Justice Fodor

A pen name of Dean (used 2-8-19 to 8-1-21)
Ray Stanford Close-Up No. 8:
Unearthly Crystal, Alien Pilot,
Faraday Rings, and Magnetometer Data


Let us realize that a report on "scientific analysis" of "scientific evidence" is no better that the intellectual quality and intellectual honesty of the person 'analyzing' it, to say nothing regarding same of the person reporting that 'analysis,' secondarily. Flaky mentality in, flaky conclusions out. It is that simple. . . .Furthermore, evidence is also no better than the chain-of-evidence-collection (documentation) involved...And as to the 'scientific analysis', please consider any analyst's reputation for making over-drawn conclusions about 'evidence' in the past. :)
-- Ray Stanford, post on UFO Updates list, June 6, 2003 [smiley face in the original. Entire post here.]​

"[O]ne night a gigantic craft -- and I remember well the scene, and how it appeared -- a gigantic craft, probably at least 200 feet tall, . . .landed at Telos, and it was an expedition from outside the Earth." -- lecture by Ray Stanford (awake, age 36), delivered and recorded on August 22, 1974, recalling his experience as an eyewitness 38,000 years ago, when a giant alien spacecraft landed where the Grand Canyon is now located.

"He [Ray Stanford's soul] entered [Earthly incarnation] more than 40,000 years ago, and every incarnation has been pointing to the present time, to the fulfillment of an opportunity." -- Ray Stanford, age 37, in trance, speaking about Ray Stanford, psychic-prophet and contactee, February 16, 1976 (Journal of the Association for the Understanding of Man, Vol. 3, No. 4, p. 68)​

"Frankly, at age 73 [in 2011], and as the most seasoned researcher into these [UFO] phenomena alive today, I tire of book authors who are so cowardly of the mystery that they dare only present readers with reports from persons with military stripes and metals, or with a Ph.D. behind the observers name."-- Ray Stanford, in a book review posted on Amazon.com, May 4, 2011​

Grandiose narcissism is characterized by high self–esteem, interpersonal dominance and tendency to overestimate one’s capabilities. Individuals with high grandiose narcissism tend to endorse positive illusions about themselves, simultaneously repressing information inconsistent with an inflated self-image. They fantasize about superiority, perfection, omnipotence. Grandiosity can also be manifested through exploitativeness and aggressive behaviors. Vulnerable and Grandiose Narcissism Are Differentially Associated With Ability and Trait Emotional Intelligence, Marcin Zajenkowski et al, Frontiers in Psychology, August 28, 2018 (citations omitted)​

As quoted above, in 2011 Ray Stanford identified himself as "the most seasoned researcher into these [UFO] phenomena alive today." I am not sure exactly what he meant by "seasoned," but personally I know of no single individual who had made so many truly mind-boggling UFO evidence claims, spanning so long a period (over 60 years). Yet, in my view, Stanford has placed in the public sphere no really significant UFO image or artifact on which any great evidential weight can yet be placed. Those examples that have been put forward by some Stanford defenders will not bear much weight for multiple reasons, some discussed in this post, some in earlier threads. Indeed, the examples offered by Stanford's defenders clearly flunk under the very criteria that Stanford himself enunciated in his 2003 post to UFO Updates, quoted above.

It is obvious in watching or listening to interviews with Stanford that he is an intelligent man. I have no doubt that he has some unusual aptitudes -- as demonstrated, for example, by his success in finding dinosaur tracks where others did not find them.

However, in the first seven posts in this series, I have already demonstrated -- to my own satisfaction, at least -- that with respect to UFO-related matters, Ray Stanford has repeatedly demonstrated extreme subjectivity, coupled with an inability or unwillingness to distinguish the often-elaborate products of his imagination from reality. One example of these traits is found in his engagement for about 20 years in "channeling" from an ostensible "unconscious state," speaking sometimes for hours without interruption, often in voices said to emanate from Jesus Christ, the extraterrestrial "Watcher" Aramda, Hilarion, and a host of other members of the "White Brotherhood." An entire nonprofit organization, the Association for the Understanding of Man (A.U.M.), was formed to advance various Stanford-conceived, trance-reading-guided projects (including Project Starlight International). Yet Stanford himself said in a 2009 interview that he now disapproves of channeling "and I think you can get a lot of B.S. that way."

