Justification

Critical Prose & Poetic Commentary regarding UFOs and their astonishing ancillaries, consciousness & conspiracy, plus a proud sufferer of orthorexia nervosa since 2005!

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Restore John Ford! (Part II)

https://youtu.be/uL1kSX42kMc
LISTEN TO JOHN FORD!


Restore John Ford! (Part II)
by Alfred Lehmberg

The saga of sorrow and sadness continues... when last we met, UFO Investigator John Ford was becoming inconvenient to a Suffolk county, New York criminal elite and was being set up, subsequently, for an unjust torpedo below an out-of-bounds and civil rights trampling  waterline!  Such must be undeniably so.

Seriously, what was John Ford doing ...really... when a gun-bristling platoon of officious SWAT assets showed up at his humble residence in Suffolk County New York to arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder... in the most stupid way imaginable?  Well, he was doing what he did best!

He was intelligently organizing the Suffolk County locals for a lawful exercise of their of their natural right to be INFORMED about government activities... for which they were paying!!!  More specifically?   He was doing some expert detective work to facilitate that end!  Alarm bells should be going off here.

See?  He was also, and note this... feverishly investigating alleged target John Powell and Powell's complicity... [...*ding*!] ...regarding the strange behavior of police, firemen, Parks & Sanitation workers, and other government officials employed by Suffolk County in New York during a big documented UFO flap!  ...Behavior, reader, peculiar in the extreme! 

...Beginning to smell a rat, friends and neighbors?  Ford did and was hot on the suspect trail of same!  Verily, what was John Ford's root concern in this brouhaha of the highly strange?

Well—John Ford, no dummy remember but an educated man, was sure that Suffolk County officials, and the noir-fascistic head of those officials, John Powell, were all hip-deep in a bona fide *conspiracy*... to cover up the crash of an alien spacecraft near Moriches Bay on September 28 in 1989...

C'mon!  Somebody laugh so I can whack you with the flat of a righteous board!

For any readers out there daring a lackwit's smirky giggle at the preceding: remember that dozens of credible witnesses saw something highly strange transpire in and around the bay on that fateful night!  See?  One's decidedly foundationless giggle can be retired with some shame!  One is not forgiven.

Consider.

Since 1982, the New York counties of Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Duchess, Westchester, and Suffolk... were inundated with some 5,000 reports of large, boomerang-shaped, and otherwise unidentified flying objects in the skies overhead...

...Only one of those reports has to pay off, reader, remember. Giggle if you still can... I'll wait while looking down in embarrassment for you.

Anyway...

In a completely lawful manner, with a well in bounds minimum of "actionable eccentricity", and with some intelligent intensity—single-minded passion!—John Ford investigated John Powell

Well within the law, and with some vigor, reader, the "little guy" tried to get the gotcha *goods* on the "big guy."  One can certainly begin to predict the eventual outcome of this David and Goliath story...

...Reverse Time warp...

When I was a child living in southwest Connecticut I used to hear my Dad talk with his friends regarding these stories, myths, and legends about the cesspool of crooks and corruption that was Suffolk County, New York in the forties and fifties... it sounded all cops and robbers to a precocious six-year-old.  Does the reader have any idea what the "quotient of corruption" is NOW... or, specifically, in the 1989 to 1996 timeframe?  ...Do you think it got any better, friends and fellow motes?  No?

Let me just cut to the curly short-hairs, ladies and gentlemen!  John Powell, Ford's alleged "target," was dirty as hell

Yes!  In 1999, and out of political favors apparently, Powell would be charged with (...and plead no contest to!) Racketeering, Grand Theft, and Extortion charges!  And that's just what they indicted him on, folks ...you can bet it was the plea-bargained tip of the obligatory iceberg of Powell's long-running crime syndicate! 

In the year 2000, Powell would be given the *lesser* sentence of twenty-three months in a *minimum* security country-club!  With good behavior, you know, like not being caught assaulting a fellow inmate... he would be out in 18 months... but how much time was actually spent, said and done?  ...Was any time spent at all?

John Ford, on the other hand, has not drawn a free breath or seen the light of a free day since 1996...

Is anyone else seeing the effortlessly connectable dots in this picture?  Let me help!

The truly intrepid John Ford was investigating a man, one John Powell, and John Powell could not bear an investigation of any flavor

John Ford likely scared the wild, blueberry HORSE-MUFFINS out of John Powell, you want to know the truth... and what kind of mamma's-boy-loser can John Ford be if he can make a BIG fish in a BIG pond like John Powell and Suffolk County sweat the righteous net!

Is it an inordinate stretch to suppose that John Powell could have exercised a few tainted *muscles* of his vast political machine of graft and conspiracy... to... TORPEDO John Ford?  Given the senseless facts of the case, John Ford's history, education, and references, and contrasted with Powell's subsequent criminal conviction...?...a conviction perhaps even precipitated by Ford's lawful interest...?...does the listener think it *remotely* possible that the preceding is so?

Oh, it's so... it's just another iteration of the same old story we become more and more accustomed to in an increasingly terrorized, authoritarian, and tyrannical world...  Goliath, friends and fellow motes, only loses in the Bible!   

...And forget all about John Ford's assertions with regard to UFOs, which may or may not be dead on the money!  If wrong in FACT, reader?  John Ford is most assuredly correct in SPIRIT!

Yes, John Ford's ufological assertions may have been all wet!  They REMAIN; however, beside the point and only significant (and key on this!) in that Ford's "belief" in them "proved" the case of his... trumped UP... "instability"... So he could be more handily cocooned and effectively silenced by corrupt county officials as... insane.  Who's next?

What's IMPORTANT remains to be:  that Ford was busily investigating a man, a criminal man with long ties to organized crime... ...and so a man who could bear no investigation!

John ford is innocent, reader, and he rots in a locked cell for the convenience of an ongoing conspiracy and a criminal elite!  I in no way overstate!

Truly, Suffolk County owes John Ford more than they could ever pay.  Though, they should try...

...T h e y.   S h o u l d.   T r y...

John Ford is owed his pension, a home, his savings, his modest gun collection, all his memorabilia, all his lawyers fees... ...for year after year... after year... of hard, hard time... Time made all the more intolerable... in as much as he was very likely a complete and utter innocent... and SANE for ALL of that time!  Reader!!  The Horror!  Walk one mile with John Ford, reader!  He is you.

Ford's initial *attorney*, one John Rouse (...rhymes with louse?), had given every public indication that the case against Ford is specious at best... and wholly contrived at worst!  It was a ruse.  It would seem Rouse might be painted as Powell's double agent!

The "witnesses" against Ford were suspect ...perhaps planted, or sold Ford out for reduced sentences in other crimes committed... I mean who knows what went on in an evil underground Suffolk county! This is the nature, one is reminded, of a criminal conspiracy. 

The clinical evaluation determining Ford's *insanity* was almost certainly flawed, canted, or ignorantly uninformed, and the "B" movie circumstances surrounding Ford's ongoing torment... are too suspicious to be minimally credible... and so are without DOUBT, in this writer's mind, scurrilously fabricated!  Credible doubt!  Relevant doubt!  Reasonable doubt!

Doubt!

John Ford deserves a re-look, a change of venue, or a hearing of some type to try to get some real justice done.  The loss of Ford's freedom for the convenience of a craven convicted criminal is, verily, the symbolic loss of all our freedoms, a repudiation of everything that America is supposed to be, and a crime in its own right!

John Ford's civil rights and right to personal liberty have been violated in the most fundamental sense, folks, and we VALIDATE the arbitrary rule of *privileged* autocrats to let John Ford's ongoing treatment continue... 

This cannot be allowed to stand!  Restore John Ford to his previous life, Suffolk County, now and with all deliberate speed!

...missed PART I?

...Just before the unjust ax fell...

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Restore John Ford Song!



The strings were so dirty for the last recording that I thought I would redo it. Made it longer. Wore a hat, too. Shoulda combed my beard ...

Collective Sorrow


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I write to make a music of the sort that won't pretend what the errors of our past produce... today. All the terror raining bombs, insulted Arabs—wounded Jews... all the hate that's running rampant while faux *Christians* hold their sway.
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Still, the saucers slither in the blackness if in sight, and we cower in indifference to pretend that wrong is right. To wit? The least of us are sacrificed to pad rich feathered halls with pumped up teats of trophy wives oblivious to all...
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We tear our eyes from lights that fly. We laugh and smirk and don't ask why. We're mired in mistakes so plain, mistakes so senseless, cruelinsane.
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Make some man a public figure, think him... somehow... better, bigger! Place him on your pedestal—too soon held up for ridicule. Listen to his radio. Hit his site. He's getting bold (?)—then cast him out you fickle bitch! You whining... puling... fawning snitch!
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It all comes down to us at last. It's what we catch in nets we cast. But them! So safe (and in position), spewing Right-Wing impositions. Wrapped in their convenience—proud! ...And at the suffering? Laugh out loud!

