Justice Fodor
A pen name of Dean (used 2-8-19 to 8-1-21)
“Science replaces private prejudice with public, verifiable evidence.” -- Richard Dawkins
“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” -- David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
AlienExpanse member humanoidlord on February 1, 2019 began a thread on the subject, "What happened to the UFO videos that Paul Bennewitz made?" The question referred to photographic images obtained by Bennewitz in 1979 in the vicinity of the Manzano nuclear weapons site in New Mexico, including extraordinary nighttime color images of color-shifting objects. Some of these very interesting images appear in an e-book by Christian P. Lambright, X Descending, published in 2011. I believe that this book is well worth acquiring and reading because it reproduces the Bennewitz color images, and because of Lambright's detailed discussion of the story behind the Bennewitz images.
However, the other major focus of the Lambright book is a second set of images, derived from a super8mm movie said to have been taken by Ray Stanford in Corpus Christi, Texas, in October 1985. On humanoidlord's Bennewitz thread, someone immediately brought up the Stanford angle. Because of my interest in the Stanford story, I jumped in, and soon the Bennewitz thread was diverted completely away from the subject of the Bennewitz images. The Bennewitz images are important, and are really unrelated to the Stanford story, except by the happenstance that Lambright was interested in both and decided to cover them both in the same book. Therefore, I am starting this new thread to discuss, in a more coherent manner, the subject of the Ray Stanford Corpus Christi claims, some of the many other claims by Stanford to possess extraordinary UFO evidences, and some of the reasons to be skeptical of such claims by Stanford.
The Bennewitz thread will now hopefully be allowed to return to its original topic. I will now repeat here everything I said in that earlier thread, and considerably more.
In discussing the Stanford claims about the Corpus Christi video, I will refer mostly to things said or shown in Lambright's book, which is accessible to all through Amazon as an inexpensive e-book. I have also referred to a transcript of a lengthy interview with Stanford conducted by Chris O'Brien, in which Stanford gave his own detailed account of the Corpus Christi UFO incident. That interview has not been formally published, but it was once posted on another forum, captured by a friend, and called to my attention. I saw no exact date for that interview, but it was apparently part of a long series of phone interviews of Stanford conducted by O'Brien from 2002-2007, encompassing Stanford's version of his life story. Regarding this body of unpublished interviews, O'Brien wrote, "It's so far beyond unbelievable, it could only be true, IMO."
Some of what follows is my opinion, but where I quote someone or refer to a specific event, I have documentation. I have uploaded a few documents of possible interest to some with this post, and may upload others if there is interest. There is a great deal of material to choose from, drawn from various private collections.
Regarding the Corpus Christi movie, the core story is that in October 1985, Stanford and some others saw a parade of seven or eight UFOs in the Corpus Christi sky. Stanford says he captured four of these on super8mm film, using a 10x telephoto lens.
A super8mm frame negative (the image surface) is about 5.8 mm by 4.0 mm (about 0.16 inch by 0.23 inch). The size of the UFO images on the film in this case are not known to me, but it is an important question.
In early 1986 Lambright visited Stanford at his residence, and saw slides that Stanford said he made, or had made, from the super8 film. Lambright was impressed by what he saw. He saw "a small circular object . . ." that emitted from its leading surface some kind of energy spike, which Lambright referred to as "beam pulsing," for the speculated purpose of facilitating the object's progress through the atmosphere. Lambright refers to the object as a "beam ship." (See screen shot of the first two pages of his chapter titled "Beam Ship.") Lambright writes, "The most amazing aspect however, was the apparent effect of the beam on the air ahead. A subtle pattern appeared to fan out ahead of the oncoming disc."
During another visit to Stanford in 2002, Lambright writes, "The latest computer enhanced images he [Stanford] had made from the film were far and away the most amazing yet."