The explanation most charitable to Stanford is that these trance discourses were the products of a mind with substantial imaginative powers and some sort of unusual capacity for dissociation. As discussed in previous threads, prior to 1980 or so, those attributes were often employed in the production of discourses that placed Stanford at the center of grandiose schemes and world-shaking events to come -- which listeners could be part of, if only they would believe and persist in their support of Stanford's projects (one of which was to physically contact aliens piloting UFOs).

There are, of course, other mechanism that might be proposed to explain the content of Stanford's "psychic readings" of the 1960's-1970's, but in my view the alternative explanations that are consistent with the available evidence would undermine Stanford's credibility to an even greater degree. So, for purposes of discussion, I will stick with the interpretation most favorable to Stanford (i.e., the "lot of B.S." model).

It is also my personal opinion that more than a few of Stanford's claims suggest a flawed ability, in the waking state, to distinguish subjective fantasies from reality, and a tendency towards confabulation. Some examples may be found in his 1974 interview with Psychic magazine, uploaded here, in which he relates being teleported three times, etc. I will prescind from any judgment about whether Stanford possesses "psychic ability," except to say that I found no evidence in the published A.U.M. literature of any precognitive powers -- the Stanford "readings" did contain a number predictions about then-future events, mostly dire, but of those predictions that were specific enough to check, few if any actually occurred. Some of the prophecies of doom attributed to "the [White] Brothers" were quite specific -- and shown by later events to be wildly inaccurate.

Coupled with the high degree of subjectivity -- which Stanford often cloaks in scientific and technical jargon, and pseudo-detail -- Stanford has also demonstrated a lack of candor on some UFO-related matters, including public distortions and misrepresentations regarding some of his own past UFO-related activities. I have provided a few examples in previous threads; these examples could be multiplied if it were necessary.

Now, let us briefly review just a few of Stanford's past UFO-related claims;

For about 15 years, Stanford promoted construction of a large chamber-like device, which he called the "Hilaron Accelerator," which he said in 1974 would be "a device that in many respects is similar to a UFO." Once properly energized, it would turn a suitable human occupant into "a hyper-person, a super-person," able to manifest extreme psychic powers, including the ability to teleport through space and time. Stanford solicited funds for the Association for the Understanding of Man (A.U.M.) to pursue this project at least as late as 1974 (at which time he projected the cost would be $1.25 to $3 million), and he spoke of it in A.U.M. publications as late as 1976, when he was 37 years old.

The A.U.M. newsletter number 19 (November 17, 1978), written and signed by Stanford, spoke of upcoming publication in "scientific and technical journals of UFO evidence that "will, in my opinion, demonstrate rather conclusively that highly advanced technological devices, not of earthly origin visited this world last December and, again, in July 1978."

A Project Starlight International (P.S.I.) fundraising letter dated April, 1980, signed by "Ray Stanford, Director," said, "From November 1977 through March 1980, the project [Project Starlight International] has successfully obtained eight color motion-picture films of UFOs: Three of them from jet airliners in daylight; one from a jet airliner at night; and four more from the ground in daylight. . . . Daylight color motion-picture footage of UFOs with object motion between, behind, and beyond clouds, and UFOs with their shadows on clouds beneath have been obtained. Also, we have taken motion picture footages which could be interpreted as suggestive of magnetohydrodynamic and/or other propulsive effects of plasma motion upon structured objects. The former are included in a group of eight motion-picture films P.S.I. has taken and is now studying -- three from aircraft in daylight, one from an aircraft at night, and the other four from the ground. The study is necessarily slow and very expensive. Thousands of dollars have already been spent in studying just the first of the eight films alone, and that study is as yet incomplete and is still revealing interesting data."​

A March 8, 1981 Austin American-Statesman article, "UFO Power Being Studied by Specialist," reported: "The data we now have is going to break the UFO code," said Stanford, 42. "This is hard scientific data, and I don't think there's a scientist who will dispute it. Our data confirms that UFOs are objects that are not originating from a nation we know of, that have strong electrical charges, and move at speeds and energy levels almost incomprehensible to our working technology." Stanford likens himself to the first man on the moon in that his research represents the "first hard scientific data collected on UFOs." He said, "It's a little like the guy who stepped on the moon. We're not quantifying the number of sightings anymore, but have moved far beyond that."​

Other noteworthy and unsubstantiated Stanford UFO-evidence claims are discussed in more detail below (but, we are just scratching the surface here).

