Jan Harzan, Director of MUFON, Arrested

The whole stinking mess known as Mufon needs to be flushed down the toilet.

Meanwhile, that POS Harzan will be having a wonderful time in prison.
 

wwkirk

Divine
Even though this was already posted, I think it deserves it it's own thread.
Head of Mutual UFO Network Arrested on Child Solicitation Charges
Jan Harzan, head of the Mutual UFO Network, was arrested July 3 and is accused of soliciting "sexual activity from a detective he believed was a 13-year-old girl."
1594758712526-Screen-Shot-2020-07-14-at-43139-PM.png

The executive director of the Mutual UFO Network, one of the oldest UFO research organizations in the United States, has been arrested on charges of soliciting a minor “for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity,” according to police. Jan Harzan, who has headed MUFON since 2013, is accused of soliciting “sexual activity from a detective he believed was a 13-year-old girl,” according to a release from the Huntington Beach, CA police department.


In recent years, the UFO research world has been flooded with Pizzagate-esque allegations, falsely linking scientific and government elites to the occult sexual abuse of children, and accusing the government of releasing UFO videos to cover up pedophile rings. Harzan’s arrest is almost certain to reignite those controversies.


Court records show that Harzan was arrested on charges of “communicating with a minor with intent to engage in a lewd act,” as well as “arranging a meeting to engage with a lewd act with a minor in public.”


Harzan, MUFON, and the Huntington Beach Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


"On July 3, detectives contacted a male by the name of Jan Harzan after Harzan solicited sexual activity from a detective he believed was a 13 year old girl," the Huntington Beach PD wrote in a Facebook post. "The suspect solicited the minor to meet for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, and when the suspect agreed to meet the supposed minor, detectives were there to take him into custody."


Harzan was "arrested for multiple felonies and transported to the Huntington Beach Jail [and was] specifically targeting minor females online," the police department wrote.


MUFON’s role in the UFO world is massive. The organization was founded in 1969 in Quincy, Illinois to track citizen sightings of UFOs; they claim to still hold the world’s “largest and most detailed database of UFO sightings.” The organization has worked closely with government contractors, including Bigelow Aerospace, which received money from the federal government to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena. According to documents reviewed by Motherboard, Bigelow Aerospace paid MUFON to make technical reports on characteristics often described in UFO incidents. Bigelow Aerospace also offered MUFON funding to put together the STAR Team, a UFO investigation team that could be on site within 24 to 48 hours of a UFO incident.


According to the organization's website, Harzan is a former IBM engineer who, when he was a kid, was "visited by a real UFO, no more than thirty feet from [his brother and him], with no visible means of propulsion other than making a humming noise, before shooting off over the horizon. This event profoundly changed their lives."


In 2018 a former MUFON state director, John Ventre, made racist comments about African Americans on his personal Facebook page, stating that white Americans were experiencing a “white genocide.” Jan Harzan did not condemn Ventre but instead expressed his concern for "the new social media world we now live in" and stated everyone should engage in open dialogue by writing, "There is no justice in hate, no matter what side of the fence you are on. On that we can all agree." MUFON eventually withdrew Harzan’s comments from its website and Ventre was removed from his position when public pressure mounted.


Last month, Ken Pfeifer, head of MUFON Rhode Island, posted racist memes and comments on Facebook during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. “HOLY SHIT….I WOULD OF PICKED THEIR COTTON FOR THEM….IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD END THIS BLM RACIST MADNESS.”


Chris Cogswell, MUFON’s former Director of Research, who left because of what he said was a racist culture at the organization, said “the main leadership levels of MUFON have been problematic for a number of years, and provides essentially nothing to the individual chapters which are for the most part run by decent, intelligent, and caring members of their communities. Although everyone is entitled to the assumption of innocence until proven guilty, this is a heinous charge. I cannot foresee any possibility of MUFON continuing, but hope the individual chapters can put their time and energy into an organization that will benefit them as much as they benefit it."


Jason McClellan, a popular UFO podcast host, tweeted that "Shocked doesn't describe what I'm feeling right now. I just learned that the executive director of MUFON was arrested for soliciting a minor. I always considered Jan to be a friend. This is really disturbing and disgusting news."
 

wwkirk

Divine
MUFON's response per their Facebook page.

Statement from the MUFON Board of Directors

In light of recent events, Jan Harzan has been permanently removed as the Executive Director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).
Effective immediately, he will no longer serve any role in the organization.

David MacDonald, Executive Director Emeritus and a member of the MUFON Board of Directors, will now assume the duties of Executive Director. MUFON remains committed to its core mission: the study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity. This mission is greater than any one person or member of MUFON and supersedes all other considerations. We will continue to move forward and focus on our mission statement.

