Undebunkable or What?

nivek

As Above So Below
The January-February 1960 issue of Flying Saucer Review (page 17) includes a report about this footage. An excerpt: "In addition to the movie record, there were a number of witnesses who are prepared to vouch for the accuracy of this sighting. Later, Mr. Stanford was grilled for about an hour by Naval security officers.

I cannot find a copy of that particular issue [for free] online.

Here you go 1963, a free copy of January-February 1960 issue of Flying Saucer Review...:happy8:

@Justice Fodor may be interested in this too...

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Justice Fodor

A pen name of Dean (used 2-8-19 to 8-1-21)
however I think that i've managed to find the true identity of the film and that is that it is the 1959 Ray Stanford film of an alleged UFO taken over Corpus Christi Texas on that day [July 28th 1959] and was identified by J Allen Hynek as being ... wait for it! ... "A daylight film of the plant Venus"! ... and is in the NICAP records here... 1959 UFO Chronology http://www.nicap.org/docs2/1959_07_28_Corpus_Christi_Texas.pdf
... Make of the film what you want, [and for that matter 'Ray Stanford' whom I know was a pretty respectable UFO researcher at one time ... before his latter-day outrageous claims of exceptional knowledge and possession of 'the smoking-gun' ... but not sharing with you nar-narh!] Cheers Auggie.

I think there was never a time when Ray Stanford was "a pretty respectable UFO researcher," although there have been periods of his life when he fooled some individuals and groups into perceiving him as such-- in very many cases, to their eventual disillusionment. Pick any period of his life--beginning with his original incarnation as a teen-age contactee, as documented in his 1958 book (Look Up) claiming that he'd had multiple contacts with Space Brothers and their craft (on one occasion, he claimed, they hit him with a ray that gave him cosmic consciousness)--and I will show you remarkable UFO-related claims that were later repudiated by Stanford himself, or convincingly discredited by others, or (quite often) simply abandoned, without any substantiation ever being produced. I have already set forth many such episodes in the ten "Ray Stanford Close Up" posts that are still archived on this forum, and in my replies to other inquiries here, which may be accessed through use of the search tool or by clicking through to my profile.

As to the 16mm film taken by Stanford in Corpus Christi, Texas, on July 28, 1979, I would refer readers to my deteailed February 2019 write up, here. The bottom line is found in the NICAP analysis, which -- after ruling out Venus -- stated: "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."

This 1959 episode remains the only instance that I have encountered, in my studies of Stanford's long "career," in which he promptly sent purported UFO evidence to truly independent analysts. Since then, Stanford's common practice is to make a public claim to have obtained some remarkable UFO-related evidence (movies, physical fragments of spacecraft, etc), make public predictions that the proof will eventually be released after some contingencies have been met, perhaps show manipulated images to selected gullible individuals, and then... nothing. No truly independent analysis of original source material, no evaluation independent of Stanford's subjective or dishonest claims.

Stanford's recent (September 15, 2020) repudiation of his previous claims to have taken a photo, at the Socorro dynamite shack in 1964, of a Zamora-like craft (landing gear, even), is a good example of Stanford's general "research" approach. This photo had been the subject of detailed, expansive public claims by Stanford devotees such as Chris O'Brien, for years. I have described and documented this recent, all-too-typical Stanford episode in an update here.
 
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pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Father Gill. Always a favorite and nice to see him in Phenomenon. I'll have to read through this more carefully but Alor ? Never heard of that and very interesting, basically right in the neighborhood at about the same time relatively speaking.

Cases like Boiania and Ruwa have the advantage of the right kind of eyewitnesses. To be fair there are professionals who aren't having any of that Episodes of mass hysteria in African schools: A study of literature
And also to be fair when you read through that Ariel sticks out like a sore thumb as 'one of these things is not like the other'
And they tried explanations like that with Father Gill to wash away the weirdness - didn't really work, did it?

Kids that suddenly go nuts in a class setting is called 'normal', go ask a teacher. These days the root cause would probably be attributed to Donald Trump and not evil spirits. Minor distinction.

Eyewitness testimony is a poor substitute for physical evidence when you are talking about a topic of this nature. Always sounds to me like a lot of the cases we see all follow about the same pattern that we have come to expect based on movies, tv, books, forums like this one. But then you have the really weird outliers that don't actually fit the mold they get my attention. It's usually the least believable thing that turns out to be true and this is the one type of eyewitness testimony that weighs a little more heavily.

You have an adult showing you a pancake and you snicker. You have two guys scared shitless while fishing, we snicker and say they've been drinking. But you have dozens of children who report the same thing? Imagine it as a deliberate hoax and trying to get that many kids all on the same page with their story (and then stick to it for years).I have a friend who is a school bus driver who could offer expert opinion about what it's like trying to get that number of kids to do anything like cooperate much less stick to a weird story.

