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The Hatchet Job On Stan Friedman In FT383

Stan was not an easy person to like. If you look at his writing he is often scathing of everyone except himself.
 
INT21 said:
Stan was not an easy person to like. If you look at his writing he is often scathing of everyone except himself.
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I sense similarities to Brookesmith then in Stan's pugnacity. Except that the former appears to be a local quality debunker with no research of his own to back him up. For example the controversial Truman signature on the MJ-12 document was indeed identical to others on record. Why? Because Truman like other POTUS's after him used the autopen to sign official documents. Verifiable. Case closed on that quibble (you'd imagine) except that Brookesmith is STILL using this as a stick (more a limp sapling) to beat MJ-12 and Friedman with. For all his bumptiousness, Stan was articulate and he did his research, embarrassing the likes of Klass in debates time after time. I'm still unclear what Brookesmith's singular contribution to ufology has been, however. Gallantly defending the honour of Jenny Randles in that obit stands out though. Amusingly.
 
I think Brookesmith went a bit too far.

Friedman could be quite annoying in his stubborn attitudes and argumentative nature, and he was a bit too much of a true believer in the ETH for my taste. But you can't deny the fact that his TV and radio appearances helped keep ufology in the public consciousness - much more so than would be the case without him - and I don't think his shortcomings did serious damage to the field as a whole.

The "good riddance" vibe of the piece just went over the top.
 
My enemy's enemy is my friend haha. Seriously though, all the interesting stuff is happening over in the States with ufology nowadays with Richard Dolan in particular being an articulate vanguard of disclosure. In contrast, Brookesmith and Ms Randles are like worn-out stragglers.
 
ChasFink said:
I think Brookesmith went a bit too far.

Friedman could be quite annoying in his stubborn attitudes and argumentative nature, and he was a bit too much of a true believer in the ETH for my taste. But you can't deny the fact that his TV and radio appearances helped keep ufology in the public consciousness - much more so than would be the case without him - and I don't think his shortcomings did serious damage to the field as a whole.

The "good riddance" vibe of the piece just went over the top.
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I think his arguments about government secrecy suggest that it MUST be an ET matter or why else would so much effort have been put into denying UFOs even exist? Would there be classified documents marked 'Above Top Secret' if UFOs were just 'psychosocial phenomena'? That's what I ask myself although I'm not 100% sold on the ETH myself. John Keel's experiences point to something far less nuts-and-bolts than dead greys and i-beams.
 
Cecil Baargs said:
I think his arguments about government secrecy suggest that it MUST be an ET matter or why else would so much effort have been put into denying UFOs even exist? Would there be classified documents marked 'Above Top Secret' if UFOs were just 'psychosocial phenomena'? That's what I ask myself although I'm not 100% sold on the ETH myself. John Keel's experiences point to something far less nuts-and-bolts than dead greys and i-beams.
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If there really is government secrecy, then something more concrete than "psychosocial phenomena" is almost certainly at work. But that doesn't necessarily mean little green grey men with ray guns and a desire to be taken to our leader. I think what irked me most about Friedman's ETH approach is that it seemed so 1950's movie sci-fi. If the saucers really are objectively real, their origin and occupants may be something far stranger.
 
ChasFink said:
If there really is government secrecy, then something more concrete than "psychosocial phenomena" is almost certainly at work. But that doesn't necessarily mean little green grey men with ray guns and a desire to be taken to our leader. I think what irked me most about Friedman's ETH approach is that it seemed so 1950's movie sci-fi. If the saucers really are objectively real, their origin and occupants may be something far stranger.
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Well, I for one believe that the by-now proven government ticklishness about UFOs demonstrates that there is something to hide regarding UFOs. Er, what is it though? Or at least, what do the government etc think it is? And are they correct or being gulled? Agh. So many questions begetting more questions. Stan, as we know, broke the Roswell case which is as nuts-and-bolts as you can imagine - bodies, debris etc. So to accept Roswell, you have to accept the ETH. And the Roswell case is extremely credible, in my eyes. Could saucers be real but a 'screen' for something else, something perhaps unfathomable? I'll leave you to fathom that out!
 
Cecil Baargs said:
Brookesmith and Ms Randles are like worn-out stragglers.
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I don't know about Brookesmith (never heard of him) But Jenny Randles is a member of this site, maybe you could ask for her opinion ?

INT21.
 
The 'psychosocial phenomena' approach is straight from the mouth of Jung.

Also, if these 'above top secret' reports were so really top secret, why are they all over the ufo scene ?

Remember the sage advise. 'If you have a secret to keep, keep it a secret that you have a secret to keep'.

INT21.
 
INT21 said:
The 'psychosocial phenomena' approach is straight from the mouth of Jung.

Also, if these 'above top secret' reports were so really top secret, why are they all over the ufo scene ?

Remember the sage advise. 'If you have a secret to keep, keep it a secret that you have a secret to keep'.

INT21.
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Is that a good or bad thing about Jung?
And secrets do come out. It doesn't mean they weren't secrets to start off with. This 'cover-up' has been in force since at least 1947, I believe, so it's to be expected that there will be breaches of security over a period of 70 years.
 
It is just his opinion. He may be correct. But his conclusions appear to go against the evidence.

