UFO Skeptics Caught, Admit to Hoax
Two self-admitted skeptics who rigged highway flares to weather balloons to create a UFO hoax are now facing misdemeanor charges in Morristown, New Jersey for endangering public and air traffic safety. Along with many other sites and news outlets, UFOMystic tagged this incident on January 7th.
Joe Rudy, a high-school science teacher, and salesman Chris Russo documented their entire operation on video and waited for UFO spotters’ and the local and national news media reaction before admitting what they had done and how they used their activities to make a point. As they write at eskeptic:
We set out on a mission to help people think rationally and question the credibility of so-called UFO “professionals…We delivered what every perfect UFO case has: great video and pictures, “credible†eyewitnesses (doctors and pilots), and professional investigators convinced that something amazing was witnessed. Does this bring into question the validity of every other UFO case? We believe it does.
Hoaxer video of balloon/ flare release. Credit: eskeptic.com
By this reasoning it even casts serious doubt on such things as radar/ visual cases and close encounter (nearer than 500 feet) incidents. Strange lights darting around the firmament and apparently structured objects landing in front of witnesses are all apparently hoaxes or misidentifications of natural phenomena or man-made aircraft, according to the narrow definition of the NJ UFO hoax team.
The main point to consider in all of this is where UFO believers and fundamentalist skeptics differ in their acceptance of evidence. The believers want to think that there are creatures from other planets visiting us; the fundies insist that there is no credible evidence that this is so.
The data would suggest that the skeptics are correct, but the debate has been framed in the wrong context. Fundie skeptics nearly always lump all UFO cases together, as if anything unknown in the sky is representative of all cases throughout history, especially from the 20th century to the present. To this mindset, the lack of hard evidence for one is enough to throw the rest of the UFO reports out with the bathwater. This is a classic CSICOP ploy: Find the easiest case to debunk, and frame it as representative of all issues associated with it. at least by their definition. Believers, for the most part, ignore normal explanations because it detracts from their case for unidentifieds, and the “only answer,” which has to be extraterrestrials.
Of course, witness testimony does not a closed case make, but it’s almost all we have have when dealing with the UFO issue. However, when we consider literally thousands of reports, some of which may not have mundane explanations, the goal should be to concentrate on the real unknowns, with the idea of solving those with existing knowledge, or advancing our methods and theories to learn more about what causes UFO reports. Just because something is not proven doesn’t mean that it is a non-issue.
One valuable subject that Rudy and Russo have illuminated is that UFO watchers/ researchers and the media outlets that support them should consider mundane explanations rather than ignoring them entirely in pursuit of “evidence” for ET visitation. The point is that the “unidentified” in “UFO” remains so as science presently defines “proof,” but might not be in the future. In a few cases, there may truly be a mystery that can be better understood and maybe explained.
A list of news articles on the incident can be found at Google.
Update: My internet/ facebook buddy Michael MacDonald chimes in on the case.
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under Beliefs, Breaking News, Hoaxes, UFOlogists, UFOlogy, UFOs On Film, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response or trackback from your site.
- Related News Stories:
- Number Crunching at MUFON »
- Long Beach UFOs »
- What CSI(COP) Is About »
- Micah, UFOs & Skeptics »
- Socorro: The Latest »
- Greg’s Occasional Pic of the Moment #2 »
- Socorro Hoaxed? »
- Ha! I Knew It: Skeptics Infiltrate McMinnville UFO Fest »
- Spirals, Triangles, Tricksters »
- UFO caught on film »
|
Apr 03 2009 
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
I do not endorse what they did; but I kinda like that they showed just how careless the History Channel UFO Hunters are. I’m sure many people believe they are actually a serious group of professionals that put investigation before entertainment when doing a show; I’m not one of those people—but I wouldn’t mind if someone proves me wrong.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
RPJ,
People might not watch the shows if there was some sort of equity presented about the subject. When I worked on the Conspiracy Zone show, the couple of times I was going to fill in as a guest they warned me not to equivocate my positions because the audience doesn’t like gray areas (at least that’s what they thought.) I don’t happen to agree.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Let’s not forget that they did prove that “trained” or “objective observers” are absolutely no different than anybody else, when it comes to giving accurate and unbiased testimony. Clearly you cannot trust one testimony over another based on the witnesses reputation, education, or social status.
What the hoaxers also have proved is that every CLAIM of a UFO sighting made under certain conditions is suspect. So what are those conditions which people will report any strange light they can’t identify as a UFO? Well, it has to…
1) Consist of one or more lights only
2) Be mass witnessed
3) Become popularized or sensational
The Stephenville sightings, the Phoenix lights, Bubba, the Lubbock lights, etc, all of these cases fit the profile of the hoaxed event in which many people fooled themselves into believing mistaking ordinary flares for extraterrestrial spacecraft.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Sage,
We almost agree! Good summary and points that I missed.
April 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
My original comments and Greg’s comments when this story first broke:
“BenDoverEsq. Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I saw the video. It might be something or it might not. Typical frustrating lights in the sky at night video that tells you almost nothing.”