Stanford also has made bold claims for the Corpus Christi film. In the O'Brien interview transcript referred to earlier, apparently made between 2002 and 2007, Stanford said, "We also have evidence within this film of the existence of a dipolar magnetic field around the object [affecting] the atmosphere around and ahead of this object to the extent that I describe this film as being 'propulsion diagnostic'. At least for that type of UFO. What we have on that film, in my opinion (and in the opinion of aerospace engineers who have likewise examined images from the film) could explain how UFOs could travel at hypersonic speed and not produce a shock wave. I'll leave the details [of this analysis] for the time of the publication of this film and its analysis. All who have seen the Corpus Christi film think it is hands-down the best movie or video ever taken of authentic UFOs. It is in fact propulsion diagnostic."
I do not suggest here that Lambright would agree with every part of that statement by Stanford, but Lambright's overall treatment of the Stanford images suggests that Lambright largely shares Stanford's assessments of what the images show and the importance of what they show. In addition, Lambright argues at length that a scientist-engineer named Leik Myrabo, who apparently saw the Stanford images in 1988, was thereby inspired to do a series of experiments, first publicized in 1994, on the concept of creating a "hypershock tunnel" in front of an aerial craft, referred to as an "air spike."
It may have all happened just that way. It seems, however, that Lambright's considerable efforts to get Myrabo to publicly confirm this version of events were not very successful (Lambright spends many pages describing his efforts in this regard).
But now we arrive at a most significant fact -- even though perhaps one-third of Lambright's book is devoted to the subject of Stanford's Corpus Christi UFO images and the events he thinks flowed from those images, the book itself contains absolutely no actual reproductions of photographic images from Stanford's film, whether "computer enhanced" or otherwise.
Instead, the book contains four drawings, three of them in color. It appears that the artist was Lambright himself, although I think this is not explicitly stated. The matter becomes even more puzzling when the reader comes to understand that the artist did not create the drawings while viewing the illuminated slides: the caption on the page that contains three of the drawings says "These images are drawn from memory . . ." (See Lambright figure 12) That such a notation appears is a testament to Lambright's honesty, but it certainly increases the grounds for reservations about the claims made regarding the technological revelations said to be contained in the Stanford images.
I am uploading screen shots of the pages from X Descending that contain the drawings of what Lambright thinks he remembers seeing in the slides. It is not clear to me how much Lambright drawings owe, if at all, to the unspecified computer enhancements produced by or for Stanford.
I see no clear indication that Lambright ever possessed copies of the Corpus Christi UFO images, "computer enhanced" or otherwise. Presumably if he had possessed such slides, he would not have been working "from memory" when he produced the drawings for the book.
I also have seen no real evidence, in the book or elsewhere, that the original super8 film itself has been examined by anyone with technical expertise, or even that the slides derived from the film have been subjected to expert examination and analysis (a process which could not be accomplished, of course, in the living room of Ray Stanford), at least not by anybody independent of Stanford. Also, I have seen no evidence that the super8 camera itself received independent expert examination, nor the 10x telephone lens. (In the O'Brien interview that I referred to, Stanford said this lens contained 22 glass elements-- elements which at one point during the UFO episode Stanford feared had actually come apart, before quickly concluding that this had not occurred.)
The question here is not whether it is intrinsically plausible that UFOs may manipulate energy in some way that allows them to travel through an atmosphere without producing sonic booms. Speculation and technical discussion of that question appeared long ago in the book Unconventional Flying Objects by former NASA scientist Paul R. Hill, and elsewhere. But what we are discussing here are the specific claims that Ray Stanford took a movie in 1985 that recorded an energy spike associated with such a function.
In the book, Lambright reproduces illustrations that depict aspects of Myrabo's experiments (see Lambright figure 14). There is a similarity between what is shown in the illustrations of this "air spike" research and the Lambright from-memory drawings. This would be of greater interest if we had the actual Stanford photographic images (unenhanced) to compare with the illustrations associated with the Myrabo "air spike" research.
So, what do we have? We have been told about, but we have not seen, photographic images of a UFO and an associated energy field, of which Stanford says, "All who have seen the Corpus Christi film think it is hands-down the best movie or video ever taken of authentic UFOs." A major thesis of Lambright's book is that the Stanford Corpus Christi images were responsible for a "major aerospace propulsion breakthrough."