"CHAIN OF EVIDENCE"

In his 2003 post to UFO Updates, quoted above, Stanford warned of the importance of "chain of evidence," meaning something similar to "chain of custody" in criminal law, referring to the necessity of maintaining documentation on each step in the history of a piece of evidence -- and, of course, keeping the evidence out of the reach of anyone who might tamper with it, or inadvertently allow it to be altered or damaged.

Yet, for what remarkable UFO evidence claim by Stanford is there any "chain of evidence" that does not begin and end with Stanford?

So far, I am aware of only one such case -- two overlapping movies taken on July 28, 1959, at Corpus Christi, Texas, in which Stanford was persuaded to ship the unprocessed movie film to an independent analyst, and later lend the processed film (or perhaps a copy) to NICAP for further analysis. (The NICAP analysts wrote: "We conclude that the films themselves are authentic records of some object in the sky, but that they do not substantiate the verbal report and do not constitute significant evidence of UFOs as the matter now stands.") I wrote in detail about this case here, and posted the contemporary documentation.

Stanford's treatment of the evidence in the 1959 case was commendable -- but also strikingly in contrast with his behavior with respect to his innumerable later and far more sweeping UFO-evidence claims. From at least 1971 onward, the far more persistent pattern has been for Stanford to make a public claim to have obtained a piece of UFO evidence, typically described as being very high in terms of quality and significance, and to promise that it will be publicly released after further analysis, "vetting," et cetera. But years and decades pass, with that data is never truly released, never truly opened up for independent analysis or critical scrutiny. It appears that long ago, Stanford learned that he could string people along for decades with occasional interviews, usually with very deferential questioners, and living room UFO peep shows.

Some of Stanford's current defenders stubbornly disregard all examples of Stanford's six decades of grandiose and bizarre claims. Such things matter not to them, because they are initiates -- they have been to Stanford's sanctum sanctorum, and while there they heard marvelous stories, and saw wonderous images. Some have been drawn in so far that they have published elaborate extrapolations based on snippets imparted to them by Stanford, or UFO illustrations "drawn from memory" after private viewings. Some of these people have academic or technical expertise of one type or another. But of course, no one can do serious analysis of images, recordings, or other evidence materials, under such circumstances. These people must rely in large part on Stanford's representations regarding what they are being shown -- and it seems to me that is a big problem, because of the subjectivity and candor issues previously discussed.

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Now let's take a closer look at four specific Stanford UFO-evidence claims -- two of which I have previously discussed, and two of which were raised in comments by forum participants in my earlier Stanford threads.

THE "SPACE MATERIAL" CLAIM

The "Space Material" claim was previously the subject of my Ray Stanford Close-Up No. 5 thread, here.

In Austin, Texas, in 1971, Stanford lectured and made at least one TV appearance in which he claimed to possess what he had already determined to be a technologically created substance of non-terrestrial origin. In an A.U.M. newsletter published at the time of these public appearances (uploaded here), it was explained in these words:

Stanford came into possession of the 'Space Material' in September, 1969. To the casual observer it looks like a strikingly beautiful fragment of a glassy appearing substance, with some copper particles attached. In actuality, however, it consists of a quite mysterious nonnatural material with a crystalline structure unlike any other known on Earth. Also, it shows additional evidence of technological processing.​

Although not told to the public at large, our members [i.e., members of the A.U.M.] might be interested to know that the [Stanford psychic trance] readings have confirmed that the 'Space Material' is the product of an advanced technological civilization in space; and actually is a piece of a gigantic spacecraft, which disintegrated in space several years ago. Pieces of the craft were scattered throughout the solar system and one sizeable chunk fell via an east-to-west course on San Antonio, Texas, in 1969.​

After my original post on the "Space Material," I discovered that Stanford had actually referred to this material on a nationally syndicated television talk show, Donahue, in 1978. The program, hosted by Phil Donahue, in 1978 was based in Chicago and syndicated to about 148 stations. I could not find exact figures for the show's claimed audience in 1978, but it was in the neighborhood of 6 million people. Each show was broadcast live in Chicago, and on the other stations about a week later. I could not find the exact live-broadcast date, but Stanford's appearance was broadcast on a subscriber station on March 14, 1978. The guests were Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Stanford. Donahue presented Stanford as director of Project Starlight International, describing Stanford and his enterprise entirely in scientific terms (no references to Stanford's psychic channeling, previous claims of contacts with "space brothers," etc.).

