Ufologist Dale Rettig Dies

Dale Norman Rettig

Rick Hilberg has posted on his Facebook page the following on September 8, 2014:

Just found out this morning that long time ufologist Dale Rettig passed away on September 3rd at his home in Walnut Creek, California. A memorial service is being held there today.
I knew Dale since 1963 when he headed an Illinois based UFO group that had a very professional looking publication.One of first activities together was interviewing Allen Hynek at his Northwestern University office later that same year. Although no longer active in the UFO field, he and I kept in touch over the years.
Dale and I worked very closely together back in the 1960s on several UFO publications and organizations, and he was one of the founding members of what would later become the National UFO Conference back in 1964 when its first convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio.

Tim Beckley also writes today:

I always mention Dale in my radio appearances. He had me out to do a lecture in San Francisco. We had a full house of about 400. I was to fly back East late afternoon on Sunday. Dale and a few others from his inner circle took me to brunch and over Bloody Marys I happened to mentioned that I should have tried to contact my old friend psychic and author Alan Vaughn who had moved to San Francisco from New York City a few years previously but didn't know how to contact him. Suddenly, the door to the bar swings open and Alan walks in with his dog. Thirty-five thousand miles away and we meet by "chance." After a good chuckle it turns out he is working on a book [later to be Incredible Coincidence: The Baffling World of Synchronicity] on sychronicities and our little episode gets a paragraph or two in the book, if you can find an old dusty paperback he did. I believe synchronicities play a big part with UFOs and spirits - its the new EVP, a means for "them" to let us know they are around. This episode with Dale was my first inkling of same.

Early Ufologists recall Rettig. 

Jerry Clark writes, "Back in the early 1960s when I was a teenage ufologist corresponding with my contemporaries, one was named Dale Rettig."

There is not too much, actually, in the official histories of ufology about Dale Rettig. Mystery, unfortunately, even follows Rettig in death, it appears.

On the official obituary of the Oak Parks Hill Chapel, in California, they have listed Rettig as:

Born: Wed., Oct. 27, 1948
Died: Wed., Sep. 3, 2014

But for their official obituary writeup, they list a different date of death:

Dale Norman Rettig
Resident of Walnut Creek
Born October 27, 1948-Passed September 2, 2014
He was born in Glenview Illinois. He worked in the legal system for nearly 38 years as a lawyer. He is survived by his spouse Yon H. Cho.
Memorial Services will be held Monday September 8, 2014 1:00pm at Oak Park Hills Chapel. 3111 N. Main Street, Walnut Creek, Ca. 94597.

I feel we have to follow his friend Rick Hilberg's date (September 3) that agrees with the funeral home's first listing.

Dale Norman Rettig went to Stanford University, in Stanford, California, then attended the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, being admitted to The State Bar of California on December 19, 1973.

From the official records, Rettig worked for the U.S. Small Business Administration in Walnut Creek, California.

Dale N. Rettig married Yon H Cho on December 18, 1985, in San Francisco, California.

Rettig was an early organizer of ufologists and conferences, as can be seen in some of the first conferences' photographic records.

The American UFO Congress (which would become the National UFO Conference) in 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio at a Holiday Inn. L to R: David Halperin, Dale Rettig, Jim Moseley and Michael Mann. Photo: Rick Hilberg.

L to R: Cliff Stenberg, Dale Rettig, Rick Hilberg, Edward Biebel and Jim at the 1976 National UFO Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.

But sometimes Rettig suffered from the ongoing politics among Ufologists.

For example, as Rick Hilberg has noted, in a clarification of "A Brief History of the National UFO Conference," by James Moseley, written in 2001, that,

Jim omitted the name of one of the founders [of the National UFO Conference], namely Dale Rettig. Dale was a very active ufologist back in the early 1960s and ran an Illinois based UFO organization that had a very fine for the time, almost professional looking newsletter. Most ufozines of the time were either run on Ditto machines (remember those purple pages? ) or maybe a mimeograph. Offset printed publications were quite scarce, although I did start doing my “original” UFO Magazine by offset as early as 1964. Anyway, Dale, Allen Greenfield and I were the principals in a group called the American UFO Committee back in 1963 ( It was group that combined three organizations that we each were the heads of into one fairly large national group.), and it was at this time that Greenfield came up with the seminal idea of holding a serious, non contactee gathering in 1964 and seeing if it would take hold.