“Greg Bishop Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
BenD,
I know. It’s just stupid news fodder, but I wanted to mention it for some reason”
April 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I’d be more impressed if it were specified what the “‘credible’ eyewitnesses (doctors and pilots)” whose accuracy the hoaxers claim to be impeaching actually reported. Did they say they’d seen an alien spaceship? Or merely report seeing something in the sky they couldn’t explain?
For that matter it appears, from the Michael MacDonald post Greg links to, that the hoaxers called in some of the reports themselves in order to create a flap. Makes me wonder how many “doctor and pilots” reports they may have made themselves – inasmuch as they’re self-professed liars.
There’s a certain “so-what” factor here, anyway. Did the Piltdown Man Hoax debunk evolution?
April 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Sage, when were the Stephenville ‘08 or Phoenix ‘97 sightings ever proved to be hoax? This is news to me. Somebody could fit the typical profile of a potential serial killer but never harm so much as a bug. Likewise a nighttime lights in the sky sighting could also be a genuine nuts and bolts UFO as opposed to just lights in the sky. While I don’t particularly adhere to the ETH, all hoaxers do is make lights in the sky, there’s thousands of other physical evidence cases involving UFO’s and tons of daylight UFO sightings made by both civilian and military pilots. Skeptics also said there were no such thing as blue sprite and red jets reported by pilots for years and now they’re left with egg on their face. The problem with most UFO skeptics that I’ve seen or heard of is that they seem inherently dismissive of all sightings as hoaxes or misidentifications without investigation. When the fundamental skeptics can hoax a UFO sighting in broad daylight, then I might be swayed by most of their even lamer explanations of Unexplained Aerial Phenomena.
April 5th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Crgintx, when were the Stephenville ‘08 or Phoenix ‘97 sightings ever proved to be real life? That would be news to me and lots of other people. These incidents are like a magician’s act — I cannot explain how they do it but that doesn’t stop me from knowing it is only a deception and not real life. Likewise, I do not have to explain certain UFO sightings to know they are deceptions because it is plainly obvious they are not real life.
“Somebody could fit the typical profile of a potential serial killer but never harm so much as a bug”
That’s a nonsense argument, unless you can name one person that ever happened to.
“There’s thousands of other physical evidence cases”
There isn’t a single valid physical evidence case in existence.
“Skeptics also said there were no such thing as blue sprite and red jets reported by pilots for years and now they’re left with egg on their face”
This was never about skeptics, you are attempting to polarize the issue. There are two things wrong with that approach:
There are lots of things that skeptics have doubted in the past and they were right! For example, skeptics doubted Anton Leeuwenhoek’s spontaneous creation theory and they were right! Skeptics doubted that trepanation worked and they were right! Skeptics doubted the Earth was flat and they were right! So what does that kind of argument of yours tell us? That you cannot rely on what believers or skeptics say to know what truth is, you can only know what truth is by investigation.
Secondly, this isn’t about being skeptical, but that a “trained observer” or an “objective observer” or a pilot or a scientist, can mistake balloons with flares for full fledged UFOs. In other words, their judgement is not any better or worse than the word of the average person on the street, so just because a trained observer or pilot or scientist say they have seen a flying saucer, is no more credible than a drunk janitor who says they have seen a flying saucer. Someone’s mere word is not considered physical evidence or proof of anything at all. Yet this describes exactly what occurred with the Stephenville and Phoenix Lights incidents. There was never anything physical, just a few storytales and some poorly taken videos/pictures to go along with it, and they looked just like the balloons with flares that the hoaxers used.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Sage, your counterpoints are rhetorical at best. Are you denying that there is Unexplained Aerial Phenomena? To dismiss all of it as hoaxes or misidentifications borders on sophistry. Given the current limitations of scientific capability to investigate UAP incidences as Dr. Michio Kaku put it so eloquently put it, all we know for sure about the universe can fit on the head of pin. For every scientific discovery made, ten more questions arise and at least two contradictory hypothesis arise as well to challenge it. Personally, I believe most nighttime nuts and bolts UAP sightings are advanced military aircraft/flying vehicles being tested and exercised against current conventional military aircraft. Which doesn’t change the fact that they are still unknown flying craft of some sort aka UFO’s. Given the lack of quality scientific investigation of the UAP field currently, any researcher worthy of the title is going to put the big question mark as to what is happening in the skies and is being witnessed by literally millions of folks around the world on a yearly basis.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:33 am
Sage,
Do you think it’s possible that non-human, intelligent beings could visit us? I’m not asking if it’s probable or provable, just POSSIBLE. Please don’t use the argument, “If I can’t prove it, it’s not possible.”
Also, if you were given proof that such beings exist, would you be disappointed?
April 6th, 2009 at 4:54 am
“Your counterpoints are rhetorical at best”
You obviously don’t know what the word rhetorical means.
“Are you denying that there is Unexplained Aerial Phenomena? To dismiss all of it…”
You are not paying attention to what I said and you are inventing discussions we never had:
1) I clearly stated that the hoax only applied to certain specific incidents, not all of them as you are falsely insinuating, and
2) We were discussing Unidentified Flying Objects, not Unexplained Aerial Phenomena — they are not the same exact thing
“Personally, I believe…”
Don’t confuse faith with fact.