The Donahue live broadcast took call-ins. One caller asked why no one had obtained physical samples from UFOs. Stanford's response, in part, was this:

Project Starlight has in its possession, we're trying to get some further tests done on it, some glassy material of unprecedented crystalline quality, that doesn't seem to be duplicable right now on Earth or in nature -- that may be -- it fell at hypersonic velocity from space -- could be evidence of UFOs, but we're not sure yet.

Note that the claim was presented here in a slightly more qualified form than to Austin TV viewers seven years earlier. Still, here was Ray Stanford, now in his guise as an apostle of UFO hard science, telling an audience of roughly 6 million viewers that "Project Starlight" had "glassy material of unprecedented crystalline quality," a substance "that doesn't seem to be duplicable right now on Earth or in nature," a substance on which "we're trying to get some further tests done . . ."

So, here are my questions about the "Space Material" claim, presented by Project Starlight Director Ray Stanford to 6 million people:

What tests already had been performed on the "Space Material" that justified Stanford telling 6 million viewers in 1978 that the "Space Material" was "of unprecedented crystalline quality" and "doesn't seem to be duplicable on Earth right now"? In fact, what tests justified telling the members of the Association for the Understanding of Man in 1971 that "it consists of a quite mysterious nonnatural material with a crystalline structure unlike any other known on Earth. Also, it shows additional evidence of technological processing."?

Was Stanford successful in accomplished his the intent he expressed to the 6 million Donahue viewers in 1978, of "get[ting] some further tests done"? If so, who did the subsequent tests, and where may their analyses be found? Did these subsequent tests (if performed) validate Stanford's 1971 and 1978 claims about the "Space Material," and if so, why have we not read about those world-shaking findings?

However, if further tests by independent analysts were not in fact performed, or if they were performed and did not validate Stanford's claims that the material was of non-natural and non-terrestrial origin, would not either fact condemn future UFO-evidence claims by Stanford, under the 2003 Stanford axiom to "please consider any analyst's reputation for making over-drawn conclusions about 'evidence' in the past"? How about, 'Flaky mentality in, flaky conclusions out. It is that simple."?

THE PHOTO-OF-AN-ALIEN-PILOT CLAIM

Since I began posting "Ray Stanford Close-Up" threads, a few of Stanford's current devotees have been heard from, either in forum comments or private communications. To generalize, they are attached to certain photos that they have seen in the private UFO peep shows at Stanford's residence, or elsewhere, and they wish to ignore all evidence regarding Stanford's past activities and statements, such as those that I have posted, generally dismissing them all as youthful follies of Stanford.

In my seven "Stanford Close-Up" posts, I have spent almost no space on Stanford's activities and utterances during his teens and early 20s as a space-brothers-contactee (many of which are detailed in his 1958 book Look Up, elaborated on in a 1974 lecture of which I have a recording, but downplayed or revised in other places). However, I have spent a good deal of time discussing aspects of Stanford's UFO-related activity in the 1970's, when he was in his mid-to-late 30s or older. This is the period in which Stanford first pushed himself into the public eye as the pioneer in a "hard science" approach to UFOs. It was a claim accepted by more than a few, as demonstrated by Stanford's 1978 appearance on the mass-audience Donahue show with Dr. Hynek, for example. Stanford was 39 years old when he taped the Donahue show. To claim that things Stanford said and did during that period are now irrelevant to evaluation of Stanford's current or future UFO-evidence claims is really quite untenable.

But to those who insist that we should forget about statements Stanford made at age 39, how about age 70? That's how old Stanford was when he gave a long interview to the podcast Radio Misterioso on March 8, 2009. Stanford made quite a number of truly extraordinary claims during this interview, including having obtained "thousands of [movie] frames and photographs" showing exotic UFO field effects, having recorded a UFO that "traveled at three-quarters the speed of light in the atmosphere," and much more. I encourage those who are attached to any of Stanford's UFO-evidence claims to listen to the entire March 8, 2009 Radio Misterioso interview, and to count the number of claims that they personally would honestly have to score as unsubstantiated, "over-drawn," or just plain wildly implausible. Also, take note in passing of Stanford's tendency to "up the ante" in the extravagance of his claims, when he encounters even a mild challenge. The entire podcast can be heard or downloaded in .mp3 format here.

