Ufologist Stanton Friedman Suffers Heart Attack

Breaking news from KGRA Radio tells of a healthwatch for a well-known individual in UFO circles.

American physicist and UFO investigator/author Stanton Friedman suffered a heart attack this weekend [it took place Friday, June 27, 2014] in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, where he lives.
According to his co-author Kathy Marden, he's in stable condition and is going to be moved to a larger facility on Monday [June 30, 2014], for possible surgery.
We can safely say, Stan won't be attending next weekend's annual Roswell, New Mexico, event.
He's also scheduled to travel to the Philadelphia for the annual MUFON symposium in three short weeks, as he, George Knapp and Lee Speigel are scheduled to be on a panel together.
Lee will be on the first hour of George Knapp's show tonight at:
(1am Eastern) and is expected to comment further on Stanton.
From all of here at the KGRA ask everyone to please keep our good friend in your prayers at this time. Source. 

Stanton T. Friedman is a dual citizen of the USA and Canada and lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, just across the Maine border from the USA. (UFO film & television writer, producer, director, and author Paul Kimball of Nova Scotia is Stan's nephew.)

Kathleen Marden reports around 10 am Monday, June 30th, that Stan was talking from the hospital and experiencing a batteries of cardiac tests. Stan turns 80 years old on his next birthday, July 29th.

I last met Stan in 2013, at a special VIP dinner for speakers at the Experiencers event in Portland, Maine. He was fit, healthy, and joy, as always. This is terrible news, and I wish Stan a full, quick recovery.

A word about the terms "UFO" versus "flying saucer": Friedman has consistently favored the use of the term "flying saucer" in his work, saying "Flying saucers are, by definition, unidentified flying objects, but very few unidentified flying objects are flying saucers. I am interested in the latter, not the former."

Friedman formerly called himself "The Flying Saucer Physicist," because of his degrees in nuclear physics and his work on nuclear projects, according to ufo encyclopedia authors Ronald Story and Jerome Clark.

Stanton Friedman drawing by Nick Shev.

Because Stan is a prolific speaker at UFO-related conferences, his biography is well-known to most in the field.

Nuclear Physicist-Author-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell-Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear power-plants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces and 16 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 1997, 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005.

Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s Niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 4th printing. His newest book Science Was Wrong with Kathleen Marden, was published in June 2010. On July 2, 2010, he was inducted into the Roswell UFO Hall of Fame.

He has provided written testimony to Congressional Hearings, appeared twice at the UN, and been a pioneer in many aspects of ufology including Roswell, Majestic 12, The Betty Hill- Marjorie Fish star map work, analysis of the Delphos, Kansas, physical trace case, crashed saucers, flying saucer technology, and challenges to the S.E.T.I. (Silly Effort To Investigate) cultists. 

Stan has spoken at more MUFON Symposia than any other individual.

^^^^^

Other related news:

Ufologist Terry Hansen and Small Comets Scientist Louis A. Frank Die

June 24: Ufologists' Deaths

Robert J. Durant, UFO Researcher and Actor, Dies

UFO Deaths, Revisited

John Judge Passes Away

The Goblin Universe's Colin Wilson Dies

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Robert J. Durant, UFO Researcher and Actor, Dies

Bob Durant, 75, a well-known UFO researcher, friend of Ivan T. Sanderson, and Member of the Board of Directors of the (now defunct) Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, died on May 21, 2014. He passed away peacefully at his Pennington, New Jersey home, following a two-and-half-year struggle from the effects of a stroke. (By coincidence, I had just written about "UFO Deaths" on May 16th.)

Durant had a UFO "close encounter" experience at age 14, and became a self-described "UFO fanatic," as a result.  He tried to quit doing research in the field many times, but was never entirely successful.  Durant wrote many articles published in the MUFON Journal, IUR, and a few other specialist journals. He was a member of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena advisory group. 

Ingo Swann (14 September 14, 1933 – January 31, 2013), at the end of the table, 

with his last student and friend Bob Durant (July 7, 1938 – May 21, 2014).

Durant saw himself as a Fortean, and besides UFOs, was intrigued by remote viewing.

Robert J. Durant was also associated as an actor, host, and/or himself in Roswell? Yes! (2002), The Larksville Ghost (2006), and Mirage Men (2013). In the television program, Best Evidence (2007), Durant was in the episode entitled "The Roswell Incident."

Director Steven Spielberg said of Roswell? Yes!:  "One of the best films I've ever saw regarding Roswell."

Robert Joseph Durant was born on July 7, 1938, in Akron, Ohio, to Ronald Joseph and Mary Linnane Durant.

Durant graduated from the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio in 1960 with a degree in electrical engineering. Upon graduation, he entered the US Navy as a Naval aviation cadet, and following flight training, was commissioned a Lieutenant, flying Sikorsky helicopters for six years in various international locations.

After the U.S. Navy, Durant joined Pan American World Airways in 1967, flying six different types of airliners for Pan Am, primarily on international routes serving as navigator, flight engineer, copilot and captain. He was also a flight operations manager for two-and-a-half years supervising 1100 pilots and flight engineers. Durant moved from Pan Am (after they went out of business) to Delta Airlines in 1991, where he flew until his retirement at 60 years of age, in 1998. He continued to serve as President of the Pan Am Pilots' Retirement Foundation, Inc. for several years.

