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| Dr. James E. McDonald |
by Alfred Lehmberg
Wendy Connors' legacy will be as a quality researcher of startling clarity who wholly satisfies the observer with regard to what can be regarded as... "the twitchy shiznit." To that end, she produced quality ufological goods at a prodigious, if worryingly, race-running pace much of her adult life.
Too, in a way, she was illustrating—by accident of Zen or incisive design in an unspoken sidebar—every reason one needs to have for detesting the scurrilous activities of the late Philip J. Klass (et al), arch skeptibunky, uber-menschen CSICOP storm-trooper, and specious agenda grinder. Those most responsible for keeping humanity's eyes from the skies. A pox on their collective toxic memory...
Additionally, if beside the point? As she memorializes the truly monumental ufological contribution of Dr. James E. McDonald plus some cogent but alternative thinking on the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis? She very deftly places this particular iteration of her foundational ufological history series as a high ornament on the foundational tree symbolizing her ever expanding contribution to same! Yeah... We won't be holding back. Settle in.
Hyperbole and histrionics? In our opinion, decidedly no. That circuit breaker remains icy.
Revisiting Philip Klass, to initialize, and forgetting that he is at the tap-root of every less-than-constructive attitude our hijacked mainstream can communicate with regard to UFOs (et al)... was socially instrumental to, and so holds in my too humble opinion, at least some responsibility... for the tragic suicide (...if that's what it was...!) of this review's biographical hinge-pin, the nascent ufologist Dr. James E. McDonald. Real ufology could not have had a better beginning. A victim of lurid obstructions and complications, it was wasted.
I think it can be argued, reader, that there is metaphoric blood on Mr. Klass' now moldering hands. See, among portentously outrageous others, Klass' obtuse blindsiding, his completely immaterial, totally baseless, absolutely fraudulent, and patently disingenuous attacks on the competence, character, intelligence, and integrity of Dr. McDonald... were unconscionable! These were all well-known qualities and attributes! They require no citation.
James McDonald, indeed, was an early victim of a conjectured "Mothman Futility Mechanism." The sufferer of this deconstructive mechanism is an otherwise rational person who encounters an aspect of the "highly strange," and, in a passionate investigation of that very real strangeness, ends up paying an awful "price" for the pursuit of that enigma's challenge... as it's demanded by the 'enforcement arm' (Klass et al) of the jealous non-elected... "them," to put a point on it. ...And please ask me who "they" are, please. Please!
This story transcends mere tragedy, good reader. McDonald lost a shining star career, followed by his family (A wife and six kids), and then, finally, his life... He walked out into a lonely desert, hounded by the capering trolls and ardent apologists of a disingenuous and corrupted mainstream (Klass, et al)... and fired a 38-caliber bullet into his brain.
...
To his credit, the memory of Dr. McDonald is lauded by ALL the quality ufological proponents and studiously ignored, unless pressed, by the opponents of same. To the discomfiting chagrin of the latter, Dr. McDonald actually was what most mainstream scientists and researchers only pretend to be: data-driven explorers of the brave unknown and courageous surveyors of our inevitable and fast-approaching future ... incisive scouts and intrepid pioneers on a four-fold path of experience, knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment! No hyperbole here.
As a result of Wendy Connors' tireless diligence, Dr. McDonald provides the listener another "real deal": a private audience where he lays out, in a cogent, practical, and compelling manner, [One]: the case for UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH)... [Two]: the abject failure of Science, Agency, Institution or Government (SAIG) to address UFOs in a remotely intelligent manner... and [Three]: the incompetent, biased, and sullenly canted 'official' investigations of UFOs extant... and referenced today, inexplicably, still! One begins to sense the awful magnitude of the terrible forces (SAIG!) that would be arrayed unjustly against our intrepid Doctor...
Just so we'll understand who we're dealing with here, James Edward McDonald held a respected Doctorate in physics from Iowa State University in the early fifties. He had worked there, briefly, as an assistant professor in meteorology. Additionally, he was a research physicist in the University of Chicago's department of Meteorology.
A member of the University of Arizona faculty, he was first an associate professor, then a full professor in the real-world department of meteorology. Reader, full professorships in moneyed academic departments from world-class Universities are not handed out like happy meals.
McDonald was also a senior physicist in the University's Institute of Atmospheric Physics, served as both associate director and scientific director... where he was a preferred advisor to numerous federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Environmental Science Service Administration.
If he'd been for sale to a foreign government, the price tag would have been in the high nine figures. This individual was a stalwart class act of trained intelligence, a top-drawer scientist, a hard-nosed researcher, and was "afraid of nothing," ... he'd also, along with his wife, seen a UFO!
It's no stretch he was the Klansman skeptibunky's worst nightmare. He was a brave and talented intellectual, "a man of, zeotropic, color" with age, experience, and reputation. He could say, and very well, exactly what he meant! ...And... he held the "ace river card", good reader... he wore an academic "badge"! A new sheriff was decidedly in town. ...He'd be gunned down at high noon.
It's no wonder that he would have to be destroyed. ...And he was. Verily. Thank you, Mr. Klass (...et al, living and dead...).