It seems to me that to accept these assessments requires taking a great deal on trust -- trust in the detailed narrative of Ray Stanford, trust in the processes by which the images Lambright saw were initially created and later copied and/or manipulated (including the unknown computer enhancements of some images); faith that the very detailed drawings made "from memory" closely reflect what was actually captured on the little super8mm frames; and unskeptical acceptance of the specific interpretations placed on the images, first by Stanford and then by Lambright, regarding the nature and purpose of the faint "spike" or "girded tower" (Stanford's term) that they see in front of the object.
Are these multiple leaps of faith warranted? I do not know Christian Lambright, but I understand that he has a reputation for honesty. I see nothing in the book that leads me to think otherwise. Of course, that does not mean that his judgment or extrapolations on this specific matter cannot be questioned.
Regarding Stanford, Lambright writes that he made his own assessment, based on what he refers to as his personal intuition or a "bullshit meter," that Stanford is credible on UFO-related matters. On that point, I believe that far more skepticism is in order. The Stanford "beam ship" claims are part of a much bigger picture. Stanford has a long history of getting a lot of mileage out of extraordinary UFO evidence claims, while avoiding having his supposedly world-shaking evidences subjected to serious critical scrutiny. Stanford's handling of the 1985 Corpus Christi movie is consistent with this pattern.
The Corpus Christi film was shot over 33 years ago. In his interview with Chris O'Brien, conducted more than 10 years ago, Stanford said, "I'll leave the details [of this analysis] for the time of the publication of this film and its analysis." Lambright writes, "For as long as I've known him I have encouraged Ray to reveal is films for everyone to see . . ." At another point Lambright writes, "The facts reveal a profound truth that everyone deserves to know. It is a point I have tried very hard to impress on Ray in encouraging him to reveal his film. As much work as he has invested in substantiating this phenomenon, and as strongly as I have sensed that he wants to validate his work, his seemingly passive attitude at times has been very confusing."
Despite such prodding by Lambright and other Stanford believers, no such disclosure has occurred.
This does not surprise me. Over a period of 40 years and more, Stanford has made quite a number of public claims to have obtained extraordinary UFO data, involving an unknown but large number of supposedly independent UFO events experienced by Stanford: movies, still images, magnetic recordings, beam effects, et cetera. Stanford also has made many successive promises that various evidences would be subjected to expert analysis and made public, but the fulfillment of these promises has been ever receding. Disclosure day never arrives. The reasons for delays are ever shifting. In recent years, it has been said that Stanford was awaiting a better book deal. It was suggested he was holding back because his feelings were hurt that somebody questioned his background or credibility. In a recent radio interview, Stanford even claimed that his reluctance in releasing important UFO evidence was because he thought it might hurt "national security." Some claims seem to have just been quietly dropped, to be replaced by new amazing claims.
Stanford has claimed to have shot a movie in about 1978 or 1979 I think, from an airliner, of a huge mother ship, with smaller craft going in and out. Stanford wrote a book claiming to have obtained metal scrapings from the very landing gear of the egg-shaped object seen by policeman Lonnie Zamora at Socorro, New Mexico in 1964 -- material that Stanford claims was tested and found to be not of terrestrial origin, but then stolen by the government -- a version of events sharply disputed by others involved, including the greatly respected researcher and author Richard H. Hall.
Stanford also took a photo in 1964 at the site of the Zamora event, that Stanford later "discovered" contains small images of four UFOs, two of them egg shaped like the object Zamora saw. Here is how that image was described by Stanford believer Chris O'Brien on another forum: "The photo was take some months after the [1964] Soccoro incident and in the foreground is the dynamite shack that was located near the landing site. Off in the distance, at the edge of the photo, just above the horizon, are four small dots that Ray had never noticed before. When they are blown up in size, two of the dots look exactly like the Soccoro object -- one even has its landing legs extended." I am not aware that this remarkable photo taken of egg-shaped flying objects at Socorro in 1964 has ever been published. I ask myself whether the Stanford-O'Brien interpretation of the photo would stand up under forensic examination -- but then I remind myself of the O'Brien operating premise, "It's so far beyond unbelievable, it could only be true."
