Center For IFO Studies: February 2024

Soothsayers

MOTHER SHIPTON

Mother Shipton's Prophecy - predicting trains, telegraphs, submarines, steam engines, balloons, bicycles, America and the California gold rush - was written by Charles Hindley in 1862, when those things were universally known. Hindley's prophecy also has Shipton foreseeing the world ending in 1881. This, by most accounts, didn't happen. So that line was dropped from later editions. By 1931, anonymous innovators replaced the 1881 prophecy with a prediction of 1920's fashion and the nuclear family. By 1933, the angel Gabriel was included and the specific end-time date was now manageably obscure. A 1944 version foretells movies, airplanes, world wars and the American civil war.

In 2002, a Weekly World News article added several new prophecies, including global catastrophe and a flying saucer apocalypse. The author, Mike Foster, was known for other WWN scoops such as "Bat Boy Is Learning to Talk" (1998), "Bat Boy Abandons Stolen Car" (2003) and "Bat Boy Led U.S. Troops to Saddam" (2004). Still, his contributions to the Mother Shipton poem are cited to this day by people who believed them to be the words of a prophet.

NOSTRADAMUS

According to Nostradamus, no one can ever know the true meaning of his quatrains:

"The key to the hidden prediction which you will inherit will be locked inside my heart," he told his son, Cesar, in a letter.

In another letter, to King Henry in 1558, the prophet admits, "There is no making way through [most of the quatrains], nor is there any interpreting of them."

He didn't see visions or hear voices; he merely calculated events he believed would occur in future astronomical alignments and conjunctions based on his own (or someone else's) horoscopes of European history, and his personal conviction that history is destined to repeat itself, following a biblical eschatological framework.

The letter to Cesar continues:

"Bear in mind that the events here described have not yet come to pass, and that all is ruled and governed by the power of Almighty God, inspiring us not by bacchic frenzy nor by enchantments but by astronomical assurances...I have predicted specific events far in advance, attributing all to the workings of divine power and inspiration, together with other fortunate or unfortunate happenings, foreseen in their full unexpectedness, which have already come to pass in various regions of the earth."

Here are a few of his supposed predictions:

DEATH OF HENRY II, 1559

The golden cage prophecy doesn't appear in print until 1566. In 1560, an author cites two other quatrains, but not the golden cage. The first citation of the golden cage is in the edition published by Cesar, the son of Nostradamus, in 1614.

LONDON FIRE OF 1666

A postdiction of the fate of Queen of England Mary I, a.k.a. Bloody Mary (d. 1558), who had burned 280 Protestants at the stake during her reign. The first English editions - published in 1672 & 1715 - deliberately mistranslate the French text to resemble the London fire.

FRENCH REVOLUTION

The original quatrains were based on the horoscopes of previous French conflicts. Any resemblance to future French conflict is purely coincidental.

NAPOLEON

"Pau, Nay, Loron": supposedly an anagram for Napaulon Roy. But "Napaulon" is not "Napoleon." When letters are substituted and spellings approximated, anagrams can be made to fit any desired person or event. Pau, Nay and Loron are French cities. Nostradamus would often list cities, rivers and planets in his quatrains, probably for the sake of meter as much as any other consideration.

Rearrange the letters and you get *Paul a roy non* (Loosely: "Paul will not become king") - could apply to Prince Paul of Wurrtemberg (d. 1852) or Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (d. 1976), or Sir Paul McCartney of Liverpool, or Ron and Rand Paul's failed presidential runs in the early 21st century. Or it could be just nonsense.

LOUIS PASTUER

Nostradamus doesn't mention Louis Pastuer, only a pastor, which, in French, is "pastuer."

HITLER

1. "Hister" is the Latin name for the Danube river

2. "Child of Germany" may refer to a Protestant leader, as the Reformation - born in Germany - is a frequent topic of the quatrains, composed during the French Wars of Religion

3. Hitler was born in Austria, not Germany

KENNEDY ASSASSINATIONS

"The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.

An evil deed, foretold by the bearer of a petition.