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The truth is ravaged—used, abused! Tormented! Savaged! Depressed! Confused!
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From where would come your laughter, then? You're not a clueless JERK, my friend... Truth comes clean if it's but faced, though most will not to earn disgrace.

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Conspiracy's alive and stark! Insidious and plainly dark, it thrives too well in quick denial—is nurtured in conniving guile. It preens itself in our distraction and grows too bold in our inaction!
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...I AGREE the water's filthy, but save the baby—could we? Will we?

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We're mushrooms to the non-elected. We're in the dark, fed crap—detective! We don't have a wit or clue... clear evidence of said abuse. Faith and trust is just pretended, crass betrayal, instead, extended!

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Nothing's as it must appear if first drawn through ones lens of fear...
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You say that's false, but then stop looking... blinded to their looting—rooking! It's like we *know* and just don't care, contributing to angst still there! ...And in your bubble thought secure... you rationalize these lies—absurd!

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Hidden in this churning madness, caught up in elitist gladness are the truths that we would have if we would cop to what we've said. Hallowed *treaties* now deplored, around five hundred, *slightly* more—ripped apart by "Uncle Sam" to fill the vaults of shadow men? Fixing prices, built-in failure, planning for a short-term's nadir, building walls to hide behind for "insulation's" sake, one finds!

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Knowledge IS the power, friend, explaining schools that just *pretend*. Autonomy is what we're missing, then *teams* have power beyond dismissing, but THAT is what "the man" must fear (above all else) it so appears.

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Flying in the skies like crickets, *somewhere*, it has been admitted, are reflections of ourselves who look and wonder for themselves! But they're not here 'cause we're not there (?), our science says... but oh—contraire!

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Much better that we treat them like... ...they're watching us, just out of sight. The evidence: historical, photos, papers, anecdotal—these just tips of massive 'bergs which float serenely I have heard...

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We're not LOOKING! We don't admit it. We're lost to our indifference with it! Our focus is on learned sneering, proudly bloated profiteering. We've no thought beyond tomorrow, and THAT is our collective sorrow.




alienview@adelphia.net
www.AlienView.net



Thursday, April 23, 2015

Restore John Ford! (Part I)



Restore John Ford! (Part I)

My first encounter with the strange plight of John Ford occurred around July 12, 1996.  It seems I was forever changed.

I was driving from Alabama to coastal panhandle Florida.  Specifically, Panama City.   I would join my wife, already there, for a weekend vacation and a little celebration of our impending 23rd wedding anniversary.

Hey!  I remind the reader I'm a garden variety "everyman" even if charmed by what's outside the box!  That aforementioned "outside" defines the "box" after all, eh? 

To continue, the drive was a relaxed one.  I was casually enjoying the careless and carefree trip.  Ahead of me is two days of good beer, some fun in the sun, and a cessation of college for the summer.  I'd returned to college after retiring from the military to get a teaching credential... but that's a digression and whole other sordid story... 

1996.  These were the comparative golden-ages, reader... pre 9/11 times.  I had more of my teeth and was in a complacent pre-stroke bliss.  Additionally, I was out of the military, horizons were at their widest, and the pressure was way off.  I felt good.

As I drove I listened with distraction to the car radio.  I wasn't really hearing the news or the announcer as I drove and was, in fact, just about to tune to a *hairier* spot on the FM radio dial... when the announcer used the expression "UFO." 

That stopped my hand at the channel knob, eh?  I settled back into the car seat to listen.  I have an interest in UFOs as does any rational person with a soul and even the smallest imagination...

Anyway... The reporter shared (and I paraphrase) that some loopy UFO "whack-job" from Suffolk County, New York had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit serial murder, actually... alleged murder, in a new, new-age and completely inexplicable if not wholly brain-dead way

It seems this obviously "crazy" person, John Ford, *purloined* a *quantity* of "radium" from the "Infamous" Brookhaven Nuclear Facility!  It was his astonishing plan, I was informed, to break into the victim's house... put powdered "radium" into the victim's toothpaste, just to start... and kill him as a result of the ensuing radiation poisoning!  Let's have a cognitive re-set.  Back the tape up.  Grok it in its fullness.

Seriously, a little like murder by radioactive whiffle-ball bat... Yeah, enough times in the right spot and homicide, after years, will result... but come on!

I remember thinking that this incredibly hapless fellow must be one mondo-bionic dim-bulb of a ruminating snot-gobbler... sincerely ...to conceive of a stunt like that!  How could it, remotely, work.
Consider, wouldn't it take years to dispatch someone in that manner (if it worked at all!), and what about the logistics of the ongoing act, itself? "Radium" is 'hot' stuff!  It is easily detectable!  It can leave a long-lasting and incriminating trail wherever it goes! 

Moreover, I'd think when the victim turned his lights off to retire for the night and mistress or family member noted that Daddy's mouth glowed in the dark?  Why... it might have meant something to someone! 

Frankly, I found the whole episode too puzzling, too unlikely, and too "just plain" dumb.  Consequently, I couldn't put it out of my mind.

...Something about it just wasn't right!  Righteously, curiosity's fuse was assiduously lit

Time warp...

It's a decade and much change later, now.  Saddened in an enraged extreme regarding what was revealed to me, I make my report. 

From the beginning, I discovered that there is much, much more to the Ford affair than meets the eye!  The plummeting rabbit hole goes decidedly dank and unclean.  The provenance of that corruption does not remotely belong to Ford, either, I hasten to add.

Right off the bat, there were perplexing surprises...

Consider... someone 'unsettled' enough to conceive of putting radium in a person's toothpaste... well, such a person must have some kind of 'history' of aberrant behavior, wouldn't you think?  I mean, a guy like this doesn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, you know?  There must be some kind of record or audit trail of psychotic deviancy... wouldn't that be fair?

But no—there's no such record!  In fact, the absolute and exact opposite is the case!

John Ford was a model citizen, reader, a retired court officer, and a holder of a college Master's degree.  He was good to his mother, who lived with him at the time, and though he had yet to marry, he'd dated and gotten close a couple of times; he's a garden-variety every-man, too, I suspect! 

Or was...

He was a registered Republican (for which he can be forgiven...I suppose), but he's productively active and well known in local politics (the point!)!  Moreover, he's known to weep at the suffering of small animals and periodically rescued stray dogs from the pound.  Additionally, he volunteered selflessly during civic emergencies... He'd have been a nobler hero on September 11th than "America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani ... I've no doubt.

Let's cut to the chase!  John Ford was a proverbial community PILLAR, reader! 

Also proverbially, anyone who's known John Ford at all reports only that it is "impossible" Ford be involved in a conspiracy to murder anyone... much less and especially someone as high profile as the intended victim, John Powell!  Powell, FYI, was the biggest wheel in the Suffolk County, New York political machine—the biggest such "machine" in the country!

I mean "machine," of course, in the most derogatory manner.

...Think, for a moment, about the *influence* of a "political machine" just proscribed. Think what horror it could impose, ...and throughout a slew of conflicted government departments or agencies, institutions beyond accounting... ...and hip-shooting private agencies, too!  That's what criminal enterprises have, you see: off the books agency and activity.

...Let that sink in for a moment!  Reader, stuff like this going on, unceasingly and increasingly, is common enough to require no citation.  This is forgetting Suffolk is legendary for its traditional corruption and John Ford, apparently, one of its few true-blue straight-shooters... I digress...

John Ford was something else, too, friends.  He was stubborn

For cause?  Why, it's reported he could get so far up your nose you could feel boney knees grinding down north of your gum-line!  Additionally, he was prone to explore every inch of his constitutional *rights*—to every corner of an ethical envelope, too

Not fortuitously apparently, Ford was a retired court officer as already mentionedHe'd observed how a litigious Suffolk county worked.  He wasn't a bone-head, he wasn't a complete dupe, and he wasn't a ready fool, but he was a *Boy Scout*, reader, I suspect.  He thought the Constitution of the United States was a living document, I believe, actually meaning something...  that he had a right to be righteous.