The MUFON Board of Directors
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I merged the two threads...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The whole stinking mess known as Mufon needs to be flushed down the toilet.

Yep totally agree, I rarely ever go to that site, I never really liked them much, it's difficult to navigate and find anything on their site too and in the past have heard they aren't manged well, now this...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
 
Mufon has been on a downhill slide ever since old Walt Andrus died and left a series of others in charge. Andrus was known to be pretty eccentric, if memory serves, even an ass at times, but he was at least able to build a large organization over the years, while maintaining a reasonably respectable image. I can think of at least two International Directors (or whatever) who turned out to be, well, not what the outfit needed.

For years now, I've felt bad for the volunteers in the organization, the ones who actually do the work of investigating sightings, often at their own expense in dollars and hours spent in the endeavor. They deserve a competent, honest organization in which to work.

Kevin Randle has some typically sober, considered things to say about the shitshow.
A Different Perspective
 

Standingstones

Celestial
You would have to think that this is the death knell for MUFON. The so called “Inner Circle” only needed to buy their way in for $5 thousand dollars. John Ventre and now Jan Harzan have been canned for comments and actions that have placed a dark, negative light on this organization. It’s a small wonder that people interested in the UFO field no longer have any trust in these characters.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Time for a change.

New organization to take the volunteers more seriously and maybe provide some standards, a readily available database, free donuts, etc. No merchandise. That might be worth a subscription
 

wwkirk

Divine
You would have to think that this is the death knell for MUFON. The so called “Inner Circle” only needed to buy their way in for $5 thousand dollars. John Ventre and now Jan Harzan have been canned for comments and actions that have placed a dark, negative light on this organization. It’s a small wonder that people interested in the UFO field no longer have any trust in these characters.
Apart from these scandals, MUFON has taken a back seat to TTSA the past couple of years.
MUFON is the "mall" of ufology.
 

Standingstones

Celestial
From some of the comments I have read over the past couple of years. The MUFON field researchers are treated like dirt by the so called state representatives. This is on top of the field researchers doing all this leg work for free, using their own pocket money to travel and talk to anyone with a story to tell. Then to be bossed around, I don’t think I would put up with that for very long.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Kevin Randle has some typically sober, considered things to say about the shitshow.
A Different Perspective

This latest is just another in a long list of missteps.

Kevin is saying it lightly, however with this latest crime shouldn't this give reason for the authorities to investigate Mufon a bit more deeply?...I'm not making any accusations here but what's this inner circle really doing behind closed doors?...We have one of their leaders arrested, shouldn't the rest of the inner circle at least be investigated, just to make sure the others do not also have their eyes on minors?...Investigation by association maybe given the nature of the crime?...

...
 

wwkirk

Divine
Kevin is saying it lightly, however with this latest crime shouldn't this give reason for the authorities to investigate Mufon a bit more deeply?...I'm not making any accusations here but what's this inner circle really doing behind closed doors?...We have one of their leaders arrested, shouldn't the rest of the inner circle at least be investigated, just to make sure the others do not also have their eyes on minors?...Investigation by association maybe given the nature of the crime?...

...
Here's some info on Harzan's replacement:

Raunchy Tales from the Pilot of a Mile-High Club Plane

Pilot David MacDonald makes a living flying folks around—while they get it on in the back of his plane.

Legend has it that almost as soon as American aviator Lawrence Burst Sperry invented autopilot control in 1914, he started using this major development in flight safety to get laid in the air. A few years later, Sperry had a cockpit romp so vigorous that an errant heel knocked out the automation system. The plane crashed and a couple of duck hunters found Sperry and a married woman naked and scrambling for plausible excuses in a Long Island pond. Basically, as soon as humans learned to fly, they wanted to screw in the sky.


Celebrities from Richard Branson to Johnny Depp have fessed up to partaking in high-altitude hanky-panky. But while there are technically no regulations against two people sneaking off and using an airplane lavatory together, the inherent discomfort and judging looks of knowing passengers mean that most of us will never join the mile-high club.

But if you want to have sex above the clouds, all hope is not lost. Over the years, a number of small charter flight services have opened up offering private "mile-high club flights" around the country. Running anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per hour, and usually composed of a pilot with a Piper or a Cessna, a noise-canceling headset, and a sheet to partition the cockpit from the passenger cabin for basic privacy, these services offer seatless, well-cushioned fuselages like LoveCloud, a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle operating out of Las Vegas for the last year with mood lighting systems and a heart-shaped bed. Yet few of these fly-by-night operations survive more than a few years.

