Skiesare UFO Page
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Summary: CUFOS considers Gulf Breeze a potentially significant UFO case, but one that remains unproven, and it is essential that research into every aspect of both photographs and testimony, continue. Important questions are yet unanswered, and necessary avenues of inquiry yet unpursued.
Readers of
the article by-lined by Ware, Flannigan and Andrus
(though apparently written by Andrus) in the July '88
issue of the MUFON UFO Journal may get a misleading
impression of CUFOS' current stand on the Gulf Breeze,
FL CE-III photographic episode. Our concern here is not
with what we consider the author's errors in reporting
privately-stated views. We simply wish to make clear why
we feel its wise to take a cautious view of this
difficult case, and to await results of the
still-unfinished investigation.
CUFOS considers
Gulf Breeze a potentially significant UFO case, but one
that remains unproven, and it is essential that research
into every aspect of both photographs and testimony,
continue. Important questions are yet unanswered, and
necessary avenues of inquiry yet unpursued.
For example:
1) On November 19,
1987 the Gulf Breeze Sentinel published Ed's original,
anonymous letter, accompanying his first five
photographs. His letter stated there were no beams
coming from the UFO. On December 7th, on his first MUFON
report form, he mentions no beams in his account of this
November 11th incident. It is not until his third
account of the incident, completed January 8th, 1988
that Ed reports a "blue beam"; in fact a blue beam which
would come to figure prominently in Ed's claims was
first reported by a Gulf Breeze resident on November
11th, according to a November 25th Sentinel article.
Critics are bound to suggest that Ed retroactively
incorporated a blue beam into his later account of the
November 11th incident.
2) Ed has given
three different versions of his activity at the
initiation of the November 11th sighting. Why?
3) Questions have been raised about the
relationship of the MUFON investigators and Ed and his
family. Some observers have complained that Ed was kept
fully informed on the ongoing inquiries, including those
that were turning up leads that might have produced
disconfirming evidence. Since all photographic cases
should be considered at least POTENTIAL hoaxes, it is
essential that investigators operate independently from
those whose claims they are checking. An operation that
gives claimants sufficient advance warning to cover
their tracks (if there are tracks to be covered) is
seriously flawed. We are not accusing the MUFON team of
committing this kind of methodological blunder, but the
charge has been made by others, and has so far not been
answered.
We applaud Bruce Maccabee's
admirable analysis of the Gulf Breeze photographs. He
deserves nothing but praise for the care and
thoroughness he has brought to the problem. But his
analysis is only the first step. In science, replication
of findings is a necessary part of the process of
inquiry. It is now time for another scientist, as
skilled and conscientious as Dr. Maccabee, to examine
the photographs and to report his conclusions.
We feel that the Gulf Breeze case has generated
too much needless heat. We hope that in the future,
ufologists will devote their energies solely to sober
consideration of the promises and the problems of these
extraordinary series of events. Since all of us, we
hope, have only one concern: that the truth, whatever it
is, be found, we can put behind the emotion that has so
far played far too large a role in the debate, and
concentrate on the work that needs to be done. Whatever
the answer turns out to be, ufology can only benefit
from adherence to the strictest standards of scientific
study.