By Don Eker Much has happened since our last update. As the entire world knows, the tragedy of the Heaven's Gate mass suicide impacted UFOlogy worldwide. Even now, anyone attempting to look into the subject of UFOs is immediately assigned to the ranks of "nuts and cultists." (See UFO Magazine Editor Vicki Cooper Ecker's essay, "Hillary's Cheap Shot.") All legitimate researchers have suffered yet another terrible black eye. For years, UFOlogy has suffered a total lack of critical thinking by people who call themselves "researchers." In my current editorial called "Aftermath of Heaven's Gate," I relate the incident of a recent Art Bell show that had on for about a half hour one Guy Kirkwood. This man bills himself as a former Air Force interceptor pilot who in the 1950s was part of a very secret Air Force squadron that chased and photographed UFOs. Kirkwood's story is entirely fraudulent. Compounding this is that two Sothern California MUFON chapters, one in L.A. and another in San Bernardino, scheduled Kirkwood to speak on his "experiences." In 1992, I detailed an entire expose on this long-time hoaxer (UFO Magazine Volume 7, No. 3). Speaking to representatives of both chapters, and sending them our expose, I have learned that they still have Kirkwood on their agendas! No matter how many times these types of hoaxes are exposed, very few in the field either accept this kind of bad news or are willing to confront it. It is kind of like the cliche, "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!" "But I really enjoy a good story!" is another answer we receive. The Art Bell "Coast to Coast" late-night radio show is another example of selling schlock as fact. I covered the Bell controversy in my editorial, but as long as people do not or will not use critical thinking, we remain mired in "fuzzy thinking." This is one principal reason no one in the straight media or science will take the UFO field seriously. A new wrinkle in the UFO field was just seen on TV-- the "alien interrogation film." I recently watched the television program "Strange Universe" air a couple of seconds of it, and the UFO "experts" who were questioned about it. Robert Dean was one of them. A former military senior enlisted man, Dean has achieved status in the fish pond of UFOs from a report he says he viewed while in NATO Headquarters concerned with the UFO enigma. As he watched this film, tears filled his eyes. Okay, let's use some logic. If this film was smuggled out of Area 51, [35 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=04_1997&mid=3672867&hilit=UFO> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 04_1997&3556326 Score: 91 Subject: Re: X-FILES AS DOCUDRAMA - A CONSPIRACY?