Is Stanton Friedman For Real?

Is Stanton Friedman For Real?

By Alfred Lehmberg

In 2005, the late Peter Jennings touted his headlined UFO show, ostensibly, as "coming clean" on UFOs... Be not fooled... Cleanliness was not the result where the thrust of the program was a complete if subtle hack job on an entirely honorable Stanton Friedman, et al, by Jennings. He employed all the old prejudices, to wit: making out like ufologists, in general, operate on conflicted faith and that they are either mentally ill, misinformed, or misinforming... "M" cubed for the in-crowd...

Even where this is true, it's not the point... 90% of everything is crap.

Skeptibunkies, on the other hand (Jenning's body language, word choice, and intonation just drooling preference) are "hard-nosed realists with the conviction of real science behind them." Jennings chumped Stanton Friedman and dismissed him, along with Kevin Randle, as addled opportunists! 

As a result, the ufological fencesitter was in no way encouraged to ask difficult questions of Government, Institution, or Agency. ET is a "long-shot," credible evidence "does not exist," and they can't get here anyway, "largely because we can't get there...," pride and hubris be damned, oh, and all is right with the world... our arrogant, unwarranted and unjustified self-image is intact. 

I was completely disgusted. No points for Jennings, at all... 

More on that here...

To the contrary, reader. Anyone with uncluttered sense knows who or what Stanton Friedman is.  He's probably as close as anyone has gotten to being a household name with regard to UFOs.  Even not knowing his name, but seeing his picture, is to automatically go, "Oh yeah... right... ...the 'UFO' guy."

Still, Friedman was, as pointed out, unfairly pilloried, fatuously and egregiously, along with some undeserving others, on the infamous Jennings/ABC flopumentary "exploring" UFOs, where he was faintly accused of behavior so far removed from his actual behavior that it borders on slander.  For my money, it crosses the line.  To wit:

Stanton Friedman is an evidential cherry picker, a self-involved fantasist, and an inventive conspiracy monger/hoaxer.  Stanton Friedman is a frustrated old man with delusions of grandeur and a messianic complex.  "Stanton Friedman is not real."

So would say those who still speak in their "persuasive" proclamation, "mainstream" declaration, "media "decree, and "official" edict.  But hold on.  

The thing about proclamations, declarations, decrees, and edicts is that they don't need to be true; they only have to be compelling. They only have to sow a seed of doubt... ironically nourished by the "information void" they've helped to maintain! It's enough to preclude further action.  The goal, to be blunt. The locker rupture phenomenon can then take over...

Though, wait! Let's try some other "proclamations" on for size... proclamation, contrarily, for which actual evidence abounds in extremis.  To wit:

Stanton Friedman is real.  Stanton Friedman is a tireless historical scholar and rational humanist.  Stanton Friedman is a portrait of selfless courage, an assiduous researcher, and an unflinching observer/reporter of that which is decidedly and discomfortingly out of the box... but portending our future and the quality of same...

Forgetting, entirely, their polar opposing character, is there any other difference between these preceding proclamation sets?  Paul Kimball, once a serious filmmaker with his own production company, has produced some engaging and instructive documentary films providing the requisite basis for just this kind of supposition... later refuted or not!

The well-crafted documentaries referenced here include Kimball's "Stanton Friedman Is Real" (a sober examination of Stanton Friedman the 'man') and "Do You Believe In Majic" (A Doc regarding alleged quality documentation indicating, among other astonishing things, very high levels of official interest in the ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis... as it pertains to UFOs) in the fifties. Such was so.

These films show, with some clarity and fairness, where more of the truth in this... very twitchy and ephemeral area... must be! This is forgetting the balanced cameo Kimball provides Stanton Friedman, despite, I do not hesitate to point out, any conflicts of interest possible.  I suspect any conjectured conflicts are abundantly accounted for. 