The one outfit with any real longevity is Cincinnati's FlamingoAir. Originally a mixed mile-high and charter flight service opened by pilot David MacDonald in 1991, FlamingoAir has slowly shifted to offering "flights of fancy" almost exclusively. Their flights, offered four to five times a week and up to eight times a day in the lead-up to Valentine's Day, have become a reference point for mile-high club aspirants and other airlines looking to get into the business.

Eager to learn more about what a "flight of fancy" entails and how to make sure one's mile-high experience is up to snuff, VICE got in touch with MacDonald to talk about overzealous couples, customer feedback on turbulence, and conducting quality control tests of his own product.
what-its-like-to-fly-a-sex-plane-235-body-image-1431634075.jpg


VICE: How did you end up running a "romantic flight" service?
David MacDonald: It started as a dare. We were all "hanger-flying," which is basically sitting around bullshitting, and the topic of the mile-high club comes up. I said, "You know, I bet I could sell that." [My friends] said: "Man, not in Cincinnati. Way too conservative. You'll never pull it off." Well, that was like throwing down the gauntlet. That was 1991 and I'm still going strong. I mean the business is so good, we don't even do charter anymore.

We do all kinds of airplane rides. We've probably given more kids their first airplane rides than you can shake a stick at. But our biggest seller is our "flights of fancy." We do not bill it as the mile-high club. It's billed as romantic airplane rides. You get one hour. You get a private, curtained-off aircraft. We take out a whole row of seats and it's filled with big, fluffy cushions. You get champagne and chocolates and souvenirs and a very discreet pilot. And frankly, what goes on behind the curtains is no concern of mine!

You're established now, but did you have trouble being in Cincinnati at first?
No, I didn't! Everybody thinks that Cincinnati's the conservative capital of the world. That's only when the lights are on and the doors are open. Close the door, man, and have at it.

I'm sure you're a dignified pro by now, but what was your first flight like?
The first flight was a blind date. It was set up by one of the local radio stations. I get to the airport, and there're two people in a pick-up truck. And man, they are going at it hot and heavy. I didn't think much of it, but then it turns out that this is [the couple I'm flying]. These two had never laid eyes on each other until they met at the airport. So that kind of set the stage.

Remember, this is a fun thing, so we try to keep [it] light and fun and everybody having a good time. I get 'em in the airplane and I say, "Now, we've gotta get your seatbelts on for us to move the airplane—you can take 'em off once we're airborne. I'll holler back at ya and let ya know when, and I'll just close this curtain." And [the woman] says, "Well, you can leave it open if you want." And everybody had a good laugh.

Then, as I'm going down the taxiway, she says, "Does this thing have an autopilot?" I say, "Yeah..." She says, "Well, I'll do you too!" I'm just going, "Oh jeeze... I don't need this!" But we laughed everything off and it was in good humor.

So I sit down and I'm going through the final checks on the airplane. Then I turn around to say, "OK guys, I'm gonna pull this curtain." But it was too late. They didn't even make it down the runway. They were going at it. I just closed the curtain and off we went.

what-its-like-to-fly-a-sex-plane-235-body-image-1431634094.jpg


That's not how every flight goes down, is it?
Oh, absolutely not. It is kind of amazing—most of the folks who show up are middle-aged, straight-laced. I mean, you'd think they'd just stepped out of a Republicans Club meeting. Most of these folks are fairly well-to-do. They've got the disposable income. [The flight] is not that expensive—it's $425. But it's all part of how it's marketed.

Do they give you feedback on their experience in the back?
Sometimes I feel like a psychologist, a priest, and a hairdresser all rolled up into one. Sometimes they tell me everything! More than I want to know. I get a lot of feedback. Amazingly, I don't think I've ever had a complaint. I'm fortunate with that. I mean, who's going to complain after you make out at 7,000 feet?

I'd have thought that people might have trouble with turbulence and bumpy rides.
We've had a few incidents like that. And I said, "Hey, I'm sorry for the rough ride—can't control the weather." And they say, "It's OK. We just assumed the position and let Mother Nature do the rest."

So there've never been accidents or incidents caused by people getting carried away and, say, not buckling up or paying attention on descent?
I have never, ever had an incident of any kind like that. Folks are pretty good. I give them a 10-minute warning. I don't want to say we're tough, but we're damn firm on the rules.

Do you ever get any requests for extra services beyond just taking people to altitude?
Yes, I have. We had somebody bring their dog. We've had requests for threesomes. We actually had a request from some people in Iceland. Now, these folks have too much time on their hands in Iceland and they wanted to know if we had an airplane which would accommodate ten couples and are there any restrictions, save damage to the airplane or injury to the pilot. Now think about that for a minute! We actually do have an airplane that would accommodate that, but we didn't want to fool with it. We had a pretty interesting S&M couple one time and they wanted some personal involvement, but I didn't want to do that. I'm pretty straight-laced—I'm only concerned with flying the airplane. That's all I know.