I will zero in here on just a single example from the Radio Misterioso interview. Co-host Walter Bosely suggested that some UFO reports could be attributed to classified military aircraft. (Bosely was identified as a former U.S. Air Force Office of Special Intelligence officer.) Here was one component of Stanford's response:

"By the way, we did get daylight pictures of the craft close enough that you can see inside. And if you want to say they've got an Air Force pilot that is about three or three-and-one-half feet tall, and has a bald head and pointed ears, go ahead."​

Wow! Now, that sounds like evidence we'd all like to see, right? I mean, who needs to argue any more about the human-like figures Lonnie Zamora described seeing outside the egg-shaped craft in Socorro in 1964 -- Stanford said he has a photo of a UFO pilot. A diminutive humanoid pilot -- bald, with pointed ears -- visible right there inside his/her/its craft!

But, it's ten years now since that interview -- I have not seen this alien-pilot photograph. Have you seen it? You Stanford devotees, have you seen it?-- the photo of the pointy-eared alien in his craft? -- in your visits to “Ray Stanford University”? If so, does the photo measure up to the description that Stanford provided on Radio Misterioso -- and if it does, then why has not the world seen it?

But if there is no photo that matches up to what Stanford told the Radio Misterioso listeners, what does that tell you?

Again, Stanford was 70 years old when he gave the Radio Misterioso interview, with its claims to have tracked a UFO that “traveled at three-quarters the speed of light in the atmosphere,” to have taped an Air Force officer promising to scramble F-4 jets anytime Stanford called a secret number, to have a photo of an 3-foot alien pilot in his craft, and much more. Are you going to chalk it all up to youthful folly, gentlemen?

THE STANFORD-MEESSEN MAGNETOMETER READINGS CLAIMS

In response to my earlier "Ray Stanford Close-Up" threads, both Dejan Corovic and Thomas R. Morrison have pointed to a 2012 paper by Auguste Meessen, a Belgian physicist. The paper is titled Evidence of Very Strong Low Frequency Magnetic Fields, and I am uploading it with this post.

The paper appears to be the third in a series of papers that Dr. Meessen produced in 2012. In the first two, Meessen discusses his theory of the propulsion utilized by UFOs (or some UFOs), involving very high-intensity, low-frequency magnetic fields. In the third paper, the one discussed here, Meessen cites a number of specific UFO sighting reports that he thinks lend support to his theory. Among those cases, he cites two evidence submissions from Ray Stanford. I will deal with these each of these in turn.

Section 3 of the Meessen paper is devoted to discussion of "magnetometer readings" ostensibly obtained by Stanford during three different UFO events in 1978 at several sites in the American southwest. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), for this section of the paper (unlike most of the other cases Meessen cites), the reader finds no underlying source in the paper's "References" section. In the Section 3 text, Meessen says only, "We are grateful to Ray Stanford for providing extracts of these important recordings (Figures 3 and 4)."

Figures 3 and 4 are images of tracings from a magnetometer, one being referred to in the text as "analog recording." It is impossible to be sure from the text, but it seems likely that Meessen did not have access to the raw instrument data, but only to the "extracts" provided by Stanford -- perhaps, nothing more than images of selected snips of paper printouts, accompanied by some sort of narrative by Stanford of the associated sightings. The discussion of the magnetometer recordings is somewhat jumbled and hard to unravel -- it does not clearly distinguish between the different events and their associated recordings. The text says, "UFOs were seen and filmed in all three cases," but none of those purported images are shown in the paper, nor is there any discussion of what the photos showed. The text refers to "simultaneous gravimeter (i.e., vertical accelerometer) recordings" obtained during at least two of the three events, but provides no other information on the gravimeter readings.

(The text says that the magnetometer "had not been calibrated to determine the magnitude of the recorded horizontal magnetic field component and to calculate the strength of the source." It is not entirely clear, but it may be that this remark applies to only one of the three events.)

So, what do we actually have here? It appears to be yet another claim that, if it could be properly substantiated, could be of substantial significance. Yet although the claimed incidents and recordings date back more than 40 years, the substantiation seems to be lacking. However, if anyone can show me where this purported instrument data has been analyzed by competent persons, correlated with the purported photographs, compared with witness accounts, et cetera, and produced conclusions that substantiate evidential significance (that do not rely upon Stanford's objectivity or accuracy regarding the events), I would very much like to know about it.

I would add that I do not much fault Dr. Meessen for referring to the Stanford submission in his paper. After all, Stanford has long styled himself as a practitioner of hard-data UFO collection, has been intermittently presented as such in the U.S. news media, and has become adept in affecting the jargon of science. Meessen probably was aware of no reason to be cautious about accepting the tantalizing scraps that Stanford provided, which apparently lent empirical support for Meessen's theory.

