248 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
248 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: GULF BREEZE CONTRAVERSY HANGS OVER TOWN FILE: UFO1256
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NEWS CLIPPING SERVICE
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DATE OF ARTICLE: January 29, 1989
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SOURCE OF ARTICLE: Tribune
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LOCATION: Tampa, Florida
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BYLINE: Jennifer Tucker
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========================================================
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(C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information Service
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All Rights Reserved.
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THIS FILE WAS PROVIDED BY THE UFO NEWSCLIPPING SERVICE
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AND PREPARED BY PARANET ALPHA -- PARANET INFORMATION
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SERVICE
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PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE BBS
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PARANET ALPHA
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DENVER, COLORADO
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NOTE: THESE FILES ARE NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE
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OF THE PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE NETWORK
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========================================================
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GULF BREEZE UFOS CONTROVERSY HANGS OVER PANHANDLE TOWN
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By Jennifer Tucker
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Tribune Staff Writer
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GULF BREEZE--Ringed by two story pines and six figure real
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estate, Gulf Breeze is a mostly unremarkable town severed by U.S.
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98 in the Florida Panhandle.
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To visitors, its most memorable feature is a flashing neon
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fish pointing the way to Pensacola Beach.
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To 6,000 residents, its most pressing problem is a 70 mile
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detour around the Pensacola Bay Bridge, hit and crippled by a
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barge two weeks ago.
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In 16 years, only two murders have torn this town. In 12
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years, only 10 bank robberies have occured.
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But in the last year and a half, more than 135 local
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witnesses have reported seeing something they can't identify.
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One prominent Gulf Breeze resident has taken more than 30
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photographs of a UFO. This man, who protects his anonymity
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behind the name "Ed," has photographed a craft so fantastic and
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unfamiliar that many people believe the pictures are first rate
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fakes.
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Skeptics merely point to the east where Eglin Air Force
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Base, one of the country's largest military installations, lies
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like a wall to wall flying carpet.
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The Gulf Breeze stories--told to the nation by NBC's
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"Unsolved Mysteries" and CNN, among others--have inspired UFO
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researchers to undertake a dramatic debate of possibility vs.
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probability.
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Researchers agree on only one thing: Either the Gulf Breeze
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UFO sightings are some of the most phenomenal ever recorded, or
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the Gulf Breeze UFO sightings are some of the most exaggerated
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ever reported.
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Among the eyewitnesses are a federal judge, a politician and
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a prominent physician.
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THE NEIGHBORS
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Art and Mary Hufford don't even live in town. Their homey,
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ranch style house is on a sycamore lined street in Pensacola, a
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bridge's drive away from Gulf Breeze.
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But the Huffords remember, in perfect detail, an evening in
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early November 1987. The couple was in their car, just two miles
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from home, when they saw something gray, oval and silent fly over
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the treetops, Art says.
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The craft remained in view for several minutes, yet when
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they got home and talked about it, Art says they couldn't come up
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with a rational explanation.
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"It just didn't make any sense," says Art, a soft spoken
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chemical engineer with a master's degree and 25 years' experience
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at Monsanto Chemical Co.
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Both Huffords are elders in the Presbyterian church, and
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Mary is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Pensacola.
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"We thought UFOs were something that happened to Billy Bob
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out on a boat after too many beers," Art says, wryly.
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But then, several weeks after their sighting, the couple saw
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Ed's photographs in the Pensacola edition of the Gulf Breeze
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newspaper. "It was like someone had taken a picture out of our
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brains," Art says. "That was it."
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Through 1988, the couple shared their experience with others
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similarly affected. At social gatherings, when Art mentioned the
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sighting, he says people would pull him aside with whispered
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confessions of their own experiences.
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And Art is convinced that what he saw was not a product of
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modern technology or man made trickery.
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"Frankly," Art says, "the debunkers make me mad. I saw what
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I saw."
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PARTY INVITATIONS
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Fenner and Shirley McConnell of Gulf Breeze had sent out
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invitations to their annual June get together with tongue planted
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firmly in cheek.
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The front of the invitation featured a cartoon of alien
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creatures rollicking through city streets, and inside they told
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revelers it would be a "UFO watching party."
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Two days before the 1988 party, the couple says, their
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invitation sprang to life outside their bedroom window. They saw
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a cylindrical craft, ringed in windows and lights, hovering over
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Pensacola Bay.
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Fenner McConnell, a physician and medical examiner for
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Florida's District 1, says the craft came within 75 yards of the
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house, and at one point "I thought it was going to land on it."
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Shirley McConnell, a caterer, says she was overcome by "an
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eerie feeling," but she immediately recognized the craft from
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Ed`s photographs.
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The couple went outside to get a better look. It hovered
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for nearly four minutes and then "kind of drifted away," Fenner
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McConnell says.
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"I'm not saying that I believe it's from another planet,"
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Shirley McConnell says, "but it's something I had never laid eyes
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on in my life. People can say whatever they want about me, but I
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know what I saw. Ed didn't make this up."
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Likewise, Brenda Pollak says the large, lighted craft she
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saw twice in one night during the spring of 1988 was not a
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figment of her imagination.
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She was driving east across the Pensacola Bay Bridge when
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she saw it the first time, looking "too big and too bright...and
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very different from anything I had ever seen before."
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Nearing her home on Shoreline Drive in Gulf Breeze, Pollak
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pulled into the parking lot of the city's recreation center and
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parked.