Any favorite stories from your thousand-plus trips?
I have had folks show up in every manner of dress or undress that you can think of. The big one is [that] often the ladies will show up in a full-length fur coat and they've got nothing on under it.

I had this lady one time and she was going to surprise her husband with [the flight], so she didn't want him to know where they were going. At the time, I was working out of one of the main private terminals for all the corporate jets. It was a Thursday night and the place was packed and this gorgeous middle-aged creature walks through the door in a long fur coat and heels and she announces: "I have him blindfolded in the car. What do you want me to do with him?" And the whole place goes silent. It was like Black Bart just walked in the swinging doors.

We try to operate a little more discreetly, usually.

Have you ever sampled your own product for quality control though?
It's a little tough because all the pilots know me! But me and my wife, we have our interludes. And absolutely, I give it the Captain Dave seal of approval.
 
Kevin is saying it lightly, however with this latest crime shouldn't this give reason for the authorities to investigate Mufon a bit more deeply?...I'm not making any accusations here but what's this inner circle really doing behind closed doors?...We have one of their leaders arrested, shouldn't the rest of the inner circle at least be investigated, just to make sure the others do not also have their eyes on minors?...Investigation by association maybe given the nature of the crime?...

...
Mufon is a non-profit. I don't know how that would affect the rules, but yes, I suspect there is more ugly crap there just below the surface. The "Inner Circle" setup has sleazy douchebags written all over it. My involvement with non-profits is minimal, but I know the rules are very numerous and specific. Seems like some fundamentally unethical bs to me.
 
Here's some info on Harzan's replacement:

Raunchy Tales from the Pilot of a Mile-High Club Plane

Pilot David MacDonald makes a living flying folks around—while they get it on in the back of his plane.

Legend has it that almost as soon as American aviator Lawrence Burst Sperry invented autopilot control in 1914, he started using this major development in flight safety to get laid in the air. A few years later, Sperry had a cockpit romp so vigorous that an errant heel knocked out the automation system. The plane crashed and a couple of duck hunters found Sperry and a married woman naked and scrambling for plausible excuses in a Long Island pond. Basically, as soon as humans learned to fly, they wanted to screw in the sky.


Celebrities from Richard Branson to Johnny Depp have fessed up to partaking in high-altitude hanky-panky. But while there are technically no regulations against two people sneaking off and using an airplane lavatory together, the inherent discomfort and judging looks of knowing passengers mean that most of us will never join the mile-high club.

But if you want to have sex above the clouds, all hope is not lost. Over the years, a number of small charter flight services have opened up offering private "mile-high club flights" around the country. Running anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per hour, and usually composed of a pilot with a Piper or a Cessna, a noise-canceling headset, and a sheet to partition the cockpit from the passenger cabin for basic privacy, these services offer seatless, well-cushioned fuselages like LoveCloud, a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle operating out of Las Vegas for the last year with mood lighting systems and a heart-shaped bed. Yet few of these fly-by-night operations survive more than a few years.

The one outfit with any real longevity is Cincinnati's FlamingoAir. Originally a mixed mile-high and charter flight service opened by pilot David MacDonald in 1991, FlamingoAir has slowly shifted to offering "flights of fancy" almost exclusively. Their flights, offered four to five times a week and up to eight times a day in the lead-up to Valentine's Day, have become a reference point for mile-high club aspirants and other airlines looking to get into the business.

Eager to learn more about what a "flight of fancy" entails and how to make sure one's mile-high experience is up to snuff, VICE got in touch with MacDonald to talk about overzealous couples, customer feedback on turbulence, and conducting quality control tests of his own product.
what-its-like-to-fly-a-sex-plane-235-body-image-1431634075.jpg


VICE: How did you end up running a "romantic flight" service?
David MacDonald:
It started as a dare. We were all "hanger-flying," which is basically sitting around bullshitting, and the topic of the mile-high club comes up. I said, "You know, I bet I could sell that." [My friends] said: "Man, not in Cincinnati. Way too conservative. You'll never pull it off." Well, that was like throwing down the gauntlet. That was 1991 and I'm still going strong. I mean the business is so good, we don't even do charter anymore.