“Which doesn’t change the fact that they are still unknown flying craft of some sort”
There are no facts that there are unknown flying craft for any of the sightings we were discussing, all there was are lights in the sky.
“Given the lack of quality scientific investigation…”
…that is, in your non-scientific opinion.
“…and is being witnessed by literally millions of folks around the world on a yearly basis”
Millions of folks also use to witness the world was flat on a daily basis, but they were all wrong.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:02 am
“Do you think it’s possible that non-human, intelligent beings could visit us?”
Absolutely.
“Also, if you were given proof that such beings exist, would you be disappointed?”
No, I wouldn’t be disappointed…disappointed in what?
Now let me answer your unspoken questions before you start jumping to conclusions…
No, there is absolutely no evidence that any non-human, intelligent beings are visiting or have visited us.
Yes, I know for a fact that other non-human, intelligent beings exist on other worlds.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:44 am
Sage,
No unspoken questions or conclusion- jumping going on around here.
You wrote: “Yes, I know for a fact that other non-human, intelligent beings exist on other worlds.”
Is that statement based on probability (the Drake Equation) or do you have a pen pal somewhere?
April 6th, 2009 at 7:21 am
MUFON called it a hoax on Jan. 7, 2009. But I love how these guys are crowing about how they pulled the wool over the eyes of the ufo community. Why didn’t Newsweek talk about the MUFON report calling it a hoax at the time? I know why- because it didn’t fit the author’s agenda which was to paint all folks who believe in ufos as gullible nuts. Yeah, some guys from a tv show (one where I don’t think I’ve ever sat through an entire episode) made something out of nothing. That’s what all these tv shows do- it would have been boring for their audience if they called it like they saw it. Now they have egg on their face. GOOD! And I’m sure there were gullible ufo crazies who were convinced these lights were legit. But that’s not everyone.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Sage, unless you’re a trained meteorologist or intelligence analyst, you skeptical opinion carries as much weight as my personal belief. As a retired USAF enlisted man, I was trained to observe, investigate, report and evaluate dozens of complex processes as well as how to identify hundreds of civilian and military aircraft and their munitions. Given that the UFO Skeptic’s own bible’s of Operation Bluebook and The Condon Report concluded that there was a percentage of ‘reported’ sightings well above 0% that couldn’t be explained as hoax or misidentification, the skeptics arguments against seem rather strange. I’ve heard too many military pilots say that there are UFOs that aren’t secret military aircraft to dismiss them as hoaxes or misidentifications. Put me in the nut or believer category if you will but the skeptic also used to say the earth was flat and the center of the universe,too when it was mainstream thought.
April 7th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Curious,
“No unspoken questions or conclusion- jumping going on around here”
Since you do not know my reasoning for saying, “Yes, I know for a fact that other non-human, intelligent beings exist on other worldâ€, yes, you are jumping to conclusions.
“Is that statement based on probability (the Drake Equation) or do you have a pen pal somewhere?”
Neither, it is simple common logical sense. The Universe is infinite so even if we pretend that existence of life was a random chance happening of molecules banging together, the odds would be 100% that other non-human intelligent beings exists, since in an infinite Universe, anything that doesn’t have zero probability has a 100% probability of happening someplace somewhere. This also tells us that in an infinite Universe, there are an infinite number of civilizations. So I know for a fact that other non-human intelligent life exists out there. What it doesn’t tell us though, is the number of civilizations in a given area (i.e. — population density). It may be the nearest non-human intelligent beings are over one billion light years away.
April 7th, 2009 at 5:40 am
“But that’s not everyone”
It doesn’t have to be everyone, all it has to be was the people we trust most in the UFO community as “objective” or “professional” witnesses: doctors and pilots and UFO investigators and news reporters and the History Channel and Jeff Rense and Bill Birnes. Gosh darn! If anyone got it right, they would have been the rare exception and not the rule in this incident! THAT is fact that is being made by hoaxers — that the vast majority of our UFO community got it all wrong. There were “UFO experts” who were even telling us that it was impossible that they could have been flares.
I would include MUFON in the “got it wrong” list since the hoaxers gave a lecture some time after the hoax was performed with the Illinois chapter of MUFON. The ONLY reason I can see that they got caught was because “prosecutors there learned of the hoax on YouTube”.
April 7th, 2009 at 5:51 am
“Sage, unless you’re a trained meteorologist or intelligence analyst”
That makes no difference.
“you skeptical opinion carries as much weight as my personal belief”
My point exactly. The only thing that counts is logic and facts.
“As a retired USAF enlisted man”
As the hoaxers proved and as you just confessed, that means nothing. All that matters is logic and facts, not who you are or what your qualifications are. Whether you are a trained meteorologist or intelligence analyst or retired USAF, that means absolutely nothing unless you have some logic and facts to demonstrate for us.