Our condolences to his family and friends. 

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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.

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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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Controversial Authors Terry Hansen and Louis A. Frank Die

Two revolutionary intellectuals, both authors of books that made people think, passed away recently this Spring.

Terry Hansen

Overnight on June 20, into June 21, 2014, nearing the Summer Solstice, journalist and researcher Terry Hansen died. Hansen was a ufologist and author of The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up.

Hansen died quietly in his sleep. His wife Jessica reported the doctor said her husband had a massive coronary, and felt no pain.

The site The UFO Chronicles first shared the news, and quoted Hansen's wife as saying:

He was the most honest person with the greatest sense of integrity I have ever known. My first impression of Terry was one of nobility of spirit and he never let me down He had a lot of wonderful adventures the last few years of his life and I am so grateful for that.

Terry Hansen was a former magazine editor and then became an independent journalist with a special interest in scientific controversies and the politics of knowledge. He followed the UFO controversy for much of his life and had occasionally written about it for various media, including National Public Radio and the Minneapolis Star & Tribune. He was a guest on various regional and national broadcast programs, including Dreamland, the History Channel, and Strange Days. He had spoken before various groups about UFO-related censorship and propaganda.

Hansen organized and moderated two symposiums about "The Science and Politics of UFO Research" for the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. His one book was The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up. Find excerpts from the book by clicking here.

Hansen held a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in science journalism, both from the University of Minnesota.

Terry Hansen was a founding partner of KFH Publications, Inc., a Seattle computer-magazine publishing company. He was also an active private pilot with ratings for single-engine aircraft and gliders, and the skipper of the converted diesel-powered wooden fishing trawler, New Rosa. He had lived on the Canadian Gulf Islands, and on Bainbridge Island, Washington State, with his wife, Jess, and two parrots.

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Louis A. Frank

Word has also reached me, via Patrick Huyghe, that the revolutionary thinker Louis A. Frank died over a month ago. Frank thought outside the box, often, and was Patrick's coauthor on The Big Splash.

Frank, an experimental physicist, was often on the breaking edge of science, as he made the first measurements of the plasma ring around Saturn, was the first to measure solar-wind plasma funneling directly into the Earth’s polar atmosphere and was the first to observe with a scientific instrument the belt of ions around the Earth known as the “ring current.” Frank also discovered the theta aurora, a light phenomenon that looks like the Greek letter theta hovering above the polar cap.

As a young scientist, when he was 42, Louis Frank got in the most hot water (no pun intended) when he started talking about small comets and their importance in the history of Earth. The grueling nature of Frank's battle with other scientists was even briefly highlighted in The New York Times.

The Des Moines Register summarized Frank's concept and what happened because of the controversy this way:

Louis A. Frank, a retired University of Iowa scientist who believed small comets made of ice and water crashed into the Earth to create the planet’s lakes, rivers and oceans, died Friday. He was 75.
In 1981, Frank and his UI colleagues analyzed data from the NASA satellite Dynamics Explorer I, which looked at Earth in ultraviolet light. Frank and his team were interested in small black dots found in the images.
While some believed the dots were transmission errors, Frank and his team concluded the spots were caused by the disintegration of small comets — each weighing about 20 to 40 tons.
In 1986, Frank published his findings in Geographical Research Letters, a scientific journal. He argued that as many as 25,000 small comets disintegrated in the Earth’s atmosphere each day.
Eleven other researchers published responses refuting Frank’s claims, and Frank and his co-other responded to 10 of them.
In 1990, he and science writer Patrick Huyghe published the book The Big Splash: A Scientific Discovery That Revolutionizes the Way We View the Origin of Life, the Water We Drink, the Death of the Dinosaurs, the Creation of the Oceans, the Nature of the Cosmos, and the Very Future of the Earth Itself.
In 1999, Frank, a Chicago native, compared his earlier research to images from NASA’s Polar satellite, which he believed supported his theory. However, again, scientists in the field objected to his findings.
In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post and The Des Moines Register, Frank described the painful experience of advocating for an unpopular idea in the scientific community.
“The science game can be brutal,” he wrote. “I was shunned by almost everyone. … I paid a stiff price. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so naive, but the behavior of some former friends and colleagues amazed me. It went far beyond what I expected.”