But he was a psychoanalyst, so people assume he knows.

A similar situation pertains to Stan Friedman. He was a nuclear scientist, but somehow people assume that it gives him a mantle of 'he should be believed, he's a scientist'. Why ? What has his field of knowledge got to do with ufo ?

I agree that he was a valuable part of the ufo scene.
 
INT21 said:
It is just his opinion. He may be correct. But his conclusions appear to go against the evidence.

But he was a psychoanalyst, so people assume he knows.

A similar situation pertains to Stan Friedman. He was a nuclear scientist, but somehow people assume that it gives him a mantle of 'he should be believed, he's a scientist'. Why ? What has his field of knowledge got to do with ufo ?

I agree that he was a valuable part of the ufo scene.
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It's a Catch 22 really with credentials for a 'UFO Man' like Stan. You're hung if you've no science background, you're hung if you have the 'wrong' science background. What Stan's credentials prove is that he was a very smart man. I'll happily give someone clever a fair hearing on pretty much any subject.
 
He may have been the last of the great scientific UFO researchers.
OK, Vallee is still alive, but he hasn't been in the game for a long time.
 
Uncle Stan annoyed a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, but that's no excuse to take a hatchet to him and his work just as soon as he is finally incapable of mounting a vigorous counterattack. I have not read the article in question (and probably won't ever bother), had not heard of its author, but it sure sounds cheap and nasty. Kevin Randle, who of course has had valid beefs with Stan, was at least an adult about his passing.
 
Austin Popper/ Cecil Baargs,

..Brookesmith and Ms Randles

Which Randles is it ? Ms J Randles or Mr K Randles .
 
Cecil Baargs said:
It's a Catch 22 really with credentials for a 'UFO Man' like Stan. You're hung if you've no science background, you're hung if you have the 'wrong' science background. What Stan's credentials prove is that he was a very smart man. I'll happily give someone clever a fair hearing on pretty much any subject.
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It wasn't the validity of his scientific background that was a problem for many people, including myself. It was the way he used to disparage other people work in the ufo field. At times he was very hard to read because of this.
 
If you look through 'Flying saucers and science' you will see what I mean.

I have the book in front of me, but don't feel like scanning through it all again to pick out the places that apply.

But it's all there.

It's an interesting read.

I have noticed his disdain in a lot of the stuff of his I have read.
 
Brookesmith is a scoffer; that's his style. It is annoying sometimes. I don't know much about Stanton Friedman but I do think it's in rather bad taste to dig in like that so soon after someone's death.
 
Mythopoeika said:
He may have been the last of the great scientific UFO researchers.
OK, Vallee is still alive, but he hasn't been in the game for a long time.
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Arguably Vicente-Juan Ballester-Olmos might be the last of the great ufologists from the 60s on, but he has become very negative in his thinking. Even though he has investigated 100s of utterly convincing cases with completely plausible witnesses, he still can't find totally convincing evidence for their extraterrestrial origin so now argues that UFOs must be a social-psychological phenomenon. But he won't say exactly what that is, and won't begin to consider Vallee's or Keel's other-dimensional approaches. Similar to the views of Peter Rogerson and David Clarke, I suppose.
 
I get testy with this 'psycho-social' explanation. It surely only works where there is misidentification of a banal object/event. But multiple witnesses, photos, physical phenomena, radar traces, blow it out of the water.
 
Cecil Baargs said:
I get testy with this 'psycho-social' explanation. It surely only works where there is misidentification of a banal object/event. But multiple witnesses, photos, physical phenomena, radar traces, blow it out of the water.
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Exactly! And as someone with a background in psychology, I get even more irritated when people come up with blanket explanations like this but without specifying any known psychological mechanisms to account for such reports. In one (actually superb) report that Ballester Olmos recently released, of a single witness landing and occupant report, where a careful follow up revealed faint imprints where the object had landed, where the witness was a simple farmer who knew virtually nothing about the UFO phenomenon, and gives every indication of being utterly sincere, he still can't accept it because it doesn't provide the smoking-gun complete "proof" that he demands. It really isn't good enough to say that it "must be psychosocial," without providing any real justification.
 
Totally agree. Where is Jenny Randles' research on how 'psycho-social' phenomena can produce such reports? And as for her other standby 'explanation' - frontal lobe epilepsy - that too is awaiting clarification. Still she has Brookesmith on hand to take on the big bad ETH wolves like the late Stan F...
 
I find 'psycho-social' pretty handwavy. I don't think so far it's any better than the ETH. However, people do see UFOs, and there has to be some explanation (or explanations) for the phenomenon. Perhaps we'll live to hear it.
 
Cecil Baargs said:
Totally agree. Where is Jenny Randles' research on how 'psycho-social' phenomena can produce such reports? And as for her other standby 'explanation' - frontal lobe epilepsy - that too is awaiting clarification. Still she has Brookesmith on hand to take on the big bad ETH wolves like the late Stan F...
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She is here as jayceedove. Why don't you PM her and invite her to give her side of the case here on the forum ?

As for David Clarke, I new him from way back, and he always held the position that nuts and bolts ufo were not real.

INT21.
 
It's obvious that Clarke brought his conclusion with him before he started researching old UFO reports!
 
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