According to the prediction another falls at night time.

Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany."

1. No mention of guns, presidents, brothers, America or a car.

2. No indication that "night time" would be five years later, as opposed to the same day, or the following Tuesday.

3. There wasn't a "bearer of a petition" predicting anything.

4. There wasn't any notable conflict in Reims or London or a pestilence in Tuscany in the 1960s or 70s.

NEW YORK DESTROYED

"At 45 degrees the sky will burn."

1. NYC is on the 42nd parallel, not the 45th. Lyon and Milan are on the 45th parallel. These make frequent appearances elsewhere in Nostradamus' quatrains.

2. Forty-five angular degrees of elevation is the middle of the sky, where "burning" meteors, comets, planets and the sun are commonly found.

MODERN ADDITIONS

Recent forgeries "predict" (after-the-fact):

Challenger shuttle disaster, 1986

Jane Fonda, Ted Turner marriage, 1991

OJ Simpson trial, 1995

Death of Princess Diana, 1997

Bush election, 2000

September 11 attacks, 2001

Columbia shuttle disaster, 2003

Covid-19 pandemic, 2020

DECODING NOSTRADAMAS

*Antichrists* = Protestant leaders

*Hollow mountains* = volcanoes of southern Italy

*King of terror in the sky* = comet

*Sky will burn at 45 degrees*: a comet will be seen

*King of terror in the sky, 1999: the appearance of the comet of 1577 (~1999 in the Metonic calendar).

NOSTRADAMUS TIMELINE

1555 Les Proph ed. 1: 3 cent., 53 quatrains

1555 Les Proph ed. 2: some changes

1557 Les Proph ed. 3: adds 3 quatrains

1558 Death of Mary I

1559 Death of Henry II

1566 Death of M. Nostradamus

1568 Les Proph ed. 4: all ten cent., HII letter

1577 comet

1605 68 2nd ed. Rigaud

1607 comet

1629 Death of C. Nostradamus

1664 Comet

1666 London fire

1672 1st Eng translation

1715 J Roberts: changes foudres (lightning) to fond (background) to say London was "burnt to the ground in the year 6 after 60."

1983 Dr. Fontbrune/Lykiard

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UFO "Eyewitness" Hoaxes

MAURY ISLAND, 1947

Fig. 1: Artist's conception, from Crisman/Dahl's description, of the supposed June 21, 1947 Maury Island saucers.

Fig. 2: Back cover of Amazing Stories, August 1946, almost a year before the flying saucer craze & the Maury Island hoax.

Fred Crisman had been sending "true" stories to Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer, beginning in 1945, in an attempt to cash in on the success of the Shaver Mystery, claiming to have lost a friend while battling Shaver's "deros" in a mountain cave somewhere in Alaska, among other heroic exploits. The Maury Island hoax was Crisman's attempt to cash in on the flying disc craze. Palmer paid Kenneth Arnold $200 to investigate. Years later, Arnold & Palmer would write The Coming of the Saucers, in which we are introduced to shady guys in suits with grim warnings to the Maury Island investigators.

Another author, Gray Barker, dubbed these sharp-dressed phantoms the "Men in Black" in his 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Gray Barker was a prolific hoaxer himself, forging the "Straith letter" to George Adamski in 1957 & faking a saucer film in 1965.

Where did Gray get his start as a UFO journalist? Ray Palmer paid him to investigate the Flatwoods monster in West Virginia for Fate magazine in 1952. So one may judge the credibility of the Flatwoods monster and the Men in Black by considering the source.

Incidently, the Men in Black first appear before the flying disc craze in the form of mysterious phone calls to Palmer's office, warning them to back off the Shaver stories as they're getting too close to the truth. In 1947, Palmer called Crisman about his Maury Island story. He immediately recognized the voice on the other end. It was the same voice behind those phony phone calls: the Man in Black was Fred Crisman.

CONTACTEES, 1950s

Don Moore, Detroit Free Press, Nov 12, 1957:

The first famous claim of physical contact with current spacemen was Frank Scully's kidding Variety columns in 1949 and his deadpan best-seller [Behind the Flying Saucers] In 1950.