There is much documentation regarding Stanford's long history of making many claims pertaining to UFOs and occupants of UFOs that are, to put it mildly, unsubstantiated. Many have heard something about Stanford being active in the "contactee" culture in the 1950s, associated with the likes of George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson. Some have seen his 1958 book Look Up, about his amazing contacts with "Space Brothers." Stanford has taken considerable pains in various interviews to dismiss all of those 1950's writings as youthful misinterpretations.
Yet, grand but unsubstantiated UFO-related claims by Stanford continued long after the Adamski period -- in fact, they have never stopped. For example, in material published in the 1970's, Stanford, supposedly while in a trance, "channeled" long discourses from members of the "White Brotherhood" including "Aramda," a member of a race of extraterrestrials known as "The Watchers." These "White Brothers" strongly promoted various Stanford-centered projects, including "Project Starlight International," which Stanford put forward to the general public as a purely scientific effort to obtain hard data on UFOs.
I will upload PDF images of two newsletters that a nonprofit organization centered on Stanford (the long-defunct "Association for the Understanding of Man," AUM) put out in 1978, when Stanford was 40 years old. Both of these newsletters contained explicit claims, written by Stanford and appearing over Stanford's actual signatures, that Stanford had obtained instrumented UFO data of great import that would be analyzed and published soon. The AUM newsletter number 18 (September 29, 1978), written and signed by Stanford, speaks (on pages 4 and 5) of forthcoming publication of instrumented data from FIVE UFO events that "MAY THROW CONSIDERABLE LIGHT ON SUCH QUESTIONS AS HOW ADVANCED A TECHNOLOGY IS INVOLVED AND WHAT PHYSICAL STATES ARE UTILIZED FOR PROPULSION AND MANEUVERS." (The capitals are in the original.)
Again, this was in 1978, forty years ago. Has anyone seen the evidence referred to?
[The same newsletter, pages 6 through 13, contains a long speech to the organization's members and donors by "Jeshua," identified as "the Lord" (Jesus Christ), speaking to the group through the vocal cords of the entranced Ray Stanford. Some will find it a fascinating read.]
The AUM newsletter number 19 (November 17, 1978), written and signed by Stanford, speaks of ongoing preparation to publish, in both an in-house publication and in "scientific and technical journals," 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. Because of the support you each have shown, this in-depth Journal will be sent to you as soon as it comes from the printer."
I am not aware that any such publications ever actually appeared. Have any of you seen this world-shaking evidence?
There are boxes full of similar material by and about Stanford from that period available in certain private collections. I have read a good deal of it. (I have uploaded here an interview with Stanford published in Psychic magazine in 1974 which contains additional UFO material that may be of interest.) I find much of this material is difficult to reconcile with UFO-related narrative and personal history that Stanford has put out in various forums and interviews in more recent years.
Returning to the subject of the Corpus Christi movie: It is my opinion that none of the Stanford photos appear in Lambright's book, because Stanford fears subjecting the Corpus Christi images and his bold claims about them to serious critical examination and commentary. My premise would be that the same applies to the 1978-79 mother ship movie, the Socorro flying egg photo, the amazing evidences spoken of in the 1978 AUM newsletters, and other such claims. I am mentioning here just a few examples from a much longer list of UFO-related claims by Ray Stanford, some of which might be the subject of future discussion.
I will close here by stating my personal conclusion: Any claims by Ray Stanford to possess UFO photos, films, or other physical evidence should be disregarded, unless and until the original non-enhanced images and other pertinent data are made available for examination and analysis by persons with genuine expertise -- persons who are demonstrably independent of Stanford. After that, the images and analyses should be made public. This would make it possible to evaluate the Corpus Christi images (or any of the other extraordinary UFO evidences that Stanford has claimed to possess) in the light of all factors. Stanford's personal testimony and interpretations would be one factor that all could consider in evaluating such now-public evidence -- but in my view, any photo or other physical evidence must stand on its own two feet, independent of any reliance on Stanford's objectivity or personal credibility on these matters.