“Given that the UFO Skeptic’s own bible’s of Operation Bluebook and The Condon Report concluded that there was a percentage of ‘reported’ sightings well above 0% that couldn’t be explained as hoax or misidentification”
There are two things wrong with that argument…
1) As Ronald N Giere puts it in his textbook, UNDERSTANDING SCIENTIFIC REASONING, “…the basic data consist of REPORTS of UFO sightings, not the EXISTENCE of what was reported. This distinction is crucial because the fact that some people have reported such things has been verified by many investigators. There can be no doubt that people have made such reports. That the people in question actually saw or experienced what they say they did, however, is open to question” (Ibid, pg 166). PROJECT BLUEBOOK is one such example of a collection of mere reports of UFOs and not any actual study of some objects.
2) The Air Force clearly stated that the unknown cases were not unknowable, but they simply didn’t have enough data to reach any conclusion, but they were confident that if they had sufficient data, all of the cases would have been explainable.
“I’ve heard too many military pilots say that there are UFOs that aren’t secret military aircraft to dismiss them as hoaxes or misidentifications”
Just don’t forget, one thousand Frenchmen CAN be wrong.
“Put me in the nut or believer category if you will but the skeptic also used to say the earth was flat and the center of the universe,too when it was mainstream thought”
Name one then.
April 7th, 2009 at 6:29 am
MUFON called this one correctly on Jan. 7, 2009.
Photo Analyst Marc D’Antonio, with FX Models, LLC, was brought in on the case after the January 5, 2009, report by MUFON’s Richard Lang, a STAR team coordinator. The STAR team is MUFON’s recent push to get investigations rolling quickly, especially in cases where there may be ground evidence. Lang provided D’Antonio with a video tape of the event.
The following is D’Antonio’s statement on the case from Jan. 7.
“I noted that the lights seemed to operate independently, and were brightening and dimming independently, as in a flickering effect, indicative of a typical flame-based light source that I have seen countless times. By flame-based I mean a flying light created by a Chinese Lantern or a flare.
“A Chinese Lantern, as you already must know, is a paper balloon envelope with a heat source suspended underneath in the opening that heats the envelope making a crude hot air balloon until the flame goes out.
“Further, in the report, the indication was that the lights went out one by one.
“This is very telling. When lights go out one-by-one, that usually means that they were LIT one after another.
“A flare that lasts 20 minutes has burned for 4-5, say by the time the LAST one in the chain is lit, and they are all released if performed by a person or two. So this staggered fadeout pattern is expected in such situations and is what happened in this case.
“Whether this event was due to Chinese Lanterns, as I thought they could be, or flares, didn’t matter actually.
“It was clear to me after viewing the video that this is not a UFO, but was a man-made hoax event.
“I informed the STAR team, that in my opinion, this was a man-made event, and not a true UFO of any kind. I suggested obtaining prevailing wind data for that evening and guessing how long the lights were visible, figure out a probable drift pattern and search for debris.
“The MUFON STAR team, using good science, did a search, and in fact they found debris from the “apparatus” along the path that the object took. So this was a good team effort, with the expected result for a hoax event.”
April 7th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Just as it should now be obvious (hopefully even to you) that you were wrong about MUFON “getting it wrong” I’m confident you’re wrong when you claim, “THAT is fact that is being made by hoaxers — that the vast majority of our UFO community got it all wrong. There were “UFO experts†who were even telling us that it was impossible that they could have been flares.”
What evidence do you have the “vast majority of the ufo community got it all wrong”? Have you done a survey? As a member of said “ufo community” I can tell you that I spoke to no one that was impressed by the video. Give me a list of all these PROFESSIONAL witnesses that said this was a alien spacecraft (with their quotes saying as much) and could not be anything manmade? Since it was the “vast majority” of the ufo community it shouldn’t be hard for you to easily come up with a couple hundred.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Just wanted to include this from my original January post:
“Reading the descriptions, the lights sound like some sort of balloon train with flares attached to them, but who knows? Looks like another strange sighting that tells us very little. If people start seeing more of them, we my have a small flap on our hands, or a group of bored teenagers.”
At least one witness quoted in the original referenced article also said flares and balloons. Why didn’t the news people quote an “expert” who said the same thing? I’ll bet they found a few.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Let’s also remember what the pilot witness stated: that in all his years of professional career he had never seen anything like it, and that it was definitely not an airplane. Strictly speaking he was absolutely correct in his assessment; he never said “yeah, flying saucer!” or anything.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:03 am
BenDoverEsq,
Where is the link to the article that MUFON wrote on Jan 7th, where they “called it correctly”? Why does it seem the only place on the Internet where we can find the statement that MUFON “called it correctly”, is in the article that MUFON wrote after the hoaxers came forward on April 1st? Have you seen this alleged report by Antonio? If the hoaxers had never come forward on April 1st, would you and I still ever heard of that report by Antonio and Lang? If MUFON “called it correctly”, why did they host the hoaxers at the Illinois UFO symposium? Wouldn’t that have been the perfect time to publicly come forward and proclaim the whole thing was a hoax? This all sounds suspiciously like what is called throwing mud on the wall and seeing what sticks. Now go to Wikipedia and look up the Morristown UFO. It clearly shows that the Morristown police got it right, not MUFON.