I am full agreement with Thomas R. Morrison that the questions that Meessen is exploring are great importance. It would be exciting if someone could obtain substantiated data of the type he desires, in order to test his theory -- data not associated with such formidable witness-history, data-access, and chain-of-evidence concerns.

THE STANFORD-MEESSEN "FARADAY RINGS" CLAIM

At the end of Meessen's 2012 paper, he presents another claimed evidence from Stanford. It an image drawn from a single frame of Super8 movie film, said by Stanford to have been shot from an airliner flying from Mexico City to San Antonio on December 4, 1980. (Note that in an April 1980 Project Starlight fundraising letter, Stanford claimed to have shot, from airliners, four color movies of UFOs during the period November 1977 through March 1980, as discussed here -- but the image we are discussing now is yet another and later UFO movie shot from an airliner.) The image (Figure 5 in the Meessen paper, and uploaded here) shows "an extraordinary set of at least 12 white concentric rings" that are "centered on one of the small objects dashing in various directions." Meessen believes that the rings are "Faraday rings," which he relates to the high-intensity, low-frequency magnetic fields he believes are produced by the propulsion system of some UFOs.

The image area of Super8 film is 4.01 mm x 5.79 mm (i.e, less than one-quarter inch in the long dimension). The Meessen paper does not tell us any of these things: Did the image come to him in digital form? (If so, it would impossible to know whether any "computer enhancement" had occurred, without examination of the original film.) Is the image that we see in the paper the entire Super8 frame, or an enlargement of a portion of the image -- and if the latter, what is the actual size of the rings on the original Super8 frame?

Also, the paper contains no discussion of whether the rings -- which appeared on only a single frame of the movie -- could be an artifact. Stanford was in an airliner, so he was shooting through an airliner window. I am not technically competent to evaluate the optical issues that this may raise, but even cursory research indicates that they should be considered. According to the book Optics in the Air: Observing Optical Phenomena through Airplane Windows, by Joseph A. Shaw (2017):

The stretched acrylic material of the airplane window is birefringent, which means its stressed material bends and transmits light differently for light waves oscillating in different directions, i.e., light of different polarization states; furthermore, it does this differently for different colors. . . .Therefore, looking through an airplane window with polarized sunglasses or with a polarizing filter on a camera lens can produce dramatic colored patterns because of the 'stress birefringence' in the window.​

This does not mean that I think that the Meessen-Stanford "Faraday rings" were caused by the light passing through the birefringent window medium. The rings seen in Stanford's image as reproduced are white, not different colors. I do not know whether they could be an artifact related to the window material, polarization, etc. However, I do suggest that this certainly would be one factor that would be considered by an independent analyst with the technical competence to evaluate the entire image-chain -- the original film, the camera and lens, the effects that might be produced by such windows, et cetera. But we have none of that in Meessen's paper. Instead, we have an image which is intriguing and which may contain significant data, but on which no substantial weight can be placed because of its sketchy provenance.

HOW SHOULD WE REGARD FUTURE UFO EVIDENCE CLAIMS BY STANFORD?

Thomas R. Morrison wrote on February 21, 2019:

In any case, the potential importance of this data is far too significant to brush off without a closer look. That's one of the many reasons that I find Ray Stanford's covetous decision to keep his larger data set private so frustrating -- we need to be able to vet and analyze this film footage, and he's not letting anyone do that.

Nivek wrote on February 23, 2019:

Excellent work, truly you have covered the topic of Ray Stanford quite well...I have to ask though, because this one question cannot escape me, what if the images are real images of alien craft of some sort?. . . In other words, what if he's not making it up about the images?. . . Granted we may never know for sure, there may lay some proof in those images of something extraordinary and quite alien to us . . .

I make no claim in these "Ray Stanford Close-Up" posts to have "covered the topic of Ray Stanford . . ." I feel like I have chipped a few ice cubes off an iceberg of Stanford's innumerable UFO-evidence claims -- the size of the full iceberg is indistinct in the fog, but it is quite large, and the time and energy that I can devote to the cube-chipping exercise is limited. However, I am not the only person who is aware of the dubious nature of many of Stanford's UFO-related claims. If Stanford presents major UFO evidence claims to the public in the future, I expect that they will be widely scrutinized in the full light of his colorful history.