Justice Fodor
“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” -- David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
AlienExpanse member humanoidlord on February 1, 2019 began a thread on the subject, "What happened to the UFO videos that Paul Bennewitz made?" The question referred to photographic images obtained by Bennewitz in 1979 in the vicinity of the Manzano nuclear weapons site in New Mexico, including extraordinary nighttime color images of color-shifting objects. Some of these very interesting images appear in an e-book by Christian P. Lambright, X Descending, published in 2011. I believe that this book is well worth acquiring and reading because it reproduces the Bennewitz color images, and because of Lambright's detailed discussion of the story behind the Bennewitz images.
However, the other major focus of the Lambright book is a second set of images, derived from a super8mm movie said to have been taken by Ray Stanford in Corpus Christi, Texas, in October 1985. On humanoidlord's Bennewitz thread, someone immediately brought up the Stanford angle. Because of my interest in the Stanford story, I jumped in, and soon the Bennewitz thread was diverted completely away from the subject of the Bennewitz images. The Bennewitz images are important, and are really unrelated to the Stanford story, except by the happenstance that Lambright was interested in both and decided to cover them both in the same book. Therefore, I am starting this new thread to discuss, in a more coherent manner, the subject of the Ray Stanford Corpus Christi claims, some of the many other claims by Stanford to possess extraordinary UFO evidences, and some of the reasons to be skeptical of such claims by Stanford.
The Bennewitz thread will now hopefully be allowed to return to its original topic. I will now repeat here everything I said in that earlier thread, and considerably more.
In discussing the Stanford claims about the Corpus Christi video, I will refer mostly to things said or shown in Lambright's book, which is accessible to all through Amazon as an inexpensive e-book. I have also referred to a transcript of a lengthy interview with Stanford conducted by Chris O'Brien, in which Stanford gave his own detailed account of the Corpus Christi UFO incident. That interview has not been formally published, but it was once posted on another forum, captured by a friend, and called to my attention. I saw no exact date for that interview, but it was apparently part of a long series of phone interviews of Stanford conducted by O'Brien from 2002-2007, encompassing Stanford's version of his life story. Regarding this body of unpublished interviews, O'Brien wrote, "It's so far beyond unbelievable, it could only be true, IMO."
Some of what follows is my opinion, but where I quote someone or refer to a specific event, I have documentation. I have uploaded a few documents of possible interest to some with this post, and may upload others if there is interest. There is a great deal of material to choose from, drawn from various private collections.
Regarding the Corpus Christi movie, the core story is that in October 1985, Stanford and some others saw a parade of seven or eight UFOs in the Corpus Christi sky. Stanford says he captured four of these on super8mm film, using a 10x telephoto lens.
A super8mm frame negative (the image surface) is about 5.8 mm by 4.0 mm (about 0.16 inch by 0.23 inch). The size of the UFO images on the film in this case are not known to me, but it is an important question.
In early 1986 Lambright visited Stanford at his residence, and saw slides that Stanford said he made, or had made, from the super8 film. Lambright was impressed by what he saw. He saw "a small circular object . . ." that emitted from its leading surface some kind of energy spike, which Lambright referred to as "beam pulsing," for the speculated purpose of facilitating the object's progress through the atmosphere. Lambright refers to the object as a "beam ship." (See screen shot of the first two pages of his chapter titled "Beam Ship.") Lambright writes, "The most amazing aspect however, was the apparent effect of the beam on the air ahead. A subtle pattern appeared to fan out ahead of the oncoming disc."
During another visit to Stanford in 2002, Lambright writes, "The latest computer enhanced images he [Stanford] had made from the film were far and away the most amazing yet."
Stanford also has made bold claims for the Corpus Christi film. In the O'Brien interview transcript referred to earlier, apparently made between 2002 and 2007, Stanford said, "We also have evidence within this film of the existence of a dipolar magnetic field around the object [affecting] the atmosphere around and ahead of this object to the extent that I describe this film as being 'propulsion diagnostic'. At least for that type of UFO. What we have on that film, in my opinion (and in the opinion of aerospace engineers who have likewise examined images from the film) could explain how UFOs could travel at hypersonic speed and not produce a shock wave. I'll leave the details [of this analysis] for the time of the publication of this film and its analysis. All who have seen the Corpus Christi film think it is hands-down the best movie or video ever taken of authentic UFOs. It is in fact propulsion diagnostic."