Now let me humor you. How many people called it correctly? If we start counting with MUFON, there was the Morristown police, and Greg Bishop. We really shouldn’t count Greg Bishop either, because he did not clearly come out and state it was a hoax, but he was rather ambiguous or uncommitted about it (“sound like some sort of…but who knows?”), but hey, like I said, I am humoring you and that is only three or four people so far. Three or four people out of how many other people? What about the pilot who didn’t know what it was because he didn’t know what a flare looked like from a distance? He neither got it right nor did he get it wrong, he was ambiguous and uncommitted. Okay, so let’s include him too anyway, because believers like grasping at straws (yet isn’t grasping at straws what this whole thing is all about? Or maybe it is damage control? The hoaxers come forward and now everybody has to scramble to save face. That is so pitiful).
Now we will take a look at all the people that came out and said it was not a hoax but something else. Paul Hurley the pilot. Jeff Rense, a UFO community spokesperson. The Illinois UFO symposium sponsored by MUFON. The History Channel. Bill Birnes, the lead investigator and publisher of UFO Magazine. What about all the news reporters who investigated this incident but decided not to dismiss it as a hoax, but instead made it their top story?
What you are trying to do is delude yourself by claiming that if one or two people got it right, that the system is working! But what the hoaxers proved was that the system doesn’t work. Many more UFO “experts” called it wrong then called it right. UFO believers like to cite as “proof” of the credibility of the vast majority of UFO sightings, expert witnesses like trained observers, scientists, pilots, and so on — the same kind of witnesses that called it wrong with the Morristown hoax! So the hoaxers also proved that there is no such thing as an expert witness. But anybody who knows anything about science knows that testimony is never considered evidence or proof. Testimony is only useful when it can be reproduced, or can lead us the way to some rock solid facts.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:07 am
“Just as it should now be obvious (hopefully even to you) that you were wrong about MUFON ‘getting it wrong’ I’m confident you’re wrong when you claim, “THAT is fact that is being made by hoaxers — that the vast majority of our UFO community got it all wrong. There were “UFO experts†who were even telling us that it was impossible that they could have been flares.’â€
Blind faith believers all always “confident” that they are right and everybody else is wrong, even while they are resorting to logical fallacies such as “if you get one thing wrong, then everything you say is wrong”. Here, let me prove you wrong on that: I claim that 1+1=3. I also claim that 3+3=6. See? Just because I got 1+1=3 wrong does not give you confidence that I also got 3+3 wrong.
“What evidence do you have the ‘vast majority of the ufo community got it all wrong’?”
I already gave you that evidence. The hoaxers already gave you that evidence. Google has lots of that evidence. You only need to re-read what was said and pay more attention.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:09 am
PS — I named names so I expect you to do that same if you are ever to prove your claim that the vast majority of the UFO community got it right.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:20 am
In summation:
1. Marc D’ Antonio never said any of that until after the fact to try and make MUFON (and I imagine himself) look good. And you think we’re the ones wearing tinfoil hats?
2. The “vast majority” of people entails all of 3 people. I asked you to provide their quotes as well proving they got it completely wrong but I’ll take your word for it- all 3 said they were convinced it could not be anything manmade. Yep, that’s definitely evidence of the vast majority.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:44 am
Ben,
1. In other words, you have no facts to the contrary.
2. I gave a sample, I am not going to quote thousands of people to prove what anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can confirm for themselves — you do know what a computer and the Internet are, don’t you? Try it, you will be pleasantly surprised what you can discover with it.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:12 am
“I gave a sample, I am not going to quote thousands of people”
3 people- that’s not much of a sample. I don’t recall you quoting even one- but I still went ahead and gave you the three. Based on good faith I assumed you were being honest when you said they all claimed it could not be man made. Now I’m not so sure- I think there’s a good chance you’re wrong about that as well. Let me see the quotes from those three saying there is no chance it could be man made. Of course the point remains- even if the three people you mentioned said something that does not equate to the “vast majority”. But I still wanna see the quotes. Thanks.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Sage, you might want to contact Kristen Winslet of MUFON. Just Google her name and the word MUFON and the second thing that comes up is a article regarding a report she wrote for MUFON about the lights. In the comments she provides her email address.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:25 am
“3 people- that’s not much of a sample”
You need to learn how to read. You gave MUFON as a counterexample and I gave MUFON, the History Channel, Jeff Rense, Bill Barnes, new reporters (which you can view over ten of them recorded on the hoaxers site) — that is far more than three. You are dishonestly trying to turn this into a numbers game and I’m not playing your game. You want to see 999 names, which is unreasonable and a logical fallacy. My sample is sufficient to prove that my argument is true. You can disagree all you want but all that amounts to is a denial of the facts.
Yet this is still not what is important here. What is important is that during the Morristown Hoax, an airplane pilot, multiple experts from the History Channel, UFO expert Bill Barnes — all the kinds of people that UFO proponents like to have on their side because they naively believe it gives their beliefs credibility. All these witnesses gave testimony for something solid and other than a few flares, some even going to far as to claim it was impossible for the incident to have been due to flares. Clearly just because witnesses like these are highly trained and well educated, does not make them immune to having poor judgment or making inaccurate observations.