We do all kinds of airplane rides. We've probably given more kids their first airplane rides than you can shake a stick at. But our biggest seller is our "flights of fancy." We do not bill it as the mile-high club. It's billed as romantic airplane rides. You get one hour. You get a private, curtained-off aircraft. We take out a whole row of seats and it's filled with big, fluffy cushions. You get champagne and chocolates and souvenirs and a very discreet pilot. And frankly, what goes on behind the curtains is no concern of mine!

You're established now, but did you have trouble being in Cincinnati at first?
No, I didn't! Everybody thinks that Cincinnati's the conservative capital of the world. That's only when the lights are on and the doors are open. Close the door, man, and have at it.

I'm sure you're a dignified pro by now, but what was your first flight like?
The first flight was a blind date. It was set up by one of the local radio stations. I get to the airport, and there're two people in a pick-up truck. And man, they are going at it hot and heavy. I didn't think much of it, but then it turns out that this is [the couple I'm flying]. These two had never laid eyes on each other until they met at the airport. So that kind of set the stage.

Remember, this is a fun thing, so we try to keep [it] light and fun and everybody having a good time. I get 'em in the airplane and I say, "Now, we've gotta get your seatbelts on for us to move the airplane—you can take 'em off once we're airborne. I'll holler back at ya and let ya know when, and I'll just close this curtain." And [the woman] says, "Well, you can leave it open if you want." And everybody had a good laugh.

Then, as I'm going down the taxiway, she says, "Does this thing have an autopilot?" I say, "Yeah..." She says, "Well, I'll do you too!" I'm just going, "Oh jeeze... I don't need this!" But we laughed everything off and it was in good humor.

So I sit down and I'm going through the final checks on the airplane. Then I turn around to say, "OK guys, I'm gonna pull this curtain." But it was too late. They didn't even make it down the runway. They were going at it. I just closed the curtain and off we went.

what-its-like-to-fly-a-sex-plane-235-body-image-1431634094.jpg


That's not how every flight goes down, is it?
Oh, absolutely not. It is kind of amazing—most of the folks who show up are middle-aged, straight-laced. I mean, you'd think they'd just stepped out of a Republicans Club meeting. Most of these folks are fairly well-to-do. They've got the disposable income. [The flight] is not that expensive—it's $425. But it's all part of how it's marketed.

Do they give you feedback on their experience in the back?
Sometimes I feel like a psychologist, a priest, and a hairdresser all rolled up into one. Sometimes they tell me everything! More than I want to know. I get a lot of feedback. Amazingly, I don't think I've ever had a complaint. I'm fortunate with that. I mean, who's going to complain after you make out at 7,000 feet?

I'd have thought that people might have trouble with turbulence and bumpy rides.
We've had a few incidents like that. And I said, "Hey, I'm sorry for the rough ride—can't control the weather." And they say, "It's OK. We just assumed the position and let Mother Nature do the rest."

So there've never been accidents or incidents caused by people getting carried away and, say, not buckling up or paying attention on descent?
I have never, ever had an incident of any kind like that. Folks are pretty good. I give them a 10-minute warning. I don't want to say we're tough, but we're damn firm on the rules.

Do you ever get any requests for extra services beyond just taking people to altitude?
Yes, I have. We had somebody bring their dog. We've had requests for threesomes. We actually had a request from some people in Iceland. Now, these folks have too much time on their hands in Iceland and they wanted to know if we had an airplane which would accommodate ten couples and are there any restrictions, save damage to the airplane or injury to the pilot. Now think about that for a minute! We actually do have an airplane that would accommodate that, but we didn't want to fool with it. We had a pretty interesting S&M couple one time and they wanted some personal involvement, but I didn't want to do that. I'm pretty straight-laced—I'm only concerned with flying the airplane. That's all I know.

Any favorite stories from your thousand-plus trips?
I have had folks show up in every manner of dress or undress that you can think of. The big one is [that] often the ladies will show up in a full-length fur coat and they've got nothing on under it.

I had this lady one time and she was going to surprise her husband with [the flight], so she didn't want him to know where they were going. At the time, I was working out of one of the main private terminals for all the corporate jets. It was a Thursday night and the place was packed and this gorgeous middle-aged creature walks through the door in a long fur coat and heels and she announces: "I have him blindfolded in the car. What do you want me to do with him?" And the whole place goes silent. It was like Black Bart just walked in the swinging doors.

We try to operate a little more discreetly, usually.

Have you ever sampled your own product for quality control though?
It's a little tough because all the pilots know me! But me and my wife, we have our interludes. And absolutely, I give it the Captain Dave seal of approval.

Eewwwww.

Yup, classy outfit. I'm sure there are some disgusted members about to disown the whole sorry mess, as well as some creeps further up the food chain doing some sweating about now. I hope the databases are saved, but from what I've seen of them they might not be terribly useful.
 
Top