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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