His authority was a "leading oil geophysicist" [Silas Newton] who said one of his employees, a "magnetic engineer," [Leo Gebauer] had seen crashed saucers studied by the Air Force. One saucer contained 18 little men burned black. The oil man lectured on saucers before a Denver University class. Two years later he was wanted by the Denver district attorney in an alleged $50,000 oil swindle.

As proof that the moon had breathable atmosphere, Scully quoted a 1949 telepathic travel book, 'Pioneers in Space,' by 'Prof. George Adamski of Polomar.' Adamski was not connected with Palomar Observatory: he lived down the mountain at Palomar Gardens, practicing amateur astronomy, observing and lecturing on saucers.

Adamski, whose authorized biography claims little formal education, had published a 1936 book, "Wisdom of the Masters of the Far East, Published by the Royal Order of Tibet, Compiled by Professor G. Adamski." It gave answers to religious questions, laws of cosmic brotherhood, visions, space and levitation.

In 1952 Adamski took six witnesses on a desert picnic near the Arizona border to look for saucers. His subsequent best-seller told how he approached and photographed a landed scout ship, its slight, long-haired Martian pilot in ski suit and flexible shoes warned him and the world, largely in gestures, against atom-bombing. The Martian left behind a footprint in the desert sand. Witness George Williamson poured handy plaster of Paris in the small footprint, preserving for publication a surprisingly detailed design of swastikas, dots representing planets and moons, and intricate lines and hieroglyphics. By the time Adamski published his next book, sightseers from Venus, Mars, and Saturn were reported walking city streets, conversing in fluent English, and taking him aloft in their ships for philosophical lectures reminiscent of his earlier beliefs.

Other books about personal contact with space men quickly followed, such us English thriller writer Cedric Allingham's account of a Lossiemouth, Scotland, landing. An Arizona mechanic wrote and lectured about riding with a beautiful Venusian lady captain in her "scow," a California plastic worker reported rides and telepathic talks, an auto mechanic and prospector wrote of his "Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer."

An unskeptical Missourian sold souvenir tufts of hair from his Venusian dog. New Jersey sign painter Howard Menger described TV-like screenings of Venus by courtesy of a 500-year-old beauty; one interplanetary visitor stayed for ham and eggs. Another saucer-seer shied away from a landed space ship when the pilot warned: "Don't touch that, pal, it's hot".

George Van Tassel, who recalls being lifted into a hovering saucer by a gravity nullifying beam, conducts the annual Inter planetary Spacecraft Convention at his California desert airport (1,500 attended last May). He announced he was running for President in 1960 at the request of the saucer people (from other planets).

Many who write and lecture about their contacts seem sincerely self-convinced as they relay cosmic advice from the "guardians" and "celestials" to the troubled atomic earth. Double Talk Scientific information vouchsafed for by the superhuman space travelers, however, is strangely full of elementary errors like self-luminous planets, lunar air, magnetic and gravitational "lines" of force. Similar science fiction double talk marks the method of communication - telepathy, "radi-esthesia," "conoscope," crystal balls, "telonic" telescope, electronic devices and strange magnetic machines.

Messages were supposedly recorded on a sealed magnetic tape by one Mon-Ka, head of Mars, giving the space confederation's advice to Earth and promising a broadcast from his ship over Los Angeles Nov. 7, 1956. Radio stations and skywatchers stood by on that date, but Mon-Ka didn't show.

Two boatloads of Chicago saucer fans cruised Lake Michigan last April, flashing light beam messages to the night sky and lighting flares. An ordinary shooting star was observed.

...Some saucer believers say there is a sinister conspiracy of "silencers" hiding an interplanetary secret and muzzling persons who learn the truth. Many believe military security is concealing new secret devices or startling developments in magnetism, gravitation, and space travel. Others think civilian research can help solve admittedly puzzling sky phenomena.