I do not suggest here that Lambright would agree with every part of that statement by Stanford, but Lambright's overall treatment of the Stanford images suggests that Lambright largely shares Stanford's assessments of what the images show and the importance of what they show. In addition, Lambright argues at length that a scientist-engineer named Leik Myrabo, who apparently saw the Stanford images in 1988, was thereby inspired to do a series of experiments, first publicized in 1994, on the concept of creating a "hypershock tunnel" in front of an aerial craft, referred to as an "air spike."
It may have all happened just that way. It seems, however, that Lambright's considerable efforts to get Myrabo to publicly confirm this version of events were not very successful (Lambright spends many pages describing his efforts in this regard).
But now we arrive at a most significant fact -- even though perhaps one-third of Lambright's book is devoted to the subject of Stanford's Corpus Christi UFO images and the events he thinks flowed from those images, the book itself contains absolutely no actual reproductions of photographic images from Stanford's film, whether "computer enhanced" or otherwise.
Instead, the book contains four drawings, three of them in color. It appears that the artist was Lambright himself, although I think this is not explicitly stated. The matter becomes even more puzzling when the reader comes to understand that the artist did not create the drawings while viewing the illuminated slides: the caption on the page that contains three of the drawings says "These images are drawn from memory . . ." (See Lambright figure 12) That such a notation appears is a testament to Lambright's honesty, but it certainly increases the grounds for reservations about the claims made regarding the technological revelations said to be contained in the Stanford images.
I am uploading screen shots of the pages from X Descending that contain the drawings of what Lambright thinks he remembers seeing in the slides. It is not clear to me how much Lambright drawings owe, if at all, to the unspecified computer enhancements produced by or for Stanford.
I see no clear indication that Lambright ever possessed copies of the Corpus Christi UFO images, "computer enhanced" or otherwise. Presumably if he had possessed such slides, he would not have been working "from memory" when he produced the drawings for the book.
I also have seen no real evidence, in the book or elsewhere, that the original super8 film itself has been examined by anyone with technical expertise, or even that the slides derived from the film have been subjected to expert examination and analysis (a process which could not be accomplished, of course, in the living room of Ray Stanford), at least not by anybody independent of Stanford. Also, I have seen no evidence that the super8 camera itself received independent expert examination, nor the 10x telephone lens. (In the O'Brien interview that I referred to, Stanford said this lens contained 22 glass elements-- elements which at one point during the UFO episode Stanford feared had actually come apart, before quickly concluding that this had not occurred.)
The question here is not whether it is intrinsically plausible that UFOs may manipulate energy in some way that allows them to travel through an atmosphere without producing sonic booms. Speculation and technical discussion of that question appeared long ago in the book Unconventional Flying Objects by former NASA scientist Paul R. Hill, and elsewhere. But what we are discussing here are the specific claims that Ray Stanford took a movie in 1985 that recorded an energy spike associated with such a function.
In the book, Lambright reproduces illustrations that depict aspects of Myrabo's experiments (see Lambright figure 14). There is a similarity between what is shown in the illustrations of this "air spike" research and the Lambright from-memory drawings. This would be of greater interest if we had the actual Stanford photographic images (unenhanced) to compare with the illustrations associated with the Myrabo "air spike" research.
So, what do we have? We have been told about, but we have not seen, photographic images of a UFO and an associated energy field, of which Stanford says, "All who have seen the Corpus Christi film think it is hands-down the best movie or video ever taken of authentic UFOs." A major thesis of Lambright's book is that the Stanford Corpus Christi images were responsible for a "major aerospace propulsion breakthrough."
It seems to me that to accept these assessments requires taking a great deal on trust -- trust in the detailed narrative of Ray Stanford, trust in the processes by which the images Lambright saw were initially created and later copied and/or manipulated (including the unknown computer enhancements of some images); faith that the very detailed drawings made "from memory" closely reflect what was actually captured on the little super8mm frames; and unskeptical acceptance of the specific interpretations placed on the images, first by Stanford and then by Lambright, regarding the nature and purpose of the faint "spike" or "girded tower" (Stanford's term) that they see in front of the object.