Here is his formal obituary:

Dr. Louis A. Frank, Professor Emeritus of Physics & Astronomy from the University of Iowa died Friday, May 16, 2014.
Memorial services will be held 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 20th at the Gay & Ciha Funeral and Cremation Service in Iowa City with visitation from 4-7 p.m., Monday at the funeral home. Private family interment will take place at Oakland Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Van Allen Physics Scholarship Fund at the University of Iowa Foundation.

Louis was born in Chicago, IL and graduated from high school in Fort Madison, Iowa. He enjoyed nurturing trees and wildlife as well as automobiles. His passion in life was science.
Dr. Frank was a Professor of Physics at The University of Iowa, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1964. His first professional research activities occurred in 1958 when he assisted Professor Van Allen in the calibration of the first U. S. lunar probes, Pioneers 3 and 4, as an undergraduate student. Since then he had been an experimenter, co-investigator, or principal investigator for instruments on forty-two spacecraft. Dr. Frank was the principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U. S. plasma instrumentation for the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelengths for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. His publications encompassed such topics as the first direct measurements of the terrestrial ring current and of the polar cusp, the current systems in Earth's magnetotail, the plasma tori at Jupiter and at Saturn, and global imaging of Earth's auroral zones and atmosphere. His research interests were directed toward magnetospheric plasmas in the vicinity of Earth, wave-plasma instabilities, active experiments in the ionosphere, interpretation of auroral images in terms of global convection and current systems, the Jovian magnetosphere and its relationship with the Galilean satellites, computed tomography, geocoronal hydrogen, comets, and optics. He served on various NASA and NAS/NRC committees and as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the American Astronomical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Academy of Astronautics. He was a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a recipient of the National Space Act Award.
His family includes his two daughters, Jessica Frank of Iowa City and Suzanne Frankof Waterloo; brother, Clyde Frank of Virginia; sister, Emilou Woods of Colorado, and grandson Taylor Bergstrom of New York.

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Are You Still Alive? UFO Deaths, Revisited

Do ufologists die in more strange circumstances than most people?

Roger K. Leir, D.P.M., 79, passed away on March 14, 2014. Leir was a podiatric surgeon and author, but he is best known for his work investigating alleged extraterrestrial implants.

As if stepping from an episode of The X-Files, Leir and his work gained worldwide attention due to his interests in the phenomenon of supposed alien implants and his alleged removal of several such objects from the bodies of abductees. He also investigated the 1996 Varginha, Brazil case and the 2007-2009 UFO sightings in Kumburgaz, Turkey. Leir became well-known in the field from his appearances on television documentaries and radio programs, as well as a speaker at multiple international conferences and symposiums.

Leir's cause of death is uncertain. Some have said he died from complications of shingles. According to Fortean author Christopher O’Brien, Leir was in the hospital on March 14, 2014, awaiting surgery on his own foot that had been injured in a 2010 automobile accident. Leir reportedly left to use the restroom, but never came out.

Due to Leir's age, he could be called part of the "old guard." Younger ufologists have died in recent years too. People die all the time, of course. But of late, there has been increased talk of ufologists being murdered or dying mysteriously.

John Mack and Budd Hopkins, UFO Congress awards ceremony; Photo Stuart Conway, 2002.