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She says she watched the craft hover over the bay--unaware
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that a few blocks away, Ed was taking a photograph of the very
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same craft.
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"I was exhilarated," says Pollak, a two term City Council
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member who works with Ed on community projects.
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"I can tell you now--for every one person who has reported
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seeing the craft, there are 10 who talk about it but don't want
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anyone to know," Pollak adds.
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"And I can also tell you if this is a hoax, it can't be Ed
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because it would make him look like an idiot and the community
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look crazy."
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THE RESEARCHERS
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Scientists can't help making comparisons.
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In the 1970's, a Swiss laborer named Edward Meier took
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hundreds of photographs of a 'spaceship' near Zurich.
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Although some people consider his photographs authentic,
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others believe they are fakes, basing their conclusions on
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damning photographic analyses.
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Nevertheless, scientists acknowledge that Meier`s pictures
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are remarkably clever.
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So it is with Ed, whose photographs have been analyzed and
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scrutinized by two of the country's foremost photographic
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experts.
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Moreover, the photographs--and Ed's cooperation with some
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UFO investigators--have caused a political rift so powerful that
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participants think the case could damage the future of UFO
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research in America.
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At odds are investigators with the Mutual UFO Network, a 20
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year old group of scientists and 'grass roots' researchers, and
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the Center for UFO Studies, a non profit conclave founded by J.
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Allen Hynek, a leading American astronomer who died in 1986.
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Network directors support Ed's story; the center does not.
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The network bases its opinion primarily on the findings of
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Bruce Maccabee, a Naval physicist studying optics and underwater
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sound in addition to working with the FBI.
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The center bases its opinion on its own researchers as well
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as on Robert Nathan, a member of the technical staff of NASA's
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Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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INTRICATE REPORT
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Maccabee, who published an intricate 90 page report
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examining the evidence, concludes that the photographs are real.
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He applied the properties of physics and various
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mathematical theories to determine things such as the size of the
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ship, the distance of the craft from the camera lens and odd
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angles of the photographs.
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More important, Maccabee says, he wasn't "biased by the idea
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that it's too impossible, therefore it can't be real." Critics
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would "rather take the approach that if the pictures could have
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been hoaxed then they must have been," he says.
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Maccabee reasons that Ed could not have performed the
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photographic feats necessary to pull off such an elaborate hoax.
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"A professional magician would have a difficult time doing this,"
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he says.
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Last year, staffers at a Pensacola television station tried
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to reproduce Ed's photographs using a model. They gave up after
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their attempts failed miserably, Maccabee says.
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He further admonishes skeptics for questioning the look of
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the craft--"Nobody knows what UFOs look like," Maccabee says.
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And he points out what he considers to be the weighty
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circumstantial evidence in Ed's favor--including testimony from
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friends and witnesses, one of them Ed's wife.
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Skeptics, however, side with NASA's Nathan. Although he
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acknowledges that he "hasn't given the pictures the kind of care
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Bruce has," Nathan says a visual examination reveals glaring
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inconsistencies--typical of double exposures.
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IRREGULARITIES IN PHOTOS
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The spaceship is brighter and more in focus than the
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background, he says, and these irregularities are repeated in
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picture after picture.
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Nathan concludes that the object looks like "a gas burner
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turned upside down" and that its apparent lack of symmetry is
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simply "inconsistent with what you would expect from a highly
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developed society."
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Mark Rodeghier, scientific director of the Center for UFO
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Studies, says the Gulf Breeze case has "deteriorated into a
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shouting match" because his organization was forced to play
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devil's advocate.
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Investigators with the Mutual UFO Network were too quick to
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judge the photographs favorably, he says, and those comments
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biased Maccabee's analysis.
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"Except those intimately connected with the network, 90
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percent of serious UFO researchers think Gulf Breeze is a hoax,"
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Rodeghier concludes.
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Among those who agree with that assessment is Philip Klass,
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considered the country's premier debunker of UFOs. Although he
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has not seen the Gulf Breeze photographs, Klass says he has
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scanned Maccabee's report and finds it improbable.
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"Any UFO case, whether it involves pictures or not, is sort
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of like that old adage that a woman cannot be 10 percent
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pregnant. If one photo is a hoax, then they all must be thrown
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out," says Klass, who surmises that the photographs are too
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"suspect" to be real.
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Klass reiterates his claim by stating, "In 22 years of
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investigating, I have never investigated or heard of a UFO case
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that cannot be explained in prosaic terms."
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JUST THE FACTS
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"I deal in facts," says Jerry Brown, Gulf Breeze's 42 year
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old chief of police, whose carpeted office smells faintly of
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cinnamon and coffee.
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"Granted--anyplace, any time, anything can happen to you.
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But why would people call about a prowler and not call about a
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UFO that's landed in their yard?"
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The police chief knows Ed and likes him. Yet Brown says
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he's concerned about the possibility "that one person, as a
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practical joke...could destroy what it's taken so many years to
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build."
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Ed`s supporters, meanwhile, believe Gulf Breeze attracted
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the unknown visitors because of the reputation the city already
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had built--as a well off, well educated, open minded community.
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"There is a direct correlation between education and the
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acceptance of the UFO phenomenon," says Donald Ware, Florida
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director of the Mutual UFO Network.
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"I am convinced the reason one man was given so many
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photographic opportunities is because the aliens wanted us to see
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those pictures," Ware says.
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=================================================================
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