Are these multiple leaps of faith warranted? I do not know Christian Lambright, but I understand that he has a reputation for honesty. I see nothing in the book that leads me to think otherwise. Of course, that does not mean that his judgment or extrapolations on this specific matter cannot be questioned.
Regarding Stanford, Lambright writes that he made his own assessment, based on what he refers to as his personal intuition or a "bullshit meter," that Stanford is credible on UFO-related matters. On that point, I believe that far more skepticism is in order. The Stanford "beam ship" claims are part of a much bigger picture. Stanford has a long history of getting a lot of mileage out of extraordinary UFO evidence claims, while avoiding having his supposedly world-shaking evidences subjected to serious critical scrutiny. Stanford's handling of the 1985 Corpus Christi movie is consistent with this pattern.
The Corpus Christi film was shot over 33 years ago. In his interview with Chris O'Brien, conducted more than 10 years ago, Stanford said, "I'll leave the details [of this analysis] for the time of the publication of this film and its analysis." Lambright writes, "For as long as I've known him I have encouraged Ray to reveal is films for everyone to see . . ." At another point Lambright writes, "The facts reveal a profound truth that everyone deserves to know. It is a point I have tried very hard to impress on Ray in encouraging him to reveal his film. As much work as he has invested in substantiating this phenomenon, and as strongly as I have sensed that he wants to validate his work, his seemingly passive attitude at times has been very confusing."
Despite such prodding by Lambright and other Stanford believers, no such disclosure has occurred.
This does not surprise me. Over a period of 40 years and more, Stanford has made quite a number of public claims to have obtained extraordinary UFO data, involving an unknown but large number of supposedly independent UFO events experienced by Stanford: movies, still images, magnetic recordings, beam effects, et cetera. Stanford also has made many successive promises that various evidences would be subjected to expert analysis and made public, but the fulfillment of these promises has been ever receding. Disclosure day never arrives. The reasons for delays are ever shifting. In recent years, it has been said that Stanford was awaiting a better book deal. It was suggested he was holding back because his feelings were hurt that somebody questioned his background or credibility. In a recent radio interview, Stanford even claimed that his reluctance in releasing important UFO evidence was because he thought it might hurt "national security." Some claims seem to have just been quietly dropped, to be replaced by new amazing claims.
Stanford has claimed to have shot a movie in about 1978 or 1979 I think, from an airliner, of a huge mother ship, with smaller craft going in and out. Stanford wrote a book claiming to have obtained metal scrapings from the very landing gear of the egg-shaped object seen by policeman Lonnie Zamora at Socorro, New Mexico in 1964 -- material that Stanford claims was tested and found to be not of terrestrial origin, but then stolen by the government -- a version of events sharply disputed by others involved, including the greatly respected researcher and author Richard H. Hall.
Stanford also took a photo in 1964 at the site of the Zamora event, that Stanford later "discovered" contains small images of four UFOs, two of them egg shaped like the object Zamora saw. Here is how that image was described by Stanford believer Chris O'Brien on another forum: "The photo was take some months after the [1964] Soccoro incident and in the foreground is the dynamite shack that was located near the landing site. Off in the distance, at the edge of the photo, just above the horizon, are four small dots that Ray had never noticed before. When they are blown up in size, two of the dots look exactly like the Soccoro object -- one even has its landing legs extended." I am not aware that this remarkable photo taken of egg-shaped flying objects at Socorro in 1964 has ever been published. I ask myself whether the Stanford-O'Brien interpretation of the photo would stand up under forensic examination -- but then I remind myself of the O'Brien operating premise, "It's so far beyond unbelievable, it could only be true."
There is much documentation regarding Stanford's long history of making many claims pertaining to UFOs and occupants of UFOs that are, to put it mildly, unsubstantiated. Many have heard something about Stanford being active in the "contactee" culture in the 1950s, associated with the likes of George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson. Some have seen his 1958 book Look Up, about his amazing contacts with "Space Brothers." Stanford has taken considerable pains in various interviews to dismiss all of those 1950's writings as youthful misinterpretations.