SOCORRO, 1964

"[Philip] Klass found numerous inconsistencies in [Lonnie Zamora's] story. Despite the loud noise and brilliant flame which Zamora said drew his attention, a couple living a few hundred yards from the site had noticed nothing unusual. Photographs show that despite the reported ‘intense flame’ under the craft, there was no more singeing of a bush and a clump of grass than could have been produced with a cigarette lighter. The reputed pad prints were spaced irregularly; one looked as though it had been formed by moving a rock, while another appeared to have been dug by a small shovel. No one other than Zamora noticed the noisy, flaming craft depart over US Highway 60, although a gas station attendant reported that a customer told him he had seen a police car going out after a flying craft that was coming in to land. But Zamora said he did not see the craft until it was already on the ground.

"Such blatant inconsistencies point not merely to a misconception, but to a hoax. Klass noted that, by curious coincidence, the local mayor, who is also the town banker, happened to own the site on which the alleged UFO landed. Socorro gained considerable publicity from the case, with an inevitable improvement in the tourist trade." - Ian Ridpath, Messages From The Stars, 1978

CASH-LANDRUM, 1980

This alleged encounter seems to be influenced by Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which was re-released (the "Special Edition") in December of 1980. The incident was reported to have occurred on December 29th of that year.

Note: the following quotes are paraphrases culled from multiple Betty Cash & Vicki Landrum interviews.

1. "There was a light above our car."

2. "It caused radiation burns."

3. "I said to Colby, don't be afraid. If someone comes out of the light, it'll be Jesus."

4. "The craft was shaped like an upright diamond with the sharp edges cut off."

5. "The military arrived."

6. "We counted 28 helicopters."

7. "The government is covering it up."

Another likely influence: a 1977 In Search of... episode featuring recent (1975) UFOs:

1. Big Chimney WV (diamond-shaped)

2. Mellon WI (blocking a country road)

3. Medford MI (with flames shooting out)

The episode includes discussion of radiation & burns left by saucers.

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Ufologists On Ufologists

Bill Moore on John Lear, 1989

GEORGE ADAMSKI ON GEORGE ADAMSKI

"An article in Fate helped me financially... I am still getting letters from people who first heard of me through that article in July, 1951. People wanted prints of the pictures I had taken so I had some made up and set a nominal price on them. Here was the first opportunity I had to let the saucers at least help to pay some of the large expense I had put to in trying to photograph them and prove their reality. So, I was charged with 'commercializing.'" - Flying Saucers Have Landed, 1953

GRAY BARKER ON GRAY BARKER

"I didn't believe the [Flatwoods monster] story myself.
     But then, I reasoned, a story as good as this one surely had some basis in fact. Such a story should be exposed, if it were a hoax. Better still I might get some publicity out of it.
     Being a frustrated writer, I thought here was an opportunity to get my name in print again...
     Since Fate magazine, with which I was familiar, printed a great many articles about supernatural happenings, I decided to telegraph them, asking them if they were interested in a story." - They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (1956)

J. ALLEN HYNECK ON THE CONSPIRACY MONGERS

"Over the last 30 years we've had a carnival of buffoonery, and for good reason; because a great majority of the reports are nonsense, the cases that are really interesting are so bizarre that it's much easier to try to sweep them under the carpet, and then we are troubled by the kooks & the crackpots & the ding-a-lings who insist on muddying up the waters tremendously with their utterly fantastic and stupid theories." - WJR radio interview, 1977

WHITLEY STREIBER ON WHITLEY STREIBER

"I cannot say, in all truth, that I am certain the visitors are present as entities entirely independent of their observers." - New York Times, 1987

BILL MOORE ON JOHN LEAR

“John Lear called me up one time and was absolutely certain that he was about to be captured and eaten by aliens... He has done nothing but collect the most outrageous rumor-mill stories that are floating around the grapevine.” - TV interview, 1989