Kimball's relationship by marriage to Friedman's family has Kimball erring on the side of Friedman's opposition, if anything.  It remains that this writer's gut sense advises that Kimball is legitimately trying to shoot straight down the middle on the issues. Too bad for Friedman's opposition. A 'fair' look makes them look pretty bad.  Humiliatingly so.

The pros and cons regarding a ufological contribution by Stanton Friedman do not balance in actuality, even as Kimball's films very assiduously give equal time to the positions of both sides... obvious sincerity shown by Kimball, a man trying to arrive at some kind of non-anticipatory conclusion on the matter, or at least a step forward and not back.  Which side of the argument does succeed in outweighing the other? 

The viewer can make up his or her own mind... but this writer perceives that the 'cons' see far before them what 'pros' leave far behind... The cons have little weight it seems.  No draft.  Zero substance. Inconsequence!

Along similar lines, I've heard no protestations from this opposition—no cries of "foul" or angry wounded remonstrations regarding a misrepresentation of their assumptive, biased, canted, and inordinately homocentric views; their too convenient attitudes—their contradicted opinions. The point here is whittled, admittedly, pretty fine. 

Truly, I've neither read nor heard of same, and both of these films were released some time ago.  Perhaps there will be a late protest...

The presumption is that, to date, the opposition feels that it was fairly characterized by Kimball's films and that oppositional views, such as they are and have always been (...continue to be!), were squarely portrayed and accurately recounted, one would presume. One would presume!

The irony is that it was squarely portrayed and accurately recounted.  They got their best shot!

In comparison with Stanton Friedman, though, they fall way short; their meager shell won't even clear the gun tube.  This is despite the huge amounts of powder provided by the hijacked mainstream to get that round downrange.  A kid's stomp rocket has more loft!

This is further illustrated by the ease with which Friedman will dispatch the occasional brave (if haplessly clueless) soul who gathers up the sack required to join the long list of "noisy negativists" crushed, decisively, in debate with him!  

There are numerous examples of same on Kimball's films.  Dispute Stanton Friedman on the issues, bunky, and scamper from a righteous fray with your tail tucked between your legs making whipped-puppy-Ned-Beatty noises... I digress.

Flatly, the arguments of Friedman's opposition make assumptions based on contrived ignorance, intellectual infidelity, obstinate illogic, wishful thinking, denied fear, and rank complacency.  They are arguments larded with confident-sounding if baseless assertions based on varying tinctures of the upcoming eight performance indicators more embraced by Friedman, and they only serve to provide for what, in the final analysis, can only be sack-less cowardice—intellectual and otherwise.  Such is, and has been, the ongoing prosecution of the arguments from Friedman's opposition.

Friedman's pompously ignorant and conflicted detractors ascribes humanistic psychological motives to aliens, facilitating a fallacious relegation of them to dismissible myth.  It waxes knowledgeably on the physical impossibilities of alien propulsion systems, then references their superiority later to preclude us from a possibility of even accidentally bringing one of them down... then it blithely leaps back to foregone conclusions on the unlikelihood of alien technologies with which to start.  Astonishing!  They seem unaware of this strange dichotomy, themselves...

It soberly expounds that the already unlikely alien cannot get here because we cannot get there, only inventing a comforting rubric they can use to keep their intellectual distance from them. It is quick to label the ufologically affected individual as a misrepresenter of the facts (a LIAR), a misunderstander of the facts (a DOPE), or as one too mentally incapacitated to appreciate the facts (a NUT).  To the opposition, there is, or can be (...of needs!), no 4th possibility.

To this klasskurtxian and pelicanistic opposition, people who see UFOs are, unquestioningly and absolutely, "M" cubed (Misleading, Mistaken or Mentally ill), as we are alone in our little corner of the multi-verse, these unblinkingly proclaim. ...Perhaps (...pray hard to your fundamentalist god of choice!), even alone in the whole damn thing... a centerpiece jewel in God's crown of creation, ideally!  Intelligent alien beings might possibly exist in some other galaxy, or even at the other end of this one... but not here... Oh please, God... not "here."

No!