Durant was a licensed ham radio operator (Call Sign KC2FXH), proficient in Morse code. 

Bob Durant was preceded in death by his parents and a brother. He is survived by his wife, Mauricette, son Stephen R. Durant, and daughter Jennifer L. Mohr, wife of R. Colin Mohr and granddaughters Lilian Durant Mohr and Marin Mohr. He is also survived by a sister, Mary Dianne Durant and a brother James Michael Durant and his nephews Christopher and Jeremy Durant. 

A loving and devoted husband, father, and grandfather, PAA/DL Capt. Robert J. Durant will be sorely missed by family, friends, and Forteans.

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Terrorism, Aliens, Vile Vortices: The Mysteries of Missing Flight 370

Mysteries love theories. Unknown gaps in data call for speculations. We are seeing it happen this weekend.

Malaysia Airlines MH370, a Boeing 777, has gone missing. Airline officials lost contact with the plane, which was carrying 239 passengers, two hours into the Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing flight, on Saturday, March 8, at 2:40 a.m. local time (18:40 GMT). It is thought it went missing off the coast of Vietnam, but that is pure speculation.

This photo provided by Laurent Errera taken Dec. 26, 2011, shows the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that disappeared from air traffic control screens Saturday, taking off from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact with air traffic control early Saturday morning, March 8, 2014 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and international aviation authorities still hadn't located the jetliner several hours later. (Photo Credit: Laurent Errera)

Who was on board? A delegation of painters and calligraphers, a group of Buddhists returning from a religious gathering in Kuala Lumpur, a three-generation family, nine senior travelers and five toddlers.

Most of the 227 passengers on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 were Chinese, according to the airline's flight manifest. The 12 missing crew members on the flight that disappeared early Saturday were Malaysian.

Other passengers were from India, Indonesia, Australia, the United States, France, New Zealand, Ukraine, Canada, Russia and the Netherlands, the airline said.

Keller, Texas native, 50-year-old Philip Wood, was on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 when it disappeared over the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea. Philip Wood works as a technical storage executive at IBM Malaysia and was transferred to a job from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, where the flight originated.

Terrorism

A Boeing 777 goes missing. Is someone playing a numbers twilight game?

Was it terrorism? Two people named on the manifest -- an Austrian and an Italian -- whose passports had been stolen were not aboard the plane. But speculation is they were just trying to immigrant, yes, illegally, from Iran. There are questions about a third, Chinese, passport, but word of that has disappeared from the media.

Freescale, Motorola, Lear, UFOs

On March 8th, the Austin, Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor confirmed that 20 employees were passengers on Flight 370. Twelve are from Malaysia and eight from China, the company said.

The history of Freescale Semiconductor is intriguing. Freescale was one of the first semiconductor companies in the world, having started as a division of Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona in 1948, according to the company's own historical data. In 1955, a Motorola transistor for car radios was the world’s first commercial high-power transistor. It was also Motorola’s first mass-produced semiconductor device. It was in 2004, a mere decade ago, when it became autonomous by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola.

Motorola? 1948 for this division? In Phoenix? Who came up with the name Motorola? It turns out most credit for the name is given to William "Bill" Lear, in 1930, the investor/inventor who would go on to produce such items as the 8-track music cartridge and the Lear Jet. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that the mystery of UFOs date to such events as Roswell in 1947, in nearby New Mexico. 

Some folks take the notion of "Reverse-Engineering Roswell UFO Technology" very seriously. In that paper, computer company chief Jack Shulman argues that the transistor could never have been invented so suddenly at AT&T in late 1947 without input from top secret Government projects, that some have identified to him as being from alien spacecraft.

And then there is Bill Lear's son, John, who is an accomplished pilot, former CIA operative, and Ufologist. He is noted in the latter field for promoting a variety of conspiracy theories which are based, he claims, on information obtained from military contacts.

Lear is a controversial figure in Ufology, to say the least, for many of his statements.

Lear believes that any number of flying discs 'fell' into our hands when they crashed in the southwest in the late 1940's and early 50's.
Lear's scenario also includes the suspicion that the government has made secret deals with the 'aliens', actually exchanging humans for advanced technological data. Source.

Will we be hearing that aliens are behind the disappearance of Flight 370?

Ooops. I guess some sites are already writing about this form of speculation.

Missing Planes and Sanderson's Vile Vortices

Did Flight 370 vanish off Vietnam into a Devil's Triangle-like area, like the one found off Japan? Who knows, but this is not an area recognized in Fortean literature for such disappearances. Indeed, examining Ivan T. Sanderson's traditional map of "Vile Vortices" around the globe does not show one in this location.

But an airliner is missing, and answers are wanting about what happened.

Update March 12. It has been confirmed by military radar, and missed by civilian radar, that the plane's transponder was turned off as 370 neared the Vietnam coast. The flight then turned around and fly over the Malay Peninsula. 