BILL MOORE ON UFOLOGISTS

"We [ufologists] have been our own worst enemy...we have no uniform standards, no professional ethics, no peers, no qualifications, no uniform goals & few credible spokespersons...anybody can be a ufologist, all they need to do is tack the title to the end of their name and publish - even self-publish - a book, start a newsletter or get themselves on television. And should their material be unsubstantiated claptrap...there's always some other self-styled ufologist who will come along, see it as the ultimate wisdom of the universe, and endorse it wholeheartedly, thus adding further to the confusion...ask yourself: why are you involved with the UFO phenomenon? Do you truly desire answers, no matter what those answers may be, and no matter how much those answers may be at variance with what you presently believe, or are you one of those who thrives on the continuing mystery, whose very position in the field of ufology requires that the mystery of UFOs be perpetuated rather than solved so that you can continue in your self-styled role of importance?" - MUFON speech, 1989

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON RANDLE/SCHMITT

“The tools of the propagandists seem to have been used far more than those of investigative journalism or science.” - Review of Randle/Schmitt's UFO Crash At Roswell (1991)

JAMIE SHANDERA ON RANDLE/SCHMITT

"[Randle & Schmitt's] interviews are so ambiguous they must interpret what the subject said after the fact. This technique leads to hypothesizing, which in just a few short paragraphs turns into fact." - MUFON Journal, 1991

SHERIDAN CAVITT ON ROSWELL RESEARCHERS

"Many of the things I have mentioned to [Friedman/Moore, Randle/Schmitt] have either been taken out of context, misrepresented, or just plain made up." - USAF interview, 1993

KEVIN RANDLE ON DON SCHMITT

“Don Schmitt...is a pathological liar who cares only for his own promotion... I believed him to be honest, I believed him to be honorable...I was taken in by him...he can't be trusted to tell the truth. If you listen to what he says [regarding his Roswell research], you had better check it yourself.” - Email to fellow UFOlogists, 1995

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON RANDLE/SCHMITT

"Two of the [Roswell] books are by a man who has written 78 books of fiction - apparently nonfiction pays better - written with a postal clerk who was claiming to be a medical illustrator but isn't." - TV interview, 1996

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON BOB LAZAR

"We have people ostensibly with credentials who are frauds, who have glommed on to pop culture. [One] that come[s] to mind [is] Robert Scott Lazar... I get people telling me 'well I don't see why you don't believe him; he seems so sincere.' Sincerity is not a check on truth." - Interview, c. 1998

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON PHIL CORSO

"[Corso's story] is almost certainly based on the many Roswell books already published by Randle and Schmitt, Moore and Berlitz, and Don Berliner and myself, but with no attempt to validate or critically evaluate anything and no credits being given. In the second half of the book Corso seems to be taking credit for the single-handed introduction of a whole host of new technologies into American industry. All this is supposedly derived from the filing cabinet of Roswell wreckage over which he was given control by General Trudeau. He is very vague about details, and there is no substantiation for any of the claims on fiber optics, Kevlar, laser weapons, microcircuits, etc." - Review of Corso's book, The Day After Roswell (1998)

KARL PFLOCK ON THE CONSPIRACY MONGERS

"I don't know exactly what all of the factors are that have moved ufology away from the kind of nitty-gritty hard work that's necessary to get, or hopefully get, some answers about what is going on from the data we have, but I suspect some of it has to do with the fact that that's a heck of a lot less exciting and a heck of a lot more hard work to do than it is to talk in breathless tones about government cover-up and conspiracy. And, actually, if you're thinking in terms of government cover-up and conspiracy and intimidation of witnesses and all of that, that tends to validate your own importance too, because they care about what we're doing. If you don't have that kind of attention from them then who are you but just another bunch of folks that are interested in something that's slightly off the wall?" - interview, 2021

KEVIN RANDLE ON ROSWELL WITNESSES

“It was Inez's granddaughter who said that Inez said that [Roswell sheriff] George Wilcox had seen the big burned area and the debris. He sent deputies out... which means it was probably in Chavez County and not Lincoln County where the Brazel (Foster) ranch was located. But note that the information is third-hand at best. While the granddaughter is a nice woman and telling us what she believes to be the truth, when we filter data through so many witnesses, [the facts] are easily distorted.” - Blog post, 12/15/2002