Again—Dr. McDonald was an articulate, engaging, and compelling speaker with a fine sense of humor as reported by seminal ufologist the late Richard Hall, and, as the listener will discover, constructively humorous. He was even able to make his audience laugh at his opposition (likely his most unforgivable 'sin', on reflection, against his back-shooting, corner-sniping and tres-cowardly opponents) as he exemplifies, even today, the totality of their collective failure to pursue real science with reasonable examples, faultless logic, and illustrative parables... or pertinent conjectures based on facts and truly scientific thinking... like Dr. McDonald was legend to be able to do. Listeners of Connors' compilation are enabled to hear that for themselves...
McDonald produced no books on the subject of UFOs, unfortunately, but did produce several short pieces on his series of lectures and presentations made to learned colleagues and other professional persons. These talks included explications on:
1. Our Science in Default ... a paper detailing 22 Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations
2. The "Problem" of Unidentified Flying Objects ... thoughts on perceiving a cover-up.
3. Meteorological Factors in Unidentified Radar Returns
4. UFOs And The Condon Report ... A Scientist's Critique on Condon's validity, relevancy, and procedure.
5. Statement on UFOs ... Hearings Before The Committee on Science. Debunking the debunkers.
This is a hint of what the listener is treated to... sober and intelligent reflections on the reality of UFOs. No hyperbole or histrionics... just straight science as pure as your garden variety skeptibunky (Klass et al) would purport to want to have it!
Verily! Weigh Dr. McDonald's concise speech of even yesterday against the state of the art skeptibunker's duplicitous pule of today, and be not too surprised with regard to who arrives the proverbial day-late-and-dollar-short!
All the senseless faux-skepticisms still trotted out currently with insentient and numbing regularity were asked and answered, proffered and discredited... suggested and invalidated decades ago by James E. McDonald! Wendy Connors, indeed, provides you with a primary reference proof you can hold in your hands! UFOs are real!
...That's not all that will be found on Wendy's current compilation!
...There's Edward R. Murrow, one of the last few media journalists who had respect for the sensibilities of news consumers and who believed that an informed public was the one best served. Not resorting to cheap-shots, easy sensationalism or degrading comedy, he puts the subject of UFOs squarely in the street during an incisive thirty-minute radio program... as valid today as it was in 1950!
...There's Air Chief Marshall, Lord Hugh Dowding, dead in 1970, a British Royal Air Force Chief of Staff, who related his belief in the ETH (a belief maintained until the end of his life) on August 9, 1954.
...There's a copy of "Open Mind Debate," A public affairs program from 1960 where Professor Eric F. Goldman of Princeton University moderates an astonishing program on the subject of UFOs. The subject, "Are Flying Saucers Only Science Fiction"?... is debated by guests: Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Donald H. Menzel, Dr. Ronald Leonard Sprinkle, Dr. Frank Saltzburg and researcher John G. Fuller. Be amazed how cagey, obfuscating, evasive, and guarded Dr. Menzel can be... and wonder why! Reflect on why he would be the only panel member to get angry... Do scientists really do only as they want?
That's not all! General Douglas MacArthur holds forth on UFOs and extraterrestrials! Dr. Adolph G. Dittmar explicates on them! Dr. Ivan T. Sanderson lectures about them! Robert Coe Gardner cogitates in their regard... out loud! Dr. Willy Ley compellingly expounds! Wow!
That's, still, not all! Twelve hours less change, total time, awaits the open mind and courageous heart of a curious listener. ...And be curious, good reader!
Curious, you increase our aggregate bravery to challenge the unknown! By becoming braver, you expand and elevate our society... you help to re-take our hijacked mainstream! Additionally, you invalidate the specious pronouncements of Philip Klass and his capering coterie of cultish apologists, men who have always resorted to character assassination, baseless innuendo, and malfeasant mechanism... when they can't debate their worthy opponents competently on the issue at hand and are keen, only, upon grinding their own cowardly duplicitous axes...
...And who can blame them? Their cowardice is just their predilection and their signature move...
No, "standing tall" only ensures these skeptibunkies' very necessary demise... "real debate" hastens their very much required destruction... "real dialogue" only provides for the righteous invalidations they have earned! ...Too, I don't care what their reasons are for their obfuscation! They are not shared with me and so are then unacceptable, on spec! The toleration of intolerance becomes increasingly and tediously intolerable...
Sincerely, that these threadbare and disingenuous pelicanists outlined here stand in the way of human progression with their senseless and obstinate obliviousness, that they ignore recorded history, or that they connive to despoil, degrade, and destroy their betters... (like James McDonald!) are reasons enough to discredit them—provide for their professional demise... dismiss their legacy, and reject their "Promethean Press" history, such as it is! Yea and Verily!
Wendy Connors provides, in my opinion, ample historical evidence for the validity of all the preceding contentions in her compelling compilation, "James E. McDonald & The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis." The listener should not be disappointed...
The disk of this piece is not available online, but hours of Dr. McDonald can be heard here, items 21 through 27...
Read on!