Yes, Ford was an honorable man then (as now, I'm betting), but if you disrespected him or discounted him you'd quickly hear about it.  Ordinarily, he knew how to make the system work!  That *system*, though, would turn on him like Sigourney Weaver's *Alien*... and cocoon him, still!

Finally, John Ford was something else, notwithstanding.  He was EASY to discount, reader.  He was EASY to marginalize.  He was easy to discredit!  Fairness and Justice, of course, must be entirely discarded, but... ...easy.

Subsequent smirking writers of obviously uninformed and suspect bias would later portray him as a pathetic and ineffectual mook with failed political aspirations... a loser, a loser who lived with his Mom

Prone to be portly, he looked a little like Elmer Fudd and that distinctive appearance was unfortunately accessorized (it's been said, I don't hear it myself ) with the voice of Daffy Duck. The poor guy was roundly and assiduously pre-positioned for the disrespected fringe.  Moreover, he was a cop, remember, in a prison general population for a time.  Dwell on that.  

Still, Ford had a sincere crust—he was tenacious, contentious, and certainly tendentious...!  He took no crap!  I'm betting I'd like John Ford!

John Ford may have been one last thing, reader.  He may have been crazy!  Let's all take a deep breath.

If he was, good reader... (big if) he was benignly and efficaciously so!  Take it out of your equation!  Besides, benignly crazy is not against the law, yet, even in 2015!

Moreover... and note this... he was interested in what the truth was; he was knowledgeable and talented with regard to *ferreting* that truth out! He knew how to organize the *troops* to chase a bear through the freakin' buckwheat, make no mistake! 

He was active in local government, remember; he understood about "grassroots" activism!  Verily, he was a clear and present danger to de rigueur official criminality, and he was an obvious threat to its official if crooked Status Quo!

And... (...and it's a big "and"!) ...it was not a preponderance of the persons around him, by any means, who thought he was remotely crazy to begin with, reader!  Intense, assuredly! Obsessive, perhaps!  Driven, certainly!  Eccentric, mayhap!  Productive, verily! 

Crazy?  Uh-uh.

Moreover, the former "less than intrepid" and "shallowly discerning" persons iterated as reporting Ford as a pork-chop short of a mixed grill?  These presumed his insanity largely because he "...believed in UFOs." 

Hey!  FLAG DOWN!!!  

So does Jimmy Carter!  So does Stanton Friedman!  So does Edgar Mitchell, and, very likely... so do YOU, reader!   I stand without reservation... if some trepidation!

Why?  The question's begged when the reader's turn comes to be singled out for gulag!  ...My own turn!
   
I digress... ...But not by far, eh?

Part II in the saga is ahead...

Monday, April 20, 2015

Babies And Bathwater / Torches And Pitchforks

The Late Budd Hopkins and still corporeal David Jacobs:
who, what, where, why, ...but... how!

Babies And Bathwater / 
Torches And Pitchforks
By Alfred Lehmberg... (from UFO Magazine).


Wow—I just had an annoying thought as regards hypnotic regression and the potential value of the tortured evidence obtained thereby! Oh don't start the sneering invective yet and, others, put the Champagne back in the ice, of needs, eh? It remains that a few interesting points may have slipped through gauntleted Klasskurtxian* fingers. That's where we start.

Do we discard a potential evidence like moldy coffee grounds out of hand? Of course not! That would be wasteful where it's not ludicrous. Thoughtlessly void a data body growing for decades with nothing to replace it but isolationist anger or a misplaced sense of piqued betrayal? That seems preposterous where it's not regressive—even pathological. We need not consider how unscientific this reflexive dismissal must seem to be.

See, along with the torches and pitchforks presently endured by a culturally betrayed, governmentally obfuscated, and institutionally shortchanged ufology—forgetting the good persons involved with same—a witch-hunt is prosecuted presently where adjacent if proverbial "infants" are insistently included, along with their decidedly putrescent bathwater, for reflexive discharge. Behold, a baby potentially discharged with bathwater... heave! One clearly hears the baying of outraged wolves!

At issue is the debated value of any evidence obtained by hypnotic regression, itself, though assuredly the persons extracting the information alluded to in the manner described. They come to be that dark glass through which we must observe. Feel dread for dirty infants. Why?

Some of these metaphorical "infants" regarded sign on, queue up, or put themselves down to be discharged, themselves, out of some errant fidelity! Consider Budd Hopkins' inexcusable support of David Jacobs after the, seemingly clear, and wholly unprofessional behavior of David Jacobs.

Additionally, using a science-less sample of few more than one, some worthy stalwarts and provoked contrarians—forgetting klasskurtxian skeptibunkies smelling blood in the water— proclaim that "Abduction Research [God] is dead"! All insight gained from the anecdotal evidence obtained by hypnotic regression is rendered, irretrievably, moot! Consider the crack Paratopia Crew and their Episode #55 featuring anti-hyp regressionist, Dr. Scott Lilienfeld. "[God] is dead" proclaim Jeff and Jeremy. They make a good case if not wholly air tight.

Consider Anecdotal Evidence. Sir and madam! Not wholly "valueless."

...Arrive at Hypnotic Regression? Madam and sir! Heresy, I know, still... not remotely "valueless."

I flash-back that I had characterized to myself a huge regard for Hopkins, Jacobs, and the late John Mack, even as it was, and is, affected by a problematic and incompetently used hypnotic regression... used as a "tool." More on that in a minute. See, I suspect all my "hero worship" is understandable given the provenance of the time in which I was very tangentially associated with all three in the middle of the last decade. I had a very close involvement with an alleged abductee once important to all three.

The self-styled abductee's name was Jim Mortellaro. All four of us, if the reader allows: Mack, Hopkins, Jacobs, and myself were duped, to one degree or another, by this man. What follows is a link to that adjacent story as illustrated by Budd Hopkins:

As the preceding link shows, a result of this very firsthand if humiliating experience, and produced while these events were unfolding before 2004, I spent a good deal of time, at the time, with satisfying communications on the phone with Dr. Jacobs and Mr. Hopkins. These communications regarding the subject of "wtf!" as it related to Mortellaro, UFOs, and aliens—were subjects discussed in detail. I had spoken earlier, at some small length, with Dr. Mack at a Project Awareness Conference in Florida in 1996. I developed a significant appreciation for these guys...

I found these men beyond my reproach at any rate—relevant explorers sincere, objective, and intrepid. Brave, even. At the start these were ethical soldiers in a righteous fight! I've some experience with soldiers and fighting. The battle was lost.

See, I suspect I'm not an infallible judge of human character, Sir or Madam, but as a decorated career military officer I was an Acting Commandant for a time or Senior Trainer, Advisor, and Counselor for a key Officer Candidate School in the United States Army. I am a former Master Army Aviator and Senior Flight Examiner/Instructor, and I graduated Summa from an accredited University in Troy, Alabama with a teaching credential. I don't believe I'm an entirely credulous person, eh?

Additionally—consequently, even—I'm not entirely dismissive of hypnosis as is currently popular—along with the singularly hated Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, when used by credible persons in a credible way. Also, I'm decidedly reluctant to throw the anecdotal "baby" out with the anecdotal "bathwater" as many seem spring-loaded to do, out of hand.

Consider the following. I suspect it may be possible that when one has no "tools," is discouraged "tools" by polite society, and then denied "tools" by a corporate-academia... maybe a "good" man will grasp and clutch at anything even remotely resembling a "tool," eh? Hypnosis and anecdotal evidence might resemble tools to the tool-less, reasonably. Even aspiring to the Honest and Ethical, I'd reach for such in a similar situation.

It remains; I once saw these men as the brave intrepid.

Current displayed behavior—they cannot believe they had ANY expectation of privacy—and apparent mindset of the two; however, while for the moment presuming "Emma Wood's" seeming bulletproof veracity, sadly clutters my earlier assessment. I'm entirely revolted, professionally and personally, with the late Hopkins and David Jacobs.

Reader! If even "Jesus" stole the chicken, "Jesus" stole the chicken! "Jesus" has to take the hard fall, even as his "Christianity" is besmirched. Truth though his heaven falls! Indeed, what has any value where justice is not served!

Hypnosis entirely Debunked, decidedly? No. A scalpel is a different thing held in the hand of a skilled surgeon as opposed to a serial killer.