STANTON FRIEDMAN ON STANTON FRIEDMAN

“As I gave more lectures, I found that I enjoyed speaking, and that people believed me no matter what I said. After all, I was a nuclear physicist for Westinghouse.” - Top Secret/Majic (2005)

KEVIN RANDLE ON JIM MARRS

"A while back I had the opportunity to appear on the late night radio show, Coast-to-Coast... the next night the host had on Jim Marrs who talked about the Aurora, Texas airship crash of 1897... someone who heard my interview the night before mentioned to me in an email that Marrs had talked about Aurora and suggested that it was a real event. That person wanted to know if Marrs was correct and if there is anything to the story of the crash.

And this provides us with an opportunity to examine one of the major problems in UFO research. No case ever dies, no matter how many times it is exposed as a hoax. This is true even when those exposing it range from the skeptics to the believers in extraterrestrial contact. And it continues even when no evidence for the reality of the case has ever been found... or none was found until people began to realize they could get their names in the newspaper or their faces on television if they said something to confirm the case." - Aurora, Texas - A Story That Won't Die, 2005

DON SCHMITT ON DON SCHMITT

“I sacrificed my better judgement by being overly trusting [of supposed experts] when I should have known better.” - public apology, in 2015, for stating that the Atacama mummy was an alien.

KEVIN RANDLE ON JESSE MARCEL

“There are clear areas of resume inflation but none that is particularly egregious by itself. It is only in the aggregate that it suggests that Marcel had a habit of stretching the truth." - Roswell in the 21st Century (2016)

RANDLE ON ROSWELL "ALIEN BODY" WITNESSES

“[Glenn] Dennis should be written out of the story completely, taking his place alongside Gerald Anderson and Frank Kaufmann... Twenty-five years ago, the [Roswell] case was much more robust than it is today. There are cracks in the case that we all have uncovered over the years. Tiny things that, by themselves, aren’t all that important but in the aggregate, weaken the case. It just isn’t as solid as it used to be.” - Blog post, 4/13/2020

SEAN KIRKPATRICK ON GRUSCH/ELIZONDO/CORBELL/BURCHETT/ ET AL
"Part of the problem we face today...is that the modern media cycle drives stories faster than sound research, science and peer review time lines can validate them. More worrisome is the willingness of some to make judgments and take actions on these stories without having seen or even requested supporting evidence, an omission that is all the more problematic when the claims are so extraordinary. Some members of Congress prefer to opine about aliens to the press rather than get an evidence-based briefing on the matter. Members have a responsibility to exhibit critical thinking skills instead of seeking the spotlight. As of the time of my departure, none, let me repeat, none of the conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers' in the public eye had elected to come to AARO to provide their 'evidence' and statement for the record despite numerous invitations. Anyone that would rather be sensationalist in the public eye than bring their evidence to the one organization established in law with all of the legal process and security framework established to protect them, their privacy, and the information and to investigate and report out findings is suspect." - Scientific American, Jan 19, 2024

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Ghosts

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY

"In the early days of Spiritualism faking was easy. You put on an air of piety, and your sitter implicitly trusted you. It was then quite easy to make a ghost, as every photographer knows. Expose a plate for half the required time to a young lady dressed as a ghost, then put the plate away in the dark until a sitter comes and give it a full exposure with him. He is delighted, when the plate is developed, to find a charming lady spirit, of ghostly consistency, beaming upon him. Double development, or skilful manipulation of the plate in the dark room, will give the same result. This is how the trick was done in the [eighteen-] sixties and seventies." - Joseph McCabe, Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud?, 1920

George & Kathy Lutz

The Lutz family claimed that, soon after moving into their new home, they experienced strange noises, the sound of marching bands and chairs, windows and doors that moved on their own, green slime, clogged toilets, freezing temperatures, hundreds of flies and some strange apparitions, including Jodie the Pig, their daughter's imaginary friend.

So what really happened?