But as to Nivek's main question: I have not argued that we should rule out the possibility that, in the long blizzard of dubious, unsubstantiated, and absurd public UFO-related claims by Ray Stanford, there may be "something worth investigating." Nor have I argued that any UFO-related claim with which Ray Stanford is associated should be "brush[ed] off without a closer look," as Thomas R. Morrison put it.

But, I do assert that very little evidentiary weight should be placed on any UFO evidence claim associated with Ray Stanford that relies substantially on Stanford's objectivity (for he seems to me highly subjective, prone to fantasy and confabulation), or on his candor (of which I believe he has too often displayed a deficiency).

I have repeatedly said for any specific UFO evidence claim, Stanford ought to place the original evidence (film and camera, electronic recordings, whatever) in the hands of independent persons who are capable of conducting a competent analysis. Whatever conclusions may be drawn based on competent independent analysis of unaltered images or other tangible data -- analysis not reliant on any favorable presumptions regarding Stanford's objectivity or candor -- should be made public for commentary. If it should happen that a specific piece of evidence -- after having been subjected to such independent, competent, skeptical but honest analysis -- is fairly judged to be evidential, then Stanford should get appropriate credit for whatever constructive role he played in obtaining that evidence.

As far as I can tell, nothing remotely approaching such a process was employed with respect to the magnetometer "data" or the Super8 image cited in the 2012 Meessen paper. I have as yet found no example of such a process having been followed with respect to any Stanford-originated UFO-evidence claim (although the iceberg is large . . .), with the sole exception of the July 28, 1959 movies that I mentioned above, and discussed in detail here. NICAP concluded that the 1959 movies "do not substantiate the [Stanford] verbal report and do not constitute significant evidence of UFOs."

In my view, nothing very useful is achieved by more individuals soliciting or accepting invitations to private viewings of the Stanford artifacts at "Ray Stanford University." It should be obvious that no genuine technical analysis is possible in such a setting, regardless of the academic credentials of the visitor. At most, someone might conclude that a given artifact would be worthy of serious study, if the axiom that "evidence is also no better than the chain-of-evidence-collection (documentation) involved" could be satisfied. In many instances, I am afraid that would be an insurmountable obstacle.

Still, I allow for the possibility that there could be some material that would satisfy these standards. Definitive assessment of any specific claim can only be made on a case-by-case basis.

In this post, I have again mentioned two very specific claims that, on their face, would seem to be prime candidates for independent examination: the "Space Material" sample described by Stanford before 6 million viewers of Donahue in 1978, and the alien-pilot photo that he described on Radio Misterioso in 2009. Given the substance of those two evidence claims -- both obviously highly significant, if substantiated -- and given the fact that Stanford presented both claims to large public audiences, what excuse can Stanford offer for not now promptly loaning these two claimed UFO evidences to independent analysts for appropriate critical scrutiny?
 

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Justice Fodor

A pen name of Dean (used 2-8-19 to 8-1-21)
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nivek

As Above So Below
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
The thing I do not understand is why C.O.B who I respect would lie about seeing the evidence Ray had.
Then there is the fact that no one besides C.O.B has seen the alleged evidence. Not even his co host at the paracast has seen the evidence..
 
I never thought he was lying. I think Ray showed him some stuff that amazed him, or at least seemed to support whatever Ray was telling him. That's the only reason I have not completely written Ray's claims off as the ramblings of a kook. Not completely. Though it is hard to imagine he has anything much of interest after reading all the postings by Justice. The stuff we have been able to get a look at, and the tales of what is shown in some of those photos, is right up there with squirrels on Mars. Actually, that one photo from Mars does appear to show a squirrel. It's a rock, of course, but it's an actual image of something other than a blurry line.

Nick Redfern pretty well tossed his hard earned credibility out the window when he published B.S. in the Desert. I hope I won't be saying the same kind of thing about Chris O'Brien.
 

Justice Fodor

A pen name of Dean (used 2-8-19 to 8-1-21)
Bump due to renewed interest in the UFO evidence claims of Ray Stanford -- he turns 83 this month, and he's still making wild claims to possession of UFO evidences, but never submits any of it to competent photographic or other experts for INDEPENDENT analysis. Stanford has been playing variations on this game since the 1970s, or maybe since his "Space Brothers" contactee days in the 1950s, depending on what you count. Let the buyer beware.
 
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