No!  There is a 4th choice. Verily, there is a plethora... a panoply of "choices"!  These are choices that must come as a result of following the data where it leads and not where it can be driven!  

These are choices that one discovers as one pursues the devil in the details (as Friedman has for four decades!) and still be able to hold that evidentiary demon by reluctantly slippery shirttails!  These are choices that remain after one is able to appreciate the vast amount of evidence extant (as Friedman has) that is physical, historical, photographic, anecdotal, and even personal.   These are choices one can accept when one sees past the end of a conflicted little nose (as Friedman has), removes oneself from ones convenient and unfounded prejudices (as Friedman has), or objects to and rejects ones self-imbued and pettily contrived ignorance (as Friedman has).  Freidman has a long, long history of perspicaciously,  perceptively, and intelligently trying to get it down... right.

We are not alone.  Not now.  Not ever.  Admitting the preceding is to step into the future.  Denying it is an impossible and so disastrous retreat to a lost, and even invented or imagined, past.

Paul Kimball is clear in his films that Friedman is very specific and precise about why he says what he says.  Not content to sit in a comfy spot and airily spew puerile pronouncements of outdated and discredited "conventional wisdom" like his critics, Friedman chases details that squirm and shift in his grasp, details handily discrediting the 'official' version of puzzling events and/or corrupting, otherwise, what should be a cogent record of same.  Rare bird he. We're lucky to have him.

Stanton Friedman is thorough.  His critics are only thorough enough with regard to their assertions to sow a fallacious seed of doubt or allow for a plausible deniability to obscure the ufological issue du jour.  This is not honorable, on any level, and apes the activities of the propagandist, despot, axe-grinder, canted lobbyist, or spin-doctor.

Friedman is organized, objective, constructive, and comprehensive.  His critics are none of these things and are shot down in flames when they meet him in the air for formal argument on the points of it. Shot down in flames.

Friedman is flexible, acceptable, specific, and thoughtful regarding the ufological.  His critics prosecute the opposites of these things and use every fallacious trick they can to discount him, invalidate him, and discredit him.  Even his reputation and character have been smarmily attacked, reader!

...Et tu, Peter Jennings, and a black mark on your legacy, Sir.  Point one finger and risk three back at yourself, boyo!

Contrarily, Kimball's other compelling film "Do You Believe In Majic," dismissing the recent Jennings/ABC whitewash as patently false and a mockery of what a documentary (...not a "mockumentary"!) should be, is a good case in point.

Every point skeptically raised against the verity of the key MJ-12 Documents (...as clear evidence of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis with regard to UFOs, and an admitted high-level ufological interest in the reality of same...) is dissolved, handily, by citation—chapter and verse by Friedman.  Truly, these defensively reflexive protests do not hold up upon examination, Kimball is able to show.  

They are bluster, illogic, ignorance, complacency, bias, and cant.  Friedman, on the other hand, can provide clear and compelling evidence that the documents are, indeed, real.  His critics have nothing remaining in their moldy corner but strident, officiously vicious, and patently unsupported negativity.

So, in answer to the question asked at the beginning of this essay about differences between the two sets of opposing proclamations, the answer is this:

One set is of "proclamations" based on solid reputation, diligent research, painstaking fact-finding, unblemished integrity, tuned intelligence, and verified results.  The other set is based on 'mainstream' flatus or klasskurtxian hot air.  The reader can judge for themselves which is which.  Be that as it may, Stanton Friedman, in a final analysis, ~is~ real, in this writer's view, and one wastes no time, at all, believing in MAJIC.  Step forward to the future, reader, not backward to futility.

Such can be drawn from Paul Kimball's intriguing, concise, and calmly iterated documentaries.  See Friedman's film, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-z67rAE18Q

In comparison with detractors even twitching with baseless philosophical mendaciousness, quick uninformed pronouncements, and displaying gross even medieval intellectual cowardice, Stanton Friedman... well, don't smirk... debates!  Read on!

ÆL