Prime Time Replay:
Jerome Clark
Editor of the International UFO Reporter
MsgId: *high_strangeness(3)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:09:28 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
Our scheduled guest tonight is Jerome Clark, author of a three-volume UFO encyclopedia. Jerry is also editor of the International UFO Reporter (IUR), the quarterly publication of CUFOS, the Center for UFO Studies.Not to overstate the obvious, but today has certainly been a busy one, UFO-wise. At 1pm CST, the Air Force held a press conference to publicize their third Roswell report, this time indicating that reports of alien bodies stemmed from a series of crash-dummy experiments that didn't begin until almost a decade after the 1947 Roswell event.
On the other end of the spectrum, Philip Corso, a retired colonel, is making headlines with his own claims, while at Army Research & Development, of having seeded recovered alien technology from Roswell into a vaireity of American industries, resulting in integrated circuits, particle beams, Star Wars, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the erection of an impenetrable shield against any future alien invaders.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(7)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:26:36 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
Dennis, Are you still there? Sorry to be late.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(9)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:28:21 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
Hi, Jerry! Welcome! What did you think of the Air Force press conference regarding Roswell?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(10)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:29:07 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
I thought that it was a rather bizarre performance. It was strange that the Air Force felt it needed to explain reports of alien corpses. By raising the question as if it needed an answer, they gave it legitimacy.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(12)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:30:35 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
In what way? Could you elaborate?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(13)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:31:27 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
If you give a question legitimacy, you had better have a convincing answer. They raised the question, implicitly assuming that truthful people were reporting corpses of aliens. Their answer, however, was completely unpersuasive.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(15)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:32:48 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
If the Air Force has its problems, so, it would seem, does the UFO community. Philip Corso, for example, is now claiming that he personally seeded recovered extraterrestrial technology throughout American industry. Are those claims any more fantastic than the Air Force's?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(16)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:33:27 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
As even the reporters at the conference pointed out, the aviation test dummies were launched six years after Roswell. The Air Force said these dummies were the aliens. But how could that be? There's a six-year time discrepency. Corso's claims are fantastic and utterly improved, and no more believable than the Air Force's.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(18)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:36:35 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
Obviously, the Air Force is grasping at straws, trying to cover every base. What about Corso, the self-annointed Army hero who singlehandedly saved us from alien invasion?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(19)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:37:14 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
If you're going to write a book and make claims that could change the course of history, you had better produce something that reads better than a cheap novel. Unless we are surprised by the sudden emergence of real supporting evidence, it is hard not to think of Corso's book as the UFOlogical equivalent of the notorious "The Cloning of a Man" by David Rorvik. Rorvik claimed, back in the late Seventies, that scientists had cloned a human. But he offered no solid evidence, and he himself admitted that without that evidence, the claims would need to remain suspect.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(20)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:37:50 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
So where and what is the middle ground in your opinion?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(23)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:41:08 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 168.100.204.58
As far as Roswell is concerned, the debate is stalemated. There are problems with everybody's case, whether it's Roswell as ET spacecraft or Roswell or Mogul balloon. The problem stems from the fact that the event, which everyone agrees occurred, happened 50 years ago, and the investigation did not begin until 30 years later. By this time, memories had dimmed, people who had potentially relevant information were dead or unlocatable. We are reconstructing a story which, to start with, was shrouded in secrecy. A story that was neglected for three decades, and that, in many ways, was less than competently investigated by some, and that now is argued by two sides that have set their positions in concrete.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(25)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:45:08 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
In chess when you're stalemated, you simply start another game. What happens here? Is ufology moving the black or the white pieces? And if so, what's their first move?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(26)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:47:15 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 206.102.141.132
I think we must wait for some new development, probably over which we have no control. Somebody comes forward, documents appear, an artifact surfaces. It's going to take something like that. The debate to me seems useless and hopeless.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(27)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:50:20 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
But what about Roswell as far as the future is concerned? An albatross for the Air Force and a launch pad for would be ufologists?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(29)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:51:15 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 206.102.141.132
I think ufology needs good investigative journalists as much as it needs scientists. As for the Air Force, I think it has made itself look foolish -- not the first time it's done that in the history of the UFO controversy.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(30)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:53:29 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
Jerry, we mentioned that you had written a three-volume UFO encyclopedia. What's your next project?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(31)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:55:10 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 206.102.141.132
The second edition of The UFO Encyclopedia, in two volumes, updated, expanded, revised, appears this fall. It will be over 1 million words long and covers every aspect -- scientific, social, official -- of the UFO controversy over the past two centuries and beyond. An abridged trade paperback, titled The UFO Book, comes out in September from Visible Ink Press.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(32)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:57:44 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.51
Jerry, we look forward to seeing that and we thank you for taking time to speak with us tonight. Good night!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(33)
Date: Tue Jun 24 22:58:18 EDT 1997
From: Jerry_Clark At: 206.102.141.132
Thanks a lot, Dennis. It's been fun, and I hope one day we can do this again.
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