I recall a renowned Dr. Benjamin Simon had a lot of success treating PTSD a result of messy combat (The disorder effecting Betty and Barney Hill) and hypnotic regression was a major tool, by learned report, improving the lives of countless shell-shocked and tormented soldiers so affected. Simon also treated Betty and Barney Hill, as mentioned, pretty much kicking off the "credible hypnotic genre," eh? It was the wrenching testimony of Betty and Barney Hill, as drawn out by hypnotic regression, that put the Abduction Enigma on the radar at all, I submit!

You know, it must be true... to be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be "certain," as regards smoke and mirrors, is to be ridiculous, certainly. In the current environment all we can do is use the tools available as honestly as we can.

But I come to bury, not praise. It remains, abduction research really takes one below the waterline and it has its own errantly fired and bloody torpedo to blame, at that!

Too, one can hardly blame sincere outfits like Vaeni and Ritzmann's Paratopia when abductions research's now fairly assessed ship's guns are turned inward and it fires, furiously, upon itself! One can only respect a cogent report on same. Didn't we all have some "records" and "supplies" on that ship we'll christen the Budd Jacobs?

The treatment of this "Emma Woods" by Dr. Jacobs—even if ... why, especially if she's crazy as an outhouse rat—she's likely not—seems demonstrably unconscionable, wholly unprofessional, and ironically psychopathic in this writer's opinion. "Treat as you would be treated and do no harm," reader, is switched out for its angry antithesis where "Emma" seems psychologically thrown under a bus for David Jacobs' pecuniary convenience after being, in a fashion, raped. Summing up, "Emma Woods" sure seems lucid to this writer.

Seeming infidelity needs to be addressed aggressively even as some concern must be given to throwing out babies with dirty water or some-such like thing. Sometimes, perhaps, the baby has to go, too. Will that be one of those things remaining to be seen? I hope so.

I'd always liked Dr. Jacobs... loved him even...

From the beginning he rang every good bell for me. He wasn't part of my four legged Ufological "quadrature" —Friedman, Hastings, Feschino, and Dolan... in no particular order— but, seemingly not filled with himself, he was up there with what I perceived as credible, thoughtful, with-it, and cutting edge, even apart from the problematic hypnosis "thing"... and this is remembering Betty and Barney Hill and the widely quantified successes (?) of Dr. Benjamin Simon mentioned above...

Dr. Jacobs, it would seem indeed, still has much to answer for.

Too, I submit Mr. Hopkins errs in suggesting that careers, reputations, and an entire ufological genre are imperiled from "outside." Ironically, this insulting assault only comes from within! One is hoisted, verily, on ones own petard. This is said forgetting entirely that the fruit of Hopkins' regressions shows a compelling similarity with regard to the reportage of disparate persons all over the globe! How can that be tossed out as irrelevant even remembering that Hopkins' big three cases are shown to be entirely bupkis and given fair evaluation?  Remains, there is something, something un-englishable, there, if evading light.

It remains; even the earnest rescue of those contributions is not justified if a result is Hopkins' forgiving guilt and malfeasance in the matter at hand. Not at all. If you "steal the horse" you have to "hang." It's the law and justified where the "horse" is required for the victim's survival... ..."hoisted," like I said.

...And like Iraq, where millions of persons were made to sacrifice their faith only on the irrational if public pique of a single disturbed person, George Walker Bush, it is suggested that, like GWB, Jacobs is "too big to fail," like the dis-accreditation of his brand of abduction research would bring the whole ufological "community" to a grinding halt? That's overweening at best.

See, the "other," the UFO occupant... if real... is the most important thing in human imagination. UFOs will still "fly," eh? ...And besides, there is much evidence that the "other," exists, extant.

No, I find ones very justified and pointed, if outraged, interest regarding these abduction community developments in no way mean-spirited, gloating, biased to debunkery, or canted to self-serving hypocrisy. It has all relevance, factuality, and appropriate compassion and concern for a real human being, even apart from the bald appearance of such things, eh? I have the feeling, too, the critics Vaeni and Ritzmann would reverse themselves in a second, data to the contrary presenting itself. That's only fair.

All this said, and speaking for myself, I got the distinct impression from Dr. Jacobs—now a seeming portrait of clueless incompetence, professional infidelity, and predatory malice—that the woman, "Emma Woods," had become a liability to him in some kind of pecuniary manner and he was trying to dump her like yesterday's garbage... all while eating professional cake and having it too, mind you. ...On balance, pretty unethical, mechanizing, and mendacious on any level one could care to name! Too, beneath all consideration and contempt.

I understate this even as I aspire to understand why. We may know "why," eh?

Yeah—but maybe "why" also presupposes an arrogance that it's a given readers will understand the answer when the answer's "greater light" only illuminates more suggestions of darkness and of darknesses greater still. Gotta grok some "what" before we tear off a chunk of "why," eh?

It matters not. See, a line is decidedly crossed; a monstrous betrayal seems perpetrated on levels streaming from the unethical through the mal-professional to the monstrously culpable perhaps! If I'd been the one to put my trust in Doctor Jacobs and he betrayed me as it seems he betrayed "Emma Woods," in other words threw me to the wolves of his patently engineered and self-serving concerns because alien "hybrids" were sending him threatening "instant messages" on the INTERNET... well, words fail, and I'd just have to punch him in the mouth.

I would have preferred better, regrettably, but I'm now only able to see Jacobs self-serving cowardice, again, beneath any concern, all consideration, and outraged contempt.

Where to from here?

It doesn't matter, I suspect, does it! That's in the hands of those beyond my pay grade. We will close with the "other," even if the "other" turns out to be our unlikely selves, and even as the destination is a complete and inexpressible unknown—unspeakable even.

We're still on the trip—a road-trip with friends and comrades if we wish it so, I submit. We owe each other more compassion and regard than has been displayed. Too, given the paucity of tools that we are allowed, perhaps it's not so much which tools are used but by how they are used, eh? It's a poor workman blaming tools, after all, anyway.

Closing, this writer suspects that it's up to the—far from valueless—baby, in this case, whether the baby has to go out with the bathwater, or the baby is remanded for more much needed washing. Indeed, wire brushes may be required before this is over. We've no one to blame but ourselves. Read on.


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*Canted Skepticism as practiced by the late Phil Klass and Paul Kurtz

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Abductions In My Life



Abductions In My Life
Bruce Maccabee's Compelling *Faction*
By Alfred Lehmberg


Increasingly, the UFO—and its sister phenomena, the Abduction enigma—provides for a cutting edge, if alternative, perspective on the whole of Human experience. This "self-achievable perspective" occurs, it is this writer's informed understanding, not as a result of pondering what UFOs are, but as a result of observing what UFOs and relative phenomena dothat they "do," eh? Jacques Vallée and the late Terence McKenna inform same.

What do they do? Could it be said that, initially, they provide for "first time" thinking on that which has heretofore—by direct non-perception or, indirectly, by that previously discussed mechanism of cognitive dissonance—evaded consideration, at all. Consciousness expansion is the all but guaranteed result of ones "first time" thinking. It is ever so.

Correspondingly, these unsettling if expanding anomalies we engage intellectually are in a position to facilitate substantive "firsts," new initiatives, or useful new inventions just alluded to: inventions to facilitate that expanded consciousness. One such recent initiative is perhaps no less than the invention of a NEW LITERARY FORM! Verily!

This singular ufological "first" is discovered in Dr. Bruce Maccabee's book, Abductions In My Life, and proves to be a stunning "first time" accomplishment of particular efficacy... efficacy on most levels the reader cares to name! No hyperbole here!

In a "new literary style" Dr. Maccabee calls "Faction"—fact efficaciously melded with fiction, it is presumed—he introduces a literary form so as the reader is able to tell, easily, plainly, and effortlessly what can be taken as FACT in his novel, and what can be taken for fiction. ...See the innovation of his initiative?

Needing more, the reader may ask, "why?"

Traditionally, if the writer wants to write a factual book, he writes a factual book. If a fiction, then a fiction. Right? The former has citation, the latter is bereft of same. Moreover, it is the "conventional wisdom" that a writer "best serves the reader" by writing one... or the other. What can be gained, your garden variety CSIcopian ether-huffing screwball, sans all imagination and aspect, might scoff, in the mixing of the two?

"Reader confusion at best," Dr. Nickell must sputter in the corporeal. "Reader misdirection at worst," Mr. Klass might proclaim from the klasskurtxian beyond! Well, Dr. Maccabee destroys that arbitrary CSICOPian "conventional wisdom," handily, as is ever the case!

