The Mortellaro Affair

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...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" finally perceived. Disappointments would be rampant and profound.
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See, Mortellaro was a harmless peach initially, a seeming mench-of-a-guy with the comforting appearance of a worn and seam-busted house slipper. Later he would evolve into a bucket of cheap meat just ready to turn... or a greasy bowl of affected loquaciousness. ...He couldn't be lying that much. Could he? Pause for squirty giggles! 

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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, we're going to describe in the upcoming, 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. 

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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!  

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Hopkins believed him; Jacobs too. Mortellaro was being cued up as grist for their personal mills... but, we digress.

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Though, the preceding was Mortellaro's 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... not for long enough.

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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, Mortellaro touted "invisible colleges" of medical doctors found nowhere in the evidence of a real-world 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" for an ascendency in matters ufological... on their part!  

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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! These were sentient people wanting to focus more on what was "occurring" over who it was occurring "to"... and not how "valiant" that person was in his "brave" struggle with it, anecdote beside the scientific point! 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