Science is not prejudiced and treats everyone equally — credible or not — because even the most highly trained and educated people in the world can still be fooled by optical illusions, as evidenced by this case (and others like the confirmed cases where highly trained military pilots have been caught chasing weather balloons). No amount of training or education can prevent hallucinations, optical illusions, mistakes, or lies from happening. As the scientific method and the Morristown Hoax teaches us, being considered a credible witness does not insure that the person will tell the truth or recognize the truth when they see it. Scientific credibility has to do with verification of facts and confirmation that an UFO sighting was not a result of delusion, illusion, mistaken identity, daydreaming, or lying, than it does with who is telling the story and it is that which is most important here.
There are other examples extremely similar to the Morristown Hoax that can now detract any credibility that believers might have had for them based merely on the credibility of the witnesses, incidents like the Phoenix Lights or the Stephenville Sightings. This isn’t about numbers, even though the numbers are there, this is about the credibility of witnesses, and in science, there is no such thing as a credible witness, there is only useful testimony and useless testimony. If a testimony can direct investigators to some facts, it is useful, otherwise it is useless. All the testimonies for the Phoenix Lights and the Stephenville Sightings have been of the useless kind.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:37 am
“Sage, you might want to contact Kristen Winslet of MUFON”
No I wouldn’t want to contact Kristen Winslet of MUFON, what I would like to do is have you link to an article on the MUFON site that is date January 7th, 2009, that demonstrates that yes indeed, MUFON, in wide open public, called it correctly on January 7th, 2009. All I have seen so far is are wide open public articles dated after April 1st, 2009 that claim they called it correctly on January 7th, 2009. If that can be done, I would then want to know why would they call it correctly on January 7th, 2009, yet host the hoaxers at an Illinois MUFON Symposium as if they forget they called it correctly?
April 10th, 2009 at 9:34 am
So you think Karen Winslet is a liar? Why don’t you email her and ask? And you still have not provided the quotes.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:21 am
“So you think Karen Winslet is a liar?”
What I think of Karen is irrelevant. What is relevant is I think you don’t have the facts to back up any of your claims, so you are trying to pawn this issue off onto something or someone else.
“And you still have not provided the quotes”
When you start addressing the many issues and questions I have given you, the ones that you have continually dodged and evaded up until now, I will consider providing you some quotes…not that it matters any for my argument because it still won’t negate my argument…
I still want to know how you can justify trusting airplane pilot testimony for UFOs, when the airplane pilot Paul Hurley gave an not-so-objective observation of the Morristown Hoax? I still want to know how you can explain how MUFON could call it correctly, yet invite the hoaxers to their symposium? I still want to know how you can justify trusting expert testimony, when Bill Birnes, who has “written and edited over 25 books and encyclopedias in the fields of human behavior, true crime, current affairs, history, psychology, business, computing, and the paranormal, and the co-author of The Day After Roswell”, not only got it wrong, but even clearly denied they could be flares or Chinese lanterns? I still want to know how you can justify the testimony of doctors when a doctor claimed he observed the Morristown “UFO” moving against the wind?
Obviously the people the UFO community and you trust the most are not the people the UFO community can trust the most. It is simple elementary science: it is not who is the witness that matters, but the what is the witness’ testimony, and not testimony matters unless it contains some description of something that can be verified as fact outside of that testimony.
The ball is in your court (still).
April 12th, 2009 at 6:24 am
PS — We are all still waiting for you to provide the Internet link to the MUFON article dated Jan, 7th, 2009, in which MUFON got it correctly in regards to the Morristown Hoax. That was the claim, I just want to see if it is true…or not.
April 12th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Sage, why don’t you just email Karen and ask for a copy of the report?
April 13th, 2009 at 2:58 am
“Sage, why don’t you just email Karen and ask for a copy of the report?”
The reason is because the actual contents of the report is not important. I am not even disputing the report exists. What is important and that I have been pointing out all along here, is that MUFON claimed that on Jan 7th, 2009, they got it correct in regards to the Morristown Hoax. What does that mean? Is that the date on the report, if so, so what? If MUFON knew the Morristown UFO incident was a hoax, why didn’t they bother to tell anyone about it at the Illinois Symposium they sponsored and the hoaxers attended in Feb 2009? That doesn’t make sense — they knew it was a hoax, allowed the hoaxers to put on an act like it was real, but kept that knowledge a secret? If MUFON had a report but kept it hidden until after the hoaxers confessed in Apr 2009, that would indicate that MUFON had the report but didn’t actually believe it was correct, otherwise they would have made it public. The first clearly public statement by MUFON we can find that the Morriston incident was a hoax isn’t until after the hoaxers came forward to confess the whole thing in Apr 2009. See why I say the report is not important? Because it makes it sound like MUFON had two stances and two reports: one for and one against the Morristown incident being a hoax. Then they filed away the report for the Morristown incident being a hoax, that way they could, if they needed to, later on pull out the long forgotten report, dust it off and say, “See! We got it correct all along”. But it proves no such thing. Like I said before, this issue with MUFON itself is not important because even if MUFON had got it correct, what about all the other people who most definitely got it wrong? Even if MUFON had got it correct, that would make them the *exception* to the rule and not the rule. You are just grasping at straws here.