Consider. Many quality books of fiction are fiction heavily rooted in fact. That factual foundation is what gives a work of fiction its compelling immediacy, its stark reality, and its pervading intensity. A difficulty is realized, though—in the service of real education—when the fact and fiction slide so well together that the truths are indistinguishable from the fantasy and the subsequently devalued facts don't penetrate to the reader! It may ring true, but one can't know in a Michener Novel, a Clancy work, or even a King production to all extents, what is and what is not fiction. The facts can't get traction and the readers are not elevated when they could be elevated! The reader should get something back as a result of time spent beyond the merely entertaining, eh? Our accelerated time becomes, increasingly, more valuable.

Consider also that the book of fiction is usually more engaging and attractive to the general reader than the tediously cited nonfiction book. Unfortunately, most nonfiction books with regard to ufology fall into a similar category. They are text-books, in fact, and most quality ufological text books are difficult and not a little tedious to read. As a result of the "giggle factor" inculcated by a "betraying authority" regarding UFOs, UFO researchers try—sometimes too hard—to be serious or to be taken seriously. It shows, tediously, with all but the most gifted writer. Invariably, this translates to a fewer number of people—by an order of magnitude—actually reading said quality book... that potential to inject key information into public consciousness is regrettably lost. Hall's Volume II is an example. It is hugely unfortunate that Hall did for UFOs what NASA did for space flight: make it dull.

Now, Dr. Maccabee is a quality researcher with decades of close tolerance scientific interest in a subject that he knows is of far reaching importance to us all! That lesson must get out, of needs!

To get the maximum number of people interested regarding a ufological research effort—to inject that meme into the social conscience as deeply as he could—he knew he had to get a preponderance of people to read "the book"—ANY quality informational book.

How to get people to do the reading was the problem. Dr. Maccabee's answer to the problem set is an enjoyable and entertaining serendipity in and of itself!

It occurred to him, one discovers, that a book of entertaining fiction laced with facts was the answer he was searching for! But how was he to make it plain where the facts were? How would he make the facts as interesting as the fiction. How could the reader intersect with the fiction and not get lost in the citation? That was the thorny issue. His solution to that problem is brilliant, innovative, and typically cutting edge. Moreover, it is highly effective, completely accurate, and cunningly transparent! See if it is not!

Go. See!

As regards the literary components of the novel, Dr. Maccabee's focused protagonist is no less than a dyed-in-the-wool if very complementarily presented skeptic. Like many of his "persuasion" he was duped by society's unctuously polite—if disingenuous—faux-skeptics, duped into believing that all things ufological were the province of the *misinformed*, the *mentally aberrant*, or the criminally *misinforming* (the "M"-cubed crowd). In other words, UFOs were the result of patent ignorance, cretinism likely caused by irresponsible drug use, perhaps, or the efforts of the odd unethical scalawag or psychopath... exclusively! Other words still? Duped, lying, or crazy... only.

Only!

Anything else was anti-science, lop-eared lunacy, and road-apple-muffin insane! Anyone with any "sense" knew the preceding to be true! Noted CSIcopian Dr. Shermer had "authoritatively" proclaimed it as true to our protagonist! Cut, print, waiter-check-please! Turn in your foil hat!

Consequently, duped by the mendacious, the ill-conceived, and the rank intellectual cowardice of ill-advising Sherm-oids, Klassists, and Nye-ites—et mal sig al—Maccabbee's lead character, reader, is initially, if forgivably, of that described denialist mind!

Chance; however, puts this albeit intelligent and hard-nosed—if uninformed—protagonist in contact with a very believable key adjacent character who didn't seem to fit anywhere in the duplicitous and exclusionary "M"-cubed triad described in its preceding paragraph. A "believer" friends and neighbors; however, reasonable, reasoning, and rational... ...shocking, huh? Get over it. It's true, I suspect, more often than not. It's true with me... but I digress.

As the story unfolds and as an innocent favor to this alternative character, the protagonist does some necessary in-depth ufological research on the way to some truly eye-opening but righteous self-realization—even self-actualization! Cleverly, Maccabee's *invention* of fact/fiction presentation—and the facilitated clarity of separation between them—occurs as a result of the research the protagonist undertakes enroute to his ufological denouement ...or reveals and outdated "paradigm shattering enlightenment"! See, key sections of aforementioned research books are written INTO the story with all their footnotes and citations!

It! Works!

As the protagonist "reads" or reviews research, the reader of Dr. Maccabee's novel reads over the protagonist's shoulder—is along for the ride, so to speak. ...And what a ride it is. Triple "A" tickets with a stellar buffet breakfast, friends!

The protagonist breaks frequently for illuminating inner dialogue, and in that dialogue something very wonderful happens! In a step by step process, and as a result of exposure to quality research material, the protagonist is rationally transformed—transforms himself!—from a knee-jerk re-flex skepti-bunky... into a critical and informed "believer," so to speak, but a believer in the best sense of that word! I'm reminded that "the truth, told to be understood, will be believed..."

This writer is unaware of where that "awakening process" has been traced out, explored, or otherwise dealt with in any other work of fact or fiction. The fact that Dr. Maccabee has accomplished it here—for what this writer believes to be the first time—is fortuitous, seminal, and a validating god send for UFOs! The result? Humankind poetically begins to turn a philosophical corner with this book!

There is an actual and rational path to the reader's OWN ufological enlightenment! Anyone reasonable can go there! Maccabee shows where the stepping stones are across that so very turbulent and reality distorting ufological stream!

As the novel's protagonist is educated, informed ... transformed and enlightened... so too is the reader over his shoulder and in the same manner! The reader becomes the protagonist as is to be expected... and consequently (!), denial... well...it just becomes another river in the Middle East.

Additionally, the characters are drawn real enough to give a damn about, credible enough to believe in, and inventively intelligent enough to provide for a stealthy education! They are genuine persons, reader, in direct contact with the inexplicable and unknown... and once again, they are people who are going to have to wing a response to the high strangeness... on their own and of their individual volition! ...Just like the reader would have to... will have to!

Enroute to what, exactly? Why... maturity, actually—maturity with regard to all the rewards and hazards that maturity entails—or the first step on that path, anyway! These rewards and hazards are presently beyond our imagination in the same fashion that our present way of life is well nigh un-enlishable to persons of just a couple-hundred years in our own past. Still, would a reasonable person of courage have it any other way?

It's a damn fine read, folks! It's a science fiction novel for the person who doesn't like science fiction novels or fiction novels period. It's a work of fiction for the person who likes a great fiction, without a doubt, but also for the person not wanting to "waste time" with a mere fiction! People I shared it with couldn't put it down. ...But there's an *education* slipping in the "Diagon Alley" door of Dr. Maccabee's book, good reader, and it's an education enough to make that rip-roaring fiction held in interestedly trembling hands an actual reality after all! Though a fiction? It's a true story! Such is "faction"!

To paraphrase the good Doctor's book, with every expectation and optimism that can be anticipated, here's hoping that "they" can be friendly... friendlier than us, at any rate. They're the future after all. Contact Dr. Maccabee for a copy at: http://brumac.8k.com/contact.html , and prepare for that future! Read on!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Mortellaro Affair


.,¸¸,.»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«*Betrayal*»§«,¸¸,.·´¯`·.,¸¸,.»§«·.,¸¸,.


