filming outside
the restaurant. He came back in and sat back down next to me at
the dinner table and said, “Wait until you see what I think I
may have just now captured on video!”

Greg sat the video camera (with its short tripod) on the table
and flipped out the digital screen. While filming, he had aimed
the camera at an area of nearby roof and sky. I watched the
(infrared) video as a white, narrow, “rod-like” streamer (an
estimated one-foot to 18-inches long) shot by…doing a fast
mid-streamer double ninety-degree angle bend! All at the table
(including our amazed waitress!) got a chance to see what he had
captured moments before just outside the clear-glass restaurant
atrium where we were seated. To say the least, that was a very
interesting way to top off the weekend!

As an added note: I did manage to put a bug (not literally, nor
electronically!) in John Greenewald’s ear in regards to
California-based Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC). SAIC is headed by none other than Admiral Bobby Ray
Inman, who is the former director of the NSA, Deputy Director of
the CIA, Vice Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and
former Director of Naval Intelligence. Some contend that SAIC
may very well be the repository of anti-gravity research!
(Others, apparently, even speculate that there may even possibly
be some sort of connection between SAIC and NIDS.) Keep
watching Greenewald’s www.blackvault.com web site for possible
further developments.

A final note: Be sure to read the April 4, 2000, “Who's Really
Running NASA ..?” article by Richard C. Hoagland. The article
contains direct quotes from NASA-head Dan Goldin’s public
statement regarding Admiral Bobby Ray Inman as the head of the
JPL Oversight Committee at Cal Tech. (Sounds like the
possibility may exist that if Bobby Ray says “No!”…It don’t go!
Or, maybe, “I spy, or it don’t fly!”) You can check out the
article at this URL: www.enterprisemission.com/whosnasa.html