George Lutz was having a nervous breakdown. Under intense work & family pressure, plus Christmas, a wedding & a bad flu, he suffered from chronic sleep deprivation, which can impact mental health & cause hallucinations, and it's clear from his descriptions that he experienced sleep paralysis both at Ocean Ave. & Kathy's mother's house. Kathy's “levitation” happened at her mother's house (during George's sleep paralysis), not Ocean Ave.

The Lutzs fled, “leaving their belongings,” but, according to George, they were planning to return. During and after their 4-week stay, they sought the help of priests & psychics, but never called any experts in heating, plumbing, marriage counseling or mental health.

Clarifying facts about the alleged haunting:

The number of flies was grossly exaggerated.

The priest never visited the house. He said (under oath) that he only spoke to the Lutz' once by phone.

“Green slime” was the residue of year-old fingerprint powder used in the DeFeo murder investigation.

The self-closing window & self-rocking chair were the result of loose floorboards.

“Jodie's” eyes at the window belonged to a neighbor's cat; notably a fat cat Ron DeFeo called a “pig.”

“Marching band” may have been rhythmic sounds caused by rain, rattling pipes, or boathouse waves.

The “red room”/“portal to hell” was a plumbing access space, used as a storage closet by the DeFeos.

The window, bannister & front door – all destroyed in the book & movie – were still intact in 1976 when the new owners moved in.

The door that came “off its hinges” was the screen door, which was damaged in a storm.

The white hooded “figure” on the stairs might have been the same mist described in an earlier scene. It also could have been a prank pulled by the two boys, who were harboring a growing hostility toward their problematic new step-father. They could have played into his superstition in the hopes of driving him (not the whole family) out of the house and out of their lives. Where would two kids get such an idea? It was the plot of every Scooby-Do episode ever produced, and the Brady Bunch showed how easily one could fool gullible family members with a fake ghost or a fake flying saucer. So, it's just a theory, but the boys could have been responsible for some of the “haunting.” Exaggerating a wounded hand? Check. Banging their beds on the floor? Check. Waking their fever-addled father with a “monster on the stairs” that only they can see? Check. Is this what happened? We may never know.

Facts about the Warrens:

The Warrens' infrared “ghost child with glowing eyes” photo was actually Paul Bartz, wearing glasses.

Paul was part of the Warrens' investigation team. When asked about it decades later, Bartz would neither confirm nor deny it was him, admitting that it sure looks like him, but out of respect for his friends, the Warrens, stopping short of openly admitting it was a hoax.

The Warrens' claim that Padre Pio appeared in the moosehead photo is bogus. Their further claim that the head of Ron DeFeo seems to appear in the same photo is ridiculous. The image of Padre Pio is a random light reflection on the moose's left ear. Any number of faces can be found on the moose if one were to look hard enough. As for the “Ron DeFeo” image the Warren's claim to see in the photo, there is, indeed the disembodied head of a bearded man, however, it's easily identifiable as the plastic head of a 12” G.I. Joe action figure, placed on the moose's left antler, probably by George Lutz as he was the tallest member of the family.

AMITYVILLE GHOST PHOTO

Fig. 1 & 2: Infrared "ghost boy" photo.

Fig. 3: Paul Bartz, member of the psychic research team investigating the Amityville house. He was Ed & Lorraine Warren's press agent. The photo was taken & developed by the Warrens.

THREE MEN & A BABY

Fig. 1 & 2: the alleged "ghost boy."

Fig. 3: Cardboard cutout of Ted Danson in a top hat from a deleted scene.

WEM GHOST PHOTO

Fig. 1: Wem ghost photo, 1995

Fig. 2: Postcard, 1922

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Abductions

BETTY & BARNEY HILL, 1961

BARNEY HILL ON MISSING TIME:

"I couldn't seem to understand why I felt that I was on Route 3 and yet that I wasn't sure that I was on Route 3, but now I know I turned off the highway." - interview after hypnosis session, 1964

BARNEY HILL ON ABDUCTION STORY:

"Betty...would say that she had had a dream...that she had been taken aboard a UFO, and that I was also in her dream, and was taken aboard. She would tell me this, usually when someone would ask us about our sighting of a UFO." - Hypnosis session, 1964, when asked, "How did you learn about this experience?"