...The Mortellaro Affair...
...or... Ground zero at Budd Hopkins' last big case...Strike 3... 
by Alfred Lehmberg


The only thing that kept me going with regard to Dr. Mortellaro—and his "perceived abduction"—for as long as I did was Dr. Mortellaro himself.  I believed the "man." Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs were but a lurid icing on the "cake" perceived.
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See, Mortellaro was a harmless peach initially, a mench with the appearance of a worn and seam-busted slipper. Later he would evolve into a bucket of meat just ready to turn... or a greasy bowl of affected loquaciousness. ...He couldn't be lying that much.  Pause for squirty giggles! There were other idiosyncratic inducements to his banner I'll illuminate further on, on this rather protracted ride.
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A summa college graduate and a retired vet—for an early self-defense—I'm not a complete rube. He was that sincerely convincing... not forgetting my penultimate responsibility for the tragic fall-out, eh?  It remains I was lied to, and not the liar.  Still, mea culpa.
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It transpired finally that when Mortellaro's personal credibility began to evaporate, so did my increasingly insulted faith in his awkward and unlikely tale.  ...Almost too late as it turned out.  We were bouncing down the runway for pecuniary takeoff, below sane minimums, when I pulled the throttles back, myself! Propitiously applied feathered propellers and judicious brakes forestalled complete catastrophe.  Forewarned, I won't suffer a road to Abilene.
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That said, his story, now and in retrospect—and in the opinion of this writer's 20/20 hindsight—seems baldly contrived, patently juvenile, and even stealthily appropriated.  I feel shame.  I wanted to believe it.
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I'm astonished now I was ever taken in.  I'm more than a little ashamed and embarrassed, actually.  That should be obvious by now.  Even this early in.
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Still, one might learn themselves of perils and pitfalls a result of my very real experience with this brand of shame and humiliation.  Some utility can be derived by a person like myself who innocently "has to know," and dodge that bullet piercing me, can ya dig it?
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Some good can still come of it.  Gaze upon my works and despair...
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In my embarrassed defense (and to neutralize glowing recommendations I've written for him over the last couple of years, extant in cyberspace) the Doctor (?) was only ever given credence, by me at any rate, out of the idiosyncratic credit I feel he had painstakingly assembled with me during my ongoing, and too late recognized for what it was... advantage taking manipulation. I now believe I was well and truly duped by a natural at it.  Hopkins was duped, too.  Dr. Jacobs gave credence.  I have him on tape in a mid 90s interview.
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I wanted to believe Dr. Mortellaro, because I was cloyingly *engineered* to believe Dr. Mortellaro.  I believed the "man," such as he portrayed himself.  Hopkins and Jacobs were similarly engineered.
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In light of circumstances, occurrences, evolved realizations, collected documents of saved E-mail, ...forgetting aforementioned hindsight... that belief has evaporated, completely.  ...Completely.  Hopkins, to his ultimate chagrin, hung on after I'd been "86ed."
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Consider, a practiced adept, in my opinion, skilled in telling the listener exactly what the listener wanted to hear, "Dr." Mortellaro worked his comforting psychological magic for me, among others.  As time went on, this seemed to become more and more obvious.  Still, in the beginning, he was flattering, accommodating, externally validating, and self-deprecating... a "great guy", at the start—the kind of friend you thought saw you the way you wished you could see yourself...
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No, all that gets a bucket of cold and fetid water; in my opinion, it was ever a mask of cold and duplicitous calculation. 
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Early on, and from the beginning, "Dr." M. was very careful to hit all the appropriate—and inappropriate, come to think of it: he's intruded on the death of my father—"friendship" buttons with me, display all the qualifying identifiers of empathy and compassion for me, highlighting his toleration of discursive politics and liberal humanism to me, swear oaths of passionate fidelity at me... and spin for me a comforting web of perceived reality that encouraged a return to him of all those things, plus (!), from me.  See how that works?
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A grown man, combat pilot, and summa graduate as stated, I still bought into "Dr." Mortellaro for the proverbial hook, line, and sinker.  The entire experience is a recognized personal regret, now, in a life with few regrets—a tree producing, sadly regrettably toxic fruit, only.  Moreover, and in my very considered estimation, it was all an ax-grinding charade, fiction, and fantasy to facilitate a non-admitted goal of sanguine self-promotion for Mortellaro, only.  Team meant nothing.  Synergy earned a blank stare from the "doctor.".
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All of the insouciant and duplicitous stroking alluded to above was necessary for me to swallow extremely unlikely (...totally ~unacceptable~ if not buttressed by strange lights in my own sky!) fabrications!
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 ...Tales of men in black, shadowy harassment by government agents, inexplicable bugging of his home by persons unknown, frequent abductions by alien beings... ...early meetings with Bob Dylan a result of some "plausibility," friendships with legendary science fiction writers, a hypnotically recalled introduction to his own "star children," and his "brave" struggle with "mean-spirited boss-alien-preying-mantis-beings" that tortured him, spitefully (!), and made him have forced reproductive relations with discomfiting persons... This was the unlikely little construction spun out.  It truly dazzled!  Hopkins believed him; Jacobs too.
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That's the report!  Incredulous stuff... and I bought it!  Christ, but I feel, in the becoming tedious reference to 20/20 hindsight, like such a patent fool.
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Thing is... the "appearances" were that all of this, *weird stuff*, was happening to this "great guy" with a heart of *gold*, a kind and gentle little human seemingly generous as the day is long, brave as a New York fireman, and smart as two and a half guys with Doctorate's degrees (of which he had two ...or two and a half!).  Well, no, no, and resoundingly no.
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In my defense, and in my opinion, no one of this "caliber", "depth of feeling", "personal integrity", and "reputation" could be saying the stuff he was saying, making these stupefyingly incredible claims... unless he was crazy... or it was really happening to him, I reasoned.  ...I believed, as anyone can... the *big* lie...
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 Hopkins (King of the Abductees) believed him, I reiterate... and there seemed to be a whole medical community willing to stand behind him with regard to his general sanity and to the high-strangeness of his physical claims...   Well, no, this Mortellaro touted "invisible college" of medical doctors was no where in evidence it turned out!
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Like some others, many of them significantly smarter, more experienced and more educated than I (Abduction doyen Budd Hopkins among them, remember), I bought in.  It was easy to do... he was a "great" guy...  after all ...and his... feces... ...~seemed~ consolidated?
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Heavy freakin' sigh...
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Moreover, he was being "maligned", "persecuted," "discounted," and "marginalized"... well-nigh "destroyed" by significant elements in the ufological community for reasons which were even outlined to me at the time, but which I rationalized away (to my present chagrin) as "sour grapes" of a "missed opportunity"... on their part!  Hindsight indicates the only thing these "Malicious Mortellaro Maligners" were actually guilty of was not wanting to dance to the good Doctor's dictating tune (!) ...and wanting to focus more on what was "occurring" over who it was occurring "to "... and how "valiant" that person was in his "brave" struggle with it!  The preceding sentence is a ~key~ concept, reader, verily.  
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As it turned out, all the warnings, I believe, and I mean all the warnings, were spot on!  Doctor Mortellaro never wanted teammates in a "righteous group struggle against the unknown" (indeed, he demonstrated no concept of teamwork); he wanted loyal employees, ladies, and gentlemen, employees not concerned with, and unfettered by, the bothersome requirement of a paycheck... ...to help validate his wretched and humiliating fiction.
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Things were tolerable only as long as the tune skipped to... was the doctor's; if not he became "ill," was crippled with chronic pain "that never left" him, required painkillers, emergency room visits (once because our disloyalty made him drink too much), and bed rest...
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A normal person wanted to do something to alleviate that "pain and CRUSHING responsibility [he] endured...".  Going along with him... helped him.
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~I~ felt good supporting a "brave soldier" in the ufological struggle...  ...Christ's wounds!
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The reader begins to see, perhaps, the pitiable and chronic "neediness" of all this.  His 'neediness' was the well-worked lever in the "Mortellaro support mechanism."  I was facilitating the will of a mewling and self-involved social infant, I'd came to discover.
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Our group/association was exciting and cutting-edge, at first.  I felt like we were standing on the threshold of some *larger* reality!  We were a small band of intrepid players, a team of brave boys and girls... respected equals exploring inner and outer space (...isn't that pathetic forgetting how sincere I thought it was?).  We seemed on the cusp of new tech, medicine, computing, power; it seemed that our efforts, our loyalties, and our fidelities were going to be (albeit needlessly!) rewarded with some new kind of knowledge, extraterrestrial actuality, or ufological revelation (piquing me since I was a kid, frankly), that we could all share in... it sure felt like that.
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It was not to be.  ...Not, in my opinion, with the good "Doctor," anyway.
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I had blithely entered, in my opinion, into the Cult of Mortellaro. A cult, seemingly, every bit as paranoiac as other cults—with distrusted "unbelievers" and "enemies" behind every tree, a cloying mal-intellectual two-color totalitarianism, regular "prayer" meetings in the form of daily one on one or conference phone conversations with the "Doctor," incessant E-mails... and an ongoing diatribe of corrosive hatred for "that which was not" pro-"Jim Mortellaro" or "total support" for same!