Late on March 12, the Chinese authorities announced they have new images of 79" by 72" object in the ocean that they think is 370 debris.

Or was Flight 370, like Flight 19, the way into one of Ivan's Vile Vortices?

Other Mysteries

As the search for the aircraft continues, the rescuers are bumping into other mysteries. Take this Sunday, March 9th, CNN report:

'Strange object' not debris from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 

The mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and the true identities of some of its passengers, are as deep as the South China Sea waters where a multinational search team is searching for the jet.
One promising lead has turned out to be a dead end. A "strange object" spotted by a Singaporean search plane late Sunday afternoon is not debris from the missing jetliner, a U.S. official familiar with the issue told CNN on Sunday.
A U.S. reconnaissance plane "thought it saw something like debris but it was a false alarm," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

If all those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are found to have died, it will rank as the deadliest airline disaster since November 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a New York neighborhood, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground. Many recall that crash with horror, as it followed so closely after the events of 9/11 in New York City.

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UFO Name Game Hits Shootings

In The Eighth Tower, a dark work, John A. Keel, as the publisher notes, pulls no punches, and probes the ultimate question: "Are we pawns in a celestial game?" 

Monday was the 13th of January. A day like any other day, but one in which the Fortean name game picked to play its game.

First up, Roswell. The Roswell Incident took place in the U.S. in 1947, when allegedly an unidentified flying object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The name "Roswell" has become famous or infamous in association with UFOs, and Roswell today even has a museum dedicated to ufology.

On January 14th, Tuesday, a middle school student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun and critically wounded two students in Roswell, New Mexico.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were "simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.

The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.

("The Lubbock Lights were an unusual formation of lights seen over the city of Lubbock, Texas, from August–September 1951. The Lubbock Lights incident received national publicity and is regarded as one of the first great UFO cases in the United States," notes Wikipedia. That is, perhaps, after the "Roswell Incident.")

A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The names of the shooting victims or the shooter have not yet released.

After the shooting, here's how the Chicago Tribune described the town where it occurred:

Roswell, a city of 48,000 people in southeastern New Mexico, is best known for its association with UFO lore because of the 1947 crash at a nearby site of an object UFO proponents believe was an alien ship. The U.S. military says materials recovered near the site were from an experimental surveillance craft.

Earlier, on January 13th, a familiar surname in UFO circles - Reeves - became the focus of another shooting.

Curtis Reeves, Jr., 71, (shown above) a retired Tampa Police Captain was arrested and held without bail for shooting a man and his wife after an apparent argument over texting while at a Wesley Chapel, Florida, movie theater (Cobb Theater's Grove 16 & CineBistro).

At the Monday afternoon showing of the film Lone Survivor, Reeves and his wife were sitting behind another couple, Chad and Nicole Oulson, watching the previews, when Reeves became agitated with Chad for texting before the movie began.

Lone Survivor is set during the War in Afghanistan, the film dramatizes the failed United States Navy SEALs mission Operation Red Wings, in which a four-man SEAL reconnaissance team was tasked to track Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. was principally filmed in New Mexico, working 42 days there. Filming first took place at the Sangre de Cristo ("Blood of Christ") Mountains of the Santa Fe National Forest. Then the production moved to Chilili, New Mexico for two weeks of filming, and finally to the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

At the Wesley Chapel-January 13th screening of Lone Survivor an argument broke out between the couples, popcorn was thrown, after which Reeves reportedly left the theater, came back, took out a gun and fired at Oulson and his wife (shown from their Facebook page). Officials said Nicole tried to block the bullet, resulting in a gunshot wound to her hand, before Chad was struck. And killed.

The Tampa Police Department issued a statement on Reeves Monday evening:

Curtis Reeves Jr. retired from the Tampa Police Department on 9/30/93 as a Captain. He was instrumental in establishing the department's first Tactical Response Team. We are not aware of any contact with the department since his departure more than 20 years ago.

+++

John A. Keel once raised the question of name selectivity in his writings: "Hundreds of thousands of phenomenal events have been described in newspapers, magazines and books, and hundreds of thousands of witnesses have been named in print. When dealing with such a large body of evidence – or population – certain laws of probability should surface. We might expect that more Smiths would see UFOs than anyone else, simply because there are more Smiths around. But, in actuality, the name Smith rarely appears in a UFO report."

What Keel found was that unusual names were the point of convergence for the phenomena. He saw McDaniel, Reeves/Reaves, Maddox, Heflin, Allen, Hill, and others, as being selected for UFO and related experiences, as I first pointed out in my "Name Game" chapter in 1983, in Mysterious America.

Perhaps it was merely a coincidence that on January 13th, the postal service delivered my copy of the new edition of John A. Keel's 1975 book, The Eighth Tower: On Ultraterrestrials and the Superspectrum. Anomalist Books, in conjunction with Keel's relatives, republished this book. Keel's first book, Jadoo, and his introspective ufological book, Operation Trojan Horse, where the author tackles the games of names and dates of the "Cosmic Joker," have all been reprinted by Anomalist Books, with newly added material.

Reeves. Roswell. Keel. 

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