BETTY HILL ON DREAMS:

"My supervisor...said, well Betty, for heaven's sake, don't you realize this [dream] has actually happened to you? She said, this must have happened to you because if it had not happened then you wouldn't be reacting this way, and I wouldn't have this concern about it; I'd say, well it was a dream and forget it. And then I began to feel [that] something had happened." - Hypnosis session, 1964

BARNEY HILL ON SUPPOSED "ALIENS":

"They did not look too strange; they are not unlike people I see. Human beings." - Hypnosis session, 1964

BETTY HILL ON RECOVERED MEMORY:

"The leader said...'Maybe you will [remember the abduction] but it won't do you any good if you do, because Barney won't. Barney won't remember one single thing; and not only that: if he should remember anything at all, he's going to remember it differently than you.'" - Betty Hill hypnosis session, 1964

HYPNOTHERAPIST BENJAMIN SIMON ON BETTY HILL:

“I concluded that...it was a dream... The abduction did not happen... I feel quite confident that there was a whole experience, and an experience with a UFO, if we clearly define that; it does not involve visitations from outer space, but it does involve seeing an object which cannot be identified at the time, whatever it is. I think that did take place. But from there on, I think it was largely a dream." - Today Show, 1975

PASCAGOULA, 1973

Fig 1. Hickson's robots, 1973

Fig 2. Invaders From Mars (1953)

"Two shipyard workers at Pascagoula, Mississippi...claimed in 1973 to have been abducted by UFO occupants with lobsterlike claws while fishing from a pier in the Pascagoula river. I have seen that pier, which is only a few hundred yards from the busy US Highway 90 between Mobile and New Orleans, and can confirm that no glowing UFO could have landed without being seen by passing motorists. Yet there were no other reported sightings of this UFO. [Philip] Klass found that a lie detector test, the only independent support for the fantastic story, was administered by an unqualified operator under uncontrolled conditions." - Ian Ridpath, Messages From The Stars, 1978

TRAVIS WALTON, 1975

"When NBC television in the United States screened a two-hour programme on the Hill case in 1975, Philip Klass wrote an article predicting that it would inspire imitators. Within weeks came the story of the alleged abduction of an Arizona woodcutter, Travis Walton, who disappeared for five days after his colleagues claimed to have seen him taken aboard a flying saucer.

Klass found that the woodcutting team of which Walton was a member were in danger of incurring a financial penalty for failing to complete a woodcutting contract on schedule, and they apparently staged the ‘abduction’ as an ‘act of God’ excuse for not meeting the contract deadline. A leading polygraph examiner who tested Walton within a week of the incident concluded that Walton was ‘attempting to perpetrate a UFO hoax, and that he has not been on any spacecraft.'" - Ian Ridpath, Messages From The Stars, 1978

LA RUBIA, 1977

Fig. 1: La Rubia abduction robot, 1977

Fig. 2: "Porky in Wackyland," 1938

Fig. 3: Pascagoula abduction robot, 1973

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Terrestrial Objects

1. Hopeh photo, 1942

2. B-57 photo, 1957

3. Kaikoura film, 1978

4. Rendelsham UFO, 1980

5. Krasnodar video, 1990

6. Calvine photo, 1991

7. Salida video, 1995

8. Campeche video, 2005

9. Near Phoenix, 2022

■ Hopeh photo, 1942:

The object is a street light. The "pointing" person on the street (lower right) is just someone carrying something on their back, like the guy on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV.

Top: Hopeh, China, 1942; low resolution.

Bottom: Stockholm, Sweden, 1946; high resolution.

■ B-57 photo, 1957:

Near Edwards AFB, California. The supposed saucer seemingly trailing this B-57 test flight is probably Lake Buena Vista in Kern County, south of Bakersfield. It contained more water in 1957 than it has today.