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When I think of the venom (directed at ~me~ eventually! LOL!) that was spewed at others in my presence while I was in his "trusted" association, the litigious acts of revenge that he would contemplate against persons who disputed his claims, laughed at his assertions, or questioned his motivations... I'm discomfortingly reminded that he is very likely, now, doing the same for me.  How unrestrictedly and tragically pathetic... forgetting how discomfiting and personally threatening it truly was!
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Many times he regaled me with tales of reports to his local authorities regarding the suspected criminal behaviors of his detractors, detailing to me their "alleged" criminal activities... Then there was the unceasing name-calling, well-poisoning, and hate-mongering that went on and on and on... without surcease... All this began to take its toll on an increasingly strained relationship, forgetting that that "hatred" had made its way 'round to me...
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Coupled with his increasingly unappreciative appropriation of skills he didn't have, opportunities not presented to him, and labor he couldn't accomplish on his own (I mean he couldn't do anything but "talk," really...) he used me (and others) to shamelessly prosecute, in my opinion, his shallow agenda of bald, featureless, and wholly unwarranted self-promotion.
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I began to get "cold feet" regarding a continued association given the direction we seemed to be taking. I asserted my concerns by withdrawing (a couple of times) from the AlienView Group List I could no longer contribute competently to... because of the Doctor's senseless moderation... and by withdrawing from participation in the radio program because creative and philosophical disagreements with the Doctor made it impossible to be in the same bleeding "room" with him!
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Oh, the hue and cry, the sturm and drang, the swearing oaths, and the impassioned proclamations of betrayal... he'd "always expected" from me!  I stood firm.  I began asking why.  I wanted him to validate himself... I requested that he qualify himself.  I expected him to justify himself.
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I demanded that he find a way to contribute equal effort to the team, which to that point was flatly non-existent.  Initially (...strategically?) , he folded, and opted, I thought, for more fairness and openness in the interest of our substantive and very rewarding mutual association... no.
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Astonishingly, I found out, and innocently too, that he had stealthily been working for a consensus with other group members exploring my removal from the association... Talk about blindsiding, and that "Business made it necessary..."  What.  Business?  We were explorers!
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...You see, as angry as I ever got with him or as aggravated as I ever felt with him... as disappointed as I was ever to become with him... as disgusted as I became with the suppurating reality of his true politics, outlook, worldview, and agenda... it never occurred to me to try to oust him our group.
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You could have knocked me over with a pissant's feather-duster that he'd consider that for me! Things were dicey, by that point, sure... but we were friends, damn it, brothers of the "ufological fray..." and he was a person that I'd already gone the distance for!  In ardent spades... patient reader!
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If he told me once, he told me a thousand times, "I owe you forever, Al," he said that to me and in front of others...  "Forever", apparently, had a "shelf-life" or "best if used by..." date.
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Made abruptly conscious with the knowledge of that transparent, completely unexpected, and very personal betrayal, I began to identify other significant flaws in our association.  If he was less than forthcoming with regard to simple loyalty, or with key details of the "shadowy business plans" involving all of us, or with his inability to appropriately subordinate himself to group goals (over self-involved goals) ... if he provoked concern over intentions regarding other group members... what ~else~ might he be less than forthcoming about...?
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He manifested such a twisted morass of bile, hatred, loathing, and corrosive envy... in my opinion... continuing on with the association as it stood was approaching impossibility.  It occurred to me that if we took one more step on the path as was outlined, trusting people were going to be roped into jumping through Mortellaro's senseless hoops like abused third-worlders, "AlienViews" was going to be put on freaking cigarette lighters, and a significant disservice (in the form of a distorted cant) was going to be done to aggregate ufology!  It seemed like people might get hurt, too...
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Meanwhile, the rest of us would be so wrapped up in guilt and assumed responsibility that escape would be a lot more difficult, if not impossible!  I put my foot down and began indicating that some "rethinking" of our charter was made necessary.  Essentially, I pulled the throttles back as we were lurching down the runway for takeoff, below minimums...
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Why didn't I, finally, just bail altogether... right there?
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...We were doing magic, folks...
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We were (I thought) a synergistic bunch with a thrilling ability to complement one another!  I thought we were more than the sum of our parts!
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We were talking to key people and asking them questions they'd never been asked before... we were recording history, and making it to a degree!  It was Nirvana while it was working, when everything was in balance... ...before our organizational dynamic was blithely trifled with by the Doctor...  ...It was heaven.  We (I?) felt like we were DOING something, eh?  We were TEAM!
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If I said it once to Dr. Mortellaro I said it a thousand times—because it came up a thousand times— "Jim, stop trying to filter me, moderate me, edit me, lead me, channel me, direct me, ...or control me."  I was quite clear in that regard.  There was no need for it in the first place, and our association didn't start with that understanding in the second... Still, I was senselessly and needlessly moderated more on (and off) the "AlienViews" message board (a board where I was a principal!) than any other list, blog, newsgroup, or bulletin-board with which I've ever been associated.  Real irony, all by itself, forgetting that it was he demonstrating the need for moderation in numerous episodes of the, in my opinion, thoughtless and insulting mal-intellectual hip-shooting he practiced, clearly pointed out to him by other group principals and myself.  One such occurred when he was admonished by a named guest on the AlienViews II internet radio program taping for referring to Arabs as "rag-heads".
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The named guest, a once highly regarded David Jacobs may recall the episode, and good for him for calling attention to it, spot on, and demonstrating ethical consistency regardless whatever one may feel on the subject of Arabs.  Seems Doctor Jacobs had more compassion for Arabs than his research subjects, but I digress.
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Dr. Mortellaro, oddly, given his education and alleged experience, was provincial and naive with regard to this and many other human relations subjects, in my opinion, and in the unsolicited opinion of the other Group principals, also.  I recall, I covered for him... out of the reflex of my manipulated programming I suppose... on that occasion, too!  I tried to cover for a rank bigot.  Another regret.  
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The preceding was just one public example of the verbal gaffs that were uttered to list members and guests that were found insensitive, insulting, angering, humiliating, and without empathy, aspect, or intelligence.  Numerous times I felt required to post, like I might have for a developmentally disabled older brother, "what the Doctor really meant was...," in an effort to pull his thoughtless fat out of the resultant and frequent fire.  I carried him for months...
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Moving on, Dr. Mortellaro, in the aggregate, contributed his very *dodgy* claims and the interest in him that these claims provoked, only.  Oh, plus one other thing...
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Dr. Mortellaro's not unpleasant baritone was the "voice" of AlienViews internet radio.  Rationally, and as a sensible result of his alleged experience, "Letters," and "personable" manner, he was made the "titular" head, the "honorary" front man, of the now defunct "AlienViews Group."  A tragic act, as it turned out!
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The stipulation "titular" was altogether lost on the good Doctor (despite vociferous reminders by myself and others that this was so!).  It went right to his head.
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Dr. Mortellero, was not a leader, by any means.  As a senior officer in military training schools where I trained whole corps of  "leaders", and taught the basics of competent and efficacious leadership... my opinion here might have some extra weight.  I know leaders or leadership and have leaders as friends.  The "doctor" was no "leader."
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It is understatement to say that his behavior during the period was the cause of MUCH consternation in the group.  Moreover, it destroyed our magical synergistic group dynamic I alluded to earlier.
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Mortellaro saw himself as the star of the show (we joked about it!)... soon he was escalating his completely imagined supervisory capacity, deciding choices, formulating "secret" business plans, giving thoughtless instructions, making pointless decisions, publishing futile marching orders, and criticizing web site and show production infrastructure like he knew what he was doing or talked about.
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He, decidedly, absolutely, and assuredly, did not!  Dr. Mortellaro, though (one finds), was not one to let any lack of competence stop him or slow him down in any way.
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I'd mentioned that he was the voice of "AlienViews"... and he was, forgetting that he should have left it right there, and didn't...  All he was, patient reader, was the voice, and an introductory one, only, at that; it became clear. He provided no real content.
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In as much as the entire AlienView group was, as seen by the Doctor, a vehicle for his own self-interest and self-promotion, it's ironic that he didn't contribute anything to show research or even focus on the on-air guest as would be expected, but rather used any conversational opportunity to steer the conversation back on the subject of himself, pointing out (embarrassingly, de-railingly, and boringly) where what was being talked about could be viewed as how it applied to him and his experience... so as to remain the center of the attention he coveted.