Kids are also brutally honest. They generally don't drink, do drugs, want to make a book deals, do lecture or podcast circuits, sell you a goddamned t-shirt and they don't want to cover up a secret piece of hardware. They are not infallible though. They just might want attention, empathy, sympathy, whatever. In cases of abuse taking the testimony of a single child can be dicey. Even in a UFO case, if it were two or three kids that said something weird happened we could probably rationalize that and get a good night's sleep. What was that Flatwoods Monster thing (other than stupid) ?

But these two cases, nope. Very different. That many kids said that happened I believe it did.

I know you bumped an old thread. But why must we plant a flag on one hypothesis or another? It's not like we have to compete for limited resources to pursue our own lines of thinking. Viscerally I think nuts & bolts is probably more likely, but since I don't actually know what the hell the phenomenon is I have no reason to make camp on one side or another. I'm less concerned about how they get here than who and what they are.
 

1963

Noble
I think there was never a time when Ray Stanford was "a pretty respectable UFO researcher," although there have been periods of his life when he fooled some individuals and groups into perceiving him as such-- in very many cases, to their eventual disillusionment. Pick any period of his life--beginning with his original incarnation as a teen-age contactee, as documented in his 1958 book (Look Up!) claiming that he'd had multiple contacts with Space Brothers and their craft (on one occasion, he claimed, they hit him with a ray that gave him cosmic consciousness)--and I will show you remarkable UFO-related claims that were later repudiated by Stanford himself, or convincingly discredited by others, or (quite often) simply abandoned, without any substantiation ever being produced. I have already set forth many such episodes in the ten "Ray Stanford Close Up" posts that are still archived on this forum, and in my replies to other inquiries here, which may be accessed through use of the search tool or by clicking through to my profile.

As to the 16mm film taken by Stanford in Corpus Christi, Texas, on July 28, 1979, I would refer readers to my deteailed February 2019 write up, here. The bottom line is found in the NICAP analysis, which -- after ruling out Venus -- stated: "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."

This 1959 episode remains the only instance that I have encountered, in my studies of Stanford's long "career," in which he promptly sent purported UFO evidence to truly independent analysts. Since then, Stanford's common practice is to make a public claim to have obtained some remarkable UFO-related evidence (movies, physical fragments of spacecraft, etc), make public predictions that the proof will eventually be released after some contingencies have been met, perhaps show manipulated images to selected gullible individuals, and then... nothing. No truly independent analysis of original source material, no evaluation independent of Stanford's subjective or dishonest claims.

Stanford's recent (September 15, 2020) repudiation of his previous claims to have taken a photo, at the Socorro dynamite shack in 1964, of a Zamora-like craft (landing gear, even), is a good example of Stanford's general "research" approach. This photo had been the subject of detailed, expansive public claims by Stanford devotees such as Chris O'Brien, for years. I have described and documented this recent, all-too-typical Stanford episode in an update here.
Hi Fodor, hope you are well mate. :Thumbsup: and, Well yeah! .. suppose I was being a little 'soft' on Ray Stanford. ... but then, I don't really think it's quite 'my bag' to take to the keyboard and hammer some 80-odd year old dude into the ground just for being one-in-thousands of those old 'dodgy researchers' that we would all like to weed out of the genre with a big stick,... but at his age I think it more appropriate to leave it as it is, and that is just to 'smile and nod' whenever he speaks, and let the newer students know how to view Old-Ray by means of fact-correction and polite innuendo. ... After all, even though we know he is a bit of an old forsworn character , the guy has actually been shoulder-deep into the world of ufology with a tonnage of hands on fieldwork and therefor will surely have a great deal of knowledge to impart ... some of it is the BS that so clearly upsets you so much, but there also 'could' be no doubt solid gold left in there.
As to the ... "I think there was never a time when Ray Stanford was "a pretty respectable UFO researcher," although there have been periods of his life when he fooled some individuals and groups into perceiving him as such-- " ... well, you said yourself on the other thread ...
I comment here on these July 28, 1959 movies not because they contained strong UFO evidence -- based on the NICAP analysis, they did not -- but because of the way that Stanford handled the films. He shipped the unprocessed film to an apparently independent analyst, Max B. Miller (who it seems was later used by NICAP as a general photographic advisor for awhile). Later, Stanford lent what was apparently the original developed film to NICAP for independent analysis. Both of those acts were commendable -- and in striking contrast to the manner in which Stanford has handled most of his innumerable other claims involving photographic and other evidence in later years.
.. and I would also say that I have read Kevin Randle and other assorted luminaries in this field also give a rather sympathetic slant toward him.
Look, don't get me wrong, I know Ray's backstory pretty well [thanks chiefly to Richard Hall] and would never advocate naming him as a unimpeachable source of higher knowledge in this field of study ... but would have no hesitation just having a listen to what the guy has to say about the cases that I know he was personally involved in researching! ... though I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting for him to produce 'his special evidence'. :p

Cheers Buddy.
 
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