The Day After Stephenville

They asked Saint Francis how much he prayed to keep his lovely gardens so beautiful. He answered, holding up a spade, “Yes, I do a great deal of praying, but also a great deal of work with this”.

Many blogs --UFO Media Matters-- reported on the Stephenville, Texas UFO case. The case that had UFOs and fighter jets screaming through the skies less than 70 miles from the Bush Ranch within one of the world’s most tightly secured air spaces. Skeptical bloggers did their analysis of Stephenville, and as usual, were very selective in both their evidence and the witnesses they profiled. The RRR skeptic group uses the same idiotic reasoning as the late High Priest of Professional Skeptics, trotting out a Phillip Klassless explanation. The RRRs called the widely witnessed, widely reported Stephenville case “a group of stars in the sky that exactly mach up to”…one particular witness testimony.

After everyone has said their piece and after the limelight has disappeared as it must, after all of the pot shots have been taken, and no matter whether the true believers or the professional skeptics seem to have the high ground, that’s when the job really starts. Yes, the usually unthankful and less glorious real work on UFOS is done quietly and smoothly.

No, it is not Paul Kimball, or The RRR group –or Colin Bennett-- who in UFO Magizine compared these volunteer researchers to “locust clouds of lower class, middle class professionals”.

The reader probably does not know their names, these locust clouds of so-called low class researchers. But I don’t think they care about fame that much. These MUFON volunteers don’t do it for the book deals or the DVD sales. They do it because they believe. They do it because no one else will do it. And they do it for free because there is no money anyway.

The Mutual UFO Network will ask field-seasoned men and women, all volunteers, to take incredibly detailed reports on mass UFO sightings. The volunteers of MUFON come from all walks of life. Retired police officers, retired military, and scientists make up a significant part of the MUFON field research effort. And there are plenty of civilians with powerful resumes, including engineers and others with technical backgrounds in every discipline. These volunteers with experience and credentials go out in the field and do the legwork. They ask questions and then they ask more questions. And listen, and take incredibly detailed notes.

What do they get? A nod maybe…

DVD: A UFO Witness does the research himself.






But MUFON knows from history you can’t count on positive outcome over the long run unless you do the legwork. So you could say, MUFON IS NOT A FAST FOOD UFO GROUP. MUFON members and officials don’t speak in absolutes because they honestly don’t know where UFOs are from… absolutely. For MUFON, the answer is simple: you do the legwork anyway, no matter what people say.

Let’s do something different, and give credit where credit is due --to the MUFON grunts who do that legwork. Let’s sneak a look over the collective shoulder of the MUFON investigative teams, and see what really happens the day after Stephenville:

MUFON Journal, February 2008

“MUFON took over 50 citizens’ calls from witnesses, and…the credibility and the number were exceptional…”

Stephenville TX Jan 19th
Place: Meeting set up by the Rotary Club For UFO Witnesses

MUFON Team:
Ken Cherry State Director; Steve Hudgeons of Fort Worth, Senior Investigator for Texas; plus five additional trained investigators went to the meeting.

“[MUFON] did not expect the 200-500 people who attended… people who packed the Rotary building --whatever the number-- it was more witnesses in one place than MUFON ever interviewed…some told of previous experiences…[as far back as] in 1957…”

“Several dozen [Stephenville area] observers [of the January 8 event] claim to have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast in the skies…some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.”

“Over the next couple of months MUFON investigators plan to process the information they have compiled, follow up with some of the witnesses and produce a report.”

Yes, this is how it is done. Not with a metaphoric slide rule, while sitting on your fat ass at a desktop deciding what is truth, from whichever side of the aisle you claim. It is not done with theories, or pontificating. And it’s not finished until the whole story is complete.

No matter what the pontificators of The Secret might imply, it is not just through the spirit… when truth is sought, it is through the hard, long, probably unthankful, less glorious work, where the spirits will is usually carried out.

MUFON:
http://www.mufon.com/


Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
Non-Commercial Blog