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He didn't listen to the guests, at all, during the interview (just awaited another opportunity to pontificate?)... as was evidenced by his frequently asking a question of the guest that had just been asked and laboriously answered.  Indeed it seemed he had no respect for the guest outside the value of that guest as a mechanism for his own self-promotion (as evidenced by him flushing the toilet in his home "studio" or playing with his dog, on the air...).  On one occasion during a show that he had to do, "on the road," he was striking up conversations with passers-by on the street while the guest was... talking if you can believe it!
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Sincerely, most of Dr. Mortellaro must have ended up on the cutting room floor.  I have 26 hours of RealAudio files (that will likely never see the light of day) where the good doctor can be heard doing just what I've described!  Astonishingly, I thought it was eccentric and even endearing at the time (!), when what it really was, in hindsight, was oblivious self-interest, utter un-professionalism, and clueless incompetence... in my considered opinion.
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Towards the end of our association Dr. Mortellaro made to quite clear that he was more willing to pursue his own agenda of unstated self-involved goals and fail, rather than subordinate himself, appropriately I add, to the stated (decidedly loftier, less corporate, and more "theme" centered) goals of the group (what we'd gleefully started with...) and succeed.
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I spoke up for an end to reflex (and unsupported!) hatred of other persons in the ufological community and a return to our balanced earlier association, a retreat from the business-oriented model of Dr. Mortellaro's nearly hijacked AlienViews Group effort, and a wider view of the group in general, requiring Dr. Mortellaro's removal as even titular "head."
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Dr. Mortellaro, like any emotional juvenile, requiring too much supervision, moderation, direction, and external motivation for a man over 60... hit the vaulted ceiling!
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Frankly—by this time—he was no longer trusted to do the right thing on line and on the list, was incapable of responding to constructive criticism (...late for virtually every group meeting he ever called), and could not consistently follow the path agreed to in the group.  He would dictate insentient policy, legislate unthinking, unnecessary, and unenforceable rules, proclaim silly, mawkish, and embarrassing "press releases" or initiate senseless polls.  I could easily have sent a note home to his parents... "Jimmy has delusions of grandeur, and does not work or play well with others."
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I'd mentioned that the Doctor was incapable of accepting criticism... positive or negative.  He "didn't understand", "didn't get it..." and preferred to console himself with personal fables that he was being "picked on"... that he was being persecuted by "enemies" that he thought had been his "friends"... that this writer "was incapable of taking orders from a boss" (orders? boss?), ...and that he "~was~" AlienViews...."
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These were all un-clever and convenient observations given that it was friendly criticism, he chose not to acknowledge it.  I was a career Army officer well documented as to be able to take or give competent orders, and he was not, and had never been, competent to be my "boss," nor had I ever signed on for same!  He never, even at the start, had earned that trust and confidence.  That he "was" Alien Views..." just demonstrates how far off the actual beam he was—hints at his unjustified, and suspicion provoking megalomania... it would seem.
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By July of 2003, the doctor was overdrawn at my idiosyncratic bank.  I'd had quite enough.
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Moreover, in as much as the evolving details of Dr. Mortellaro's aggregate abduction claims seemed (in my opinion) to actualize only after the details of it had already surfaced elsewhere in the community, that he was a coattail moocher and flagrant appropriator of opportunities not his own from UFO UpDates through Jeff Rense and Budd Hopkins to "WorldWideRenaissance" and beyond... That no hard evidence has ever surfaced with regard to Doctor Mortellaro that didn't have a fishy provenance existing anywhere... but with something that he could have brought about on his own... contrived himself.
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...This includes groin injuries (soldiers shoot themselves in the foot to go home), forged documents possibly indicating same, possibly seeded car parts at the "abduction site" to be found later by Budd Hopkins... a witness willing to sign an affidavit that the doctor was sucked up into a mother-ship in a silent blue beam... the guileless validation by abduction researchers impressed by the wealth of evidence suggested, that associates a lettered professional person with law enforcement, police records, 911 calls, the interest of a prestigious New York medical community performing a study of the abduction phenomenon...?  We could go on and on...
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These are the smoke and mirrors, it could be interpreted, of a potential fraud!
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Could it be argued that there is too ~much~ corroborating evidence, and all of it too damned pat? Yes, frankly.  Budd Hopkins was, by report, thrilled with him initially.
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In as much as the good Doctor has made it clear beyond all doubt that he intended to profit as a result of the prosecution of his claims (and assuming fraud for the purposes of argument?), an ethical line, if ~not~ a criminal one, could conceivably be breached...  I wanted no part of ~that~.
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Be that as it may... considering hindsight, singular provenance, one man's observation of the Doctor in action, and his observed, in my opinion, easy betrayal and crass and calculating manipulations of his "friends"... I found myself unwilling to keep the faith that was required to continue to validate, or support, his tangled claims.  Doctor Mortellaro, a living imposition and much like a human prion (in my opinion)—hijacking the machinery of healthy cells adjacent to him into reproducing his bile spewing, hate driven, and baldly self-involved DNA... is not supported by me.
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So, why does Mortellaro need to be taken down on this issue, in my opinion?  Why can't we just live and let live?  ...Let sleeping dogs lie...?  ...Call it a wash...?
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Dr. Mortellaro positioned himself to be a major player on the ufological scene, and ~my~ perception is that ~that~ positioning was afforded only by a ham-handed duplicity (consciously or unconsciously) woven by a person educated in the art of putting the *right* spin on "the product for SALE," bluntly! Dr. Mortellaro was that product, in my opinion.
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Thinking he understood the "target audience" or "customer base" (the principals of the ufological community and so then the whole ufological community) he's packaged himself, gaudily (if ~not~ that successfully), as its newest poster-boy.  The impression that he tried to generate and convey is that he has an earned Doctorate in the sciences, is the focus of demonstrable occurrences of the highly strange, has the respectful attention of, then, world class abduction researchers, is in regular contact with and frequently (...and oh so *bravely*...) struggles with aliens unquestionably ~evil~ in design, intent, and orientation... hoo-rah!
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Moreover, (as long as it suits his ego-driven purposes and self-involved agenda) he is a virtual fountain of abduction empathy and doting compassion... the calm, smooth-talking ufological father you never had... who has "been there," and "done that" ... a "heroic pinnacle" in our, mainstream maligned, paranormal movement...  Right.
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Steaming monkey paffle, patient reader.  Don't buy the smallest part of it.
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His doctorate, if real has the narrow scope of a predatory 19th Century "business major", with all the scorn, distrust, and provoked disgust that can be heaped on that discounted and invalidated ethic. Dangerous Provinciality has a name and its name is "business major...".  The Doctor's claim that he is the focus of the highly strange, with all its attendant evidences, police involvements, medical audit trails, sworn affidavits, and radio appearances still has the provenance of that high strangeness coming from himself, only.  It seems to be evolving and becoming more detailed over time, and finally broke the credulity of this once close supporter!
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The respectful attention of world-class researchers is countered by their innocent acceptance in taking the good doctor at his word regarding his own testimony and recollections... given a seeming mass of corroborating evidence actually too good to be true!  His brave struggles with "evil mantis-beings" were, for my current money, self-congratulatory celebrations of a personality that's yet to advance much past the science fictions of the 1950's... spun up to play in the 21st century!  His empathy and compassion (like the empathy and compassion of other right-wing extremists) are mere glad-handing and soft-soaping... ornamentation used to defray suspicion of his motives and give the "mark" the comfortable warm and fuzzies facilitating ease of control.  This man was no hero, he's a dead-ended path, a needless ufological detour, or an invisible hurdle cum snare on same.  It is very unlikely that he has "been there," and even more unlikely that he's "done that..." That's my read, at any rate...
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Could I be wrong about Dr. Mortellaro?  Of course!  My opinion, sir or madam, that a manipulative corporate "turn-around guy" with a nose for product enhancement and the minimal sense to flesh out an audit trail... might be just the person able to convincingly fabricate a first-rate hoax... shouldn't raise anyone's hackles (...even the good "doctor's"!!!) that much.  It's just "business"... right.  Feh.
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What does he expect?  I'm just one opinion, after all.  Mortellaro might still be genuine... Water, by report, has been turned into wine, at least once, in the last 2000 years!  A good Catholic, Mort would testify to that. Anything is possible, however unlikely... improbable, doubtful, implausible, dubious, dodgy, or suspect.
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UFOs are real.  Alien Abduction is another un-admitted reality of some type... my confidence in the actuality of these things remains unshaken.  My faith (and faith was required) in the good doctor has suffered a decisive hull-breach; however, and it's important to me to go on the public record, now, and make it clear that I (who once provided ~complete~ support) shall no longer be counted as one who believes "Dr." Mortellaro, at all.
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I decidedly, absolutely, and most definitely, do not.  Please allow ~this~ correction to the record.  File under fecal swine as they're known.

Docca Morty




Grok In Fullness

Errol

Errol Bruce-Knapp, of UFO UpDates, Strange Days — Indeed, the Virtually Strange Network... ...and the coiner of the expression &qu...