Now Ben, that is how you answer a question or address an issue when you have nothing to hide and are being honest about your thoughts and feelings on the issue — you do know what those words mean, don’t you? You have dishonestly dodged and evaded every single point I have brought up so far, especially about the magical, mythical integrity of expert witnesses, doctors, pilots, and so on, that UFO believers put so much faith in but got it wrong during the Morristown Hoax. So no more of your nonsense, either go back to my previous post(s) and honestly address each and every point I brought up, or continue to run away like the intellectual coward you appear to be. But if you continue to run, I’m not going to pay attention to you anymore because you clearly aren’t someone to be taken seriously.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Sage, how can you say I’m not the one to be taken seriously when you described three people as representing the “vast majority” of the ufo community. Further, you STILL have not provided a single quote from any of those three backing up what you claimed they said, ie, that there is no way those lights could be man made. But even if they did say that, so what. It’s still only three people.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:17 am
“Sage, how can you say…”
…at which point Ben, once again, changes the subject from the validity of MUFON’s claim that they got it right on Jan 7th, 2009. Your extreme avoidance of responding to just one of any of the many questions, issues, or points from my posts, only proves you are an intellectual coward who isn’t even remotely interested in the pursuit of truth. Since you aren’t interested in an honest discussion, I’m not wasting anymore time with you. You are clearly not someone to taken seriously on the matter of UFOs.
Of course, I may change my mind about you if you can tell us why there is apparently no public article dated Jan 7th, 2009 where MUFON got it right, or why if MUFON got it right they decided to sponsor the hoaxers as if they got it wrong, or how a pilot go it wrong, or how a doctor got it wrong, or how a UFO expert got it wrong, and so on. Of course, knowing you so far, you will ignore this request, dodge and evade it, change the subject, and I will never have the opportunity to change my mind. Pity.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Sage, if you are really interested in the truth why do you refuse to contact Karen? I even told you how you could go about it. I’m gonna refrain from engaging in petty insults.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:20 am
“Sage, if you are really interested in the truth why do you refuse to contact Karen?”
Because, like I have told you for the third time now, that report is irrelevant to the truth. What is relevant is that *YOU* know nothing of any public statement or have any public link to MUFON, date Jan 7th, 2009, where they got the Morristown Hoax correctly. You are basing your argument on faith, not fact, and that makes it a logical fallacy.
And you are still dishonestly dodging and evading how if MUFON supposedly got it right, why would they invite the hoaxers (of all people) to their UFO symposium in Illinois?
“I’m gonna refrain from engaging in petty insults”
That’s interesting.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:14 am
“that report is irrelevant to the truth.”
It’s only irrelevant to someone who has no interest in the truth.
April 25th, 2009 at 2:10 am
“It’s only irrelevant to someone who has no interest in the truth”
It is irrelevant because it can never prove MUFON got it right. The only thing that will do that is proof that they made this report public and publicallly stated they stood behind it, and they did this publically on Jan 7th, 2009.
They had the report but they didn’t stand behind it. They filed it away and forgot about it until after the Hoaxers came out April 1st, 2009. In the meantime, MUFON sponsored a symposium in Illinois in which they stood behind the hoaxers. Please explain why they would do that if they got it right?
April 25th, 2009 at 4:28 am
“If you will provide me with the quotes of the three people you mentioned in the UFO Hoaxers thread”
Get off your lazy butt and do your own homework for once. I gave you three names and that is all the information you need. It is easy enough to look up what these people said about the Morristown Hoax and quote them yourself. If I am making up those names, where did I and all those newspapers articles get those names if they hadn’t publically came out and made statements? Don’t be shy, just come out and clearly say that the names I mentioned never said anything that can be quoted in regards to the Morristown Hoax. Bill Birnes is a lawyer with a PhD and has written numerous books on UFOs, including Roswell, and is an expert on UFOs, so he would be the perfect person for you to deny. I will not mind exposing your ignorance for all the world to see, so feel free to speak out. So either do your own homework or stop being ambigious and deny that the three people I mentioned ever made any public statements.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:24 am
PS — I read the report and guess what? The title of the report was “MUFON STAR Team Case Study, ‘UFO Balloons,’ March 15, 2009″. So much for the claim that MUFON got it correct on Jan 7th, 2009.
I rest my case.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:25 am
PSS — I forgot to add…
And MUFON apparently did not endorse that report either, until after the hoaxers came forward to confess on Apr 1st, 2009.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:48 am
Hello,
Good day to all of you.
I am the MUFON Field Investigator that investigated this case on the ground in eastern Morris County, N.J. on January 7, 2009, (My MUFON membership number is 11236).
While my initial reaction from the CBS News report that was broadcast the preceding evening on the six O’clock news was that these were flares attached to balloons, (the incident reminder me of the Phoenix, AZ case a few years back). None the less, I proceeded to perform my investigation objectively as any field investigator should.