Yet, grand but unsubstantiated UFO-related claims by Stanford continued long after the Adamski period -- in fact, they have never stopped. For example, in material published in the 1970's, Stanford, supposedly while in a trance, "channeled" long discourses from members of the "White Brotherhood" including "Aramda," a member of a race of extraterrestrials known as "The Watchers." These "White Brothers" strongly promoted various Stanford-centered projects, including "Project Starlight International," which Stanford put forward to the general public as a purely scientific effort to obtain hard data on UFOs.
I will upload PDF images of two newsletters that a nonprofit organization centered on Stanford (the long-defunct "Association for the Understanding of Man," AUM) put out in 1978, when Stanford was 40 years old. Both of these newsletters contained explicit claims, written by Stanford and appearing over Stanford's actual signatures, that Stanford had obtained instrumented UFO data of great import that would be analyzed and published soon. The AUM newsletter number 18 (September 29, 1978), written and signed by Stanford, speaks (on pages 4 and 5) of forthcoming publication of instrumented data from FIVE UFO events that "MAY THROW CONSIDERABLE LIGHT ON SUCH QUESTIONS AS HOW ADVANCED A TECHNOLOGY IS INVOLVED AND WHAT PHYSICAL STATES ARE UTILIZED FOR PROPULSION AND MANEUVERS." (The capitals are in the original.)
Again, this was in 1978, forty years ago. Has anyone seen the evidence referred to?
[The same newsletter, pages 6 through 13, contains a long speech to the organization's members and donors by "Jeshua," identified as "the Lord" (Jesus Christ), speaking to the group through the vocal cords of the entranced Ray Stanford. Some will find it a fascinating read.]
The AUM newsletter number 19 (November 17, 1978), written and signed by Stanford, speaks of ongoing preparation to publish, in both an in-house publication and in "scientific and technical journals," 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. Because of the support you each have shown, this in-depth Journal will be sent to you as soon as it comes from the printer."
I am not aware that any such publications ever actually appeared. Have any of you seen this world-shaking evidence?
There are boxes full of similar material by and about Stanford from that period available in certain private collections. I have read a good deal of it. (I have uploaded here an interview with Stanford published in Psychic magazine in 1974 which contains additional UFO material that may be of interest.) I find much of this material is difficult to reconcile with UFO-related narrative and personal history that Stanford has put out in various forums and interviews in more recent years.
Returning to the subject of the Corpus Christi movie: It is my opinion that none of the Stanford photos appear in Lambright's book, because Stanford fears subjecting the Corpus Christi images and his bold claims about them to serious critical examination and commentary. My premise would be that the same applies to the 1978-79 mother ship movie, the Socorro flying egg photo, the amazing evidences spoken of in the 1978 AUM newsletters, and other such claims. I am mentioning here just a few examples from a much longer list of UFO-related claims by Ray Stanford, some of which might be the subject of future discussion.
I will close here by stating my personal conclusion: Any claims by Ray Stanford to possess UFO photos, films, or other physical evidence should be disregarded, unless and until the original non-enhanced images and other pertinent data are made available for examination and analysis by persons with genuine expertise -- persons who are demonstrably independent of Stanford. After that, the images and analyses should be made public. This would make it possible to evaluate the Corpus Christi images (or any of the other extraordinary UFO evidences that Stanford has claimed to possess) in the light of all factors. Stanford's personal testimony and interpretations would be one factor that all could consider in evaluating such now-public evidence -- but in my view, any photo or other physical evidence must stand on its own two feet, independent of any reliance on Stanford's objectivity or personal credibility on these matters.
Justice Fodor
Attachments
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Ray Stanford AUM NL 18 (1978) (huge UFO data claim, channels Jesus.pdf8.4 MB · Views: 442
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Ray Stanford AUM no 19 (1978) conclusive technical UFO data coming soon.pdf3.5 MB · Views: 381
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Ray Stanford Psychic interview April 1974 (low-def).pdf5.6 MB · Views: 338
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Lambright meets beam ship.png121.6 KB · Views: 332
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Lambright figure 13.png703.9 KB · Views: 430
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Lambright figure 14.png456.2 KB · Views: 410
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Lambright figure 12 (beam ship).png394.3 KB · Views: 367
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