Another strange death remains that of Harvard psychiatrist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994), Dr. John E. Mack, who died on Monday, September 27, 2004, while in London to lecture. Mack was killed by a drunken driver heading west on Totteridge Lane. He was walking home alone, after a dinner with friends, when he was struck at 11:25 p.m. near the junction of Totteridge Lane and Longland Drive. He lost consciousness at the scene of the accident and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. The driver was arrested at the scene, and was later convicted and jailed for the offense, though there was very little media coverage of this. There are still those who believe that his death was suspicious as it appeared to be far too "convenient."

Mac Tonnies, 34, a rising intellectual presence in Fortean thought and the "Posthuman Blues" blogger, was found dead in his apartment on October 22, 2009. His book The Cryptoterrestrials (Anomalist Books, 2010), published after his death, extended the thoughts of John Keel's ultraterrestrials. Tonnies' death, allegedly, may have been tied to one of several causes, but certainly it was one surrounded by quiet confusing details. (Please refer to Mike Clelland's statement in the comment section below for more on this.)

RRR's "Death List"

Strangely, Mac's name appeared at the end of the "death list" of people that a group of youthful ufologists placed in their infamous posting of March 22, 2008, 19 months or so, before Tonnies' passing. The so-called "RRRGroup," in their "UFO PROVOCATEUR(S)" blog entry entitled "Death(s) will clean the UFO palate," listed the names of people whom they almost seemed to be wishing would die more quickly so the "future" of the field could dawn more quickly.

They wrote:

When ufology’s old-guard passes on – Dick Hall, Stan Friedman, Kevin Randall, John Schuessler, and even the 60ish Jerry Clark to name a few – taking hangers-on and sycophants with them (and you know who they are), the UFO palate will be cleansed.

That is, the mummified concepts of ufology will be washed away, and new paradigms will be allowed to flourish.

Standing in the wings already is a group of middle-agers who, while not particularly astute about the UFO history and inclined to be cavalier with their observations and characterizations of ufology and UFOs themselves, think they are the news faces of ufology, which is a mantle they hope to change.

Those people include Paul Kimball, Nick Redfern, Greg Bishop, and Mac Tonnies.

...Once the old-guard is gone, and the mid-lifers dismissed because of their foolishness, the young crop of UFO mavens’ newer ideas will hold sway with the public and media....

Blood mixed with ink. After the above was written, Richard H. Hall died on July 17, 2009. Mac Tonnies died on October 22, 2009. Stan Friedman, Kevin Randle, John Schuessler, and Jerry Clark are still alive.

Former Socorro, New Mexico police officer and close encounter eyewitness to one of the most well-known UFO cases in history, Lonnie Zamora died on November 2, 2009, of heart failure.

C. D. B. Bryan also died in 2009, and Wendelle Stevens in 2010. The Year of 2011 saw a number of important ufologists die, including Budd Hopkins, Ion Hobana, and several others.

Well-known 1896-1897 Airship historian and Fortean archivist Lou Farish, 74, passed away on January 26, 2012. Fortean friend, ufology humorist, and writer James W. Moseley, 81, died November 16, 2012. He passed away at a Key West, Florida, hospital, several months after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

Ten days after Moseley died, on Monday, November 26, 2012, the RRRGroup posted again on this topic, in "Ufology is dying and ufologists with it."

The RRR blogger wrote:

The death of “prominent” UFO mavens this year -- with more to come by years end -- will decimate the moribund UFO topic....The aging UFO researchers are either ill or near-death, many divorced and struggling to maintain a UFO identity, but without cachet any longer or credibility.

One comment maker, Michael D Swords, first author of the UFO History Group's UFOs and Government, wrote in, leaving the following on November 28, 2012:

Hello. I woke up this morning and found that I was alive. This did not surprise me. I also found that Patrick Huyghe was putting together a UFO research panel for the Society for Scientific Exploration meeting in June, including Eddie Bullard, Mark Rodeghier, and myself. Both of them were alive and healthy when I checked.
When I returned to