I wrote my report the following day, January 8, 2009 after conferring with Marc Dantonio on the evening of January 7, 2009, (MUFON’s Photo Analyst) that this case was nothing more than incendiary devices attached to balloons.
It was not until after the February 7th incident that I was clued into looking at the Wikipedia web page called ‘Morristown UFO’ after my partner Matt Wilson, (whom I address as Mulder) provided me with that information as part of his research. It was here that I concluded that it was Joe Rudy and Chris Russo who perpetrated the hoax events. The only video on the site was provided by Joe Rudy and within the text of the web page, it was noted that Joe & Chris took video & still shots of the January 5th incident. They were obviously prepared to document the event. It was at that moment that I was able to ‘connect all the dots’ from my investigation and conclude Joe & Chris were the hoaxers.
I then completed my PowerPoint document on March 15, 2009 for historical record. the first event actually took place on September 13, 2008 in Bernardsville, NJ (MUFON CMS Case# 12461). Feel free to take a look at the case if you like.
If anyone is interested in seeing a breakdown of my investigation, please refer to the UFO Examiner web site:
http://www.examiner.com/x-2363-UFO-Examiner%7Ey2009m4d8-UFO
You are also more than welcome to contact me via e-mail or by phone for further information.
Sincerely,
Kristen Winslet
MUFON Field Investigator – NJ
(STAR Team/SIP Project)
(908) 852-7201 (H)
(908) 914-6508 (C)
kristenwinslet@aol.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenwinslet
* No one contacted me from the news media prior to April 6, 2009.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Gentlemen,
I am the MUFON analyst who reviewed the video just hours after the event. I had called it a hoax, detailed it to Richard Lang and the MUFON STAR team did their great work and found the debris and other details to seal the case. It was a straight forward case to me. I saw the video and called it as a I saw it. I sent the analysis on Jan 7 at 2:23am. So that is the official statement on record and the email record will verify it.
I only visited this site after someone mentioned that I was being mentioned here. I saw one person’s comments about my report as if it didnt really exist or that there was some hidden agenda. I am an analyst for MUFON and have hundreds of cases to look at. I have no reason to make one any more important than another. We stated it was a hoax plain and simple within just a few hrs after the event. Whatever anyone else did after that is just what it is that happened. I left this case behind months ago and have already seen no less than 200 cases since this one so it really ancient history…
Thanks,
Marc D’Antonio
MUFON Photo Analyst
April 29th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Kristen and Marc,
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment here. I hope that this clears things up somewhat. It would make sense that it something was found to be a hoax that you would ignore it and move on.
I still wonder what made the Illinois MUFON chapter invite the hoaxers to speak (by telephone) to their meeting of Feb 21st, even after both of you had filed reports that called it correctly on January 7th? Perhaps the communication was not good, or the report was not posted yet?
May 1st, 2009 at 6:30 am
Greg,
In my experience, I have seen that MUFON chapters have occasionally missed some data and reports. It means nothing that they invited the hoaxers to speak other than they did not know that the case was solved months earlier. It happens. Each states’ groups have historically been independent in terms of presentations and speakers so it is not suprise that communication can sometimes lag a little.
I have to say, I was quite surprised that this silly case perpetrated by two guys who have been prosecuted in fact, was able to garner the kind of attention it did. I had the video in my possession for a mere few hours and then it was gone, and I moved onto the next case. Just more fakers flying some flaming fun is all we figured. [grin]
NEXT!
May 30th, 2009 at 11:51 am
“If anyone is interested in seeing a breakdown of my investigation, please refer to the UFO Examiner web site: http://www.examiner.com/x-2363-UFO-Examiner%7Ey2009m4d8-UFO”
…where you find that the title of the report was “MUFON STAR Team Case Study, ‘UFO Balloons,’ March 15, 2009″. It clearly states, “March 15th” and not “January 7th”. And just because the report was released on Mar 15th still doesn’t prove that MUFON accepted it as their official viewpoint. That didn’t demonstrably happen until after Apr 1st.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Sage,
I dont know why it is important to you to point out a date difference in the case study. I already said quite clearly and with plenty of email records that the case was called a hoax within a few hours of the event. Simple. No other obfuscation of the facts can alter that. If it took time for paperwork to follow up, then whatever. But, the case was a hoax and stated as such within a few hours of the event.
Marc
July 24th, 2009 at 2:51 am
Maybe I’m not making my point clear, so let me restate it in different words…
The date on the report is March 15th, not January 15th, which isn’t a couple of hours after-the-fact but a couple of months after-the-fact. If there was enough evidence to draw any scientifically valid conclusions within hours of the event, why wait until March 15th before releasing it? That doesn’t make sense and besides, the required evidence to draw any valid conclusion wasn’t available within hours of the event, so any claims made within hours of the event wouldn’t have been an “investigation” but jumping to conclusions, which is not a very scientific thing to do either.
But like I said before, who cares what the report said, since what we care about is what MUFON, the entire organization as a whole said, not what only one of its investigators said. The only verifiable public evidence we have is that MUFON promoted or stood behind any report wasn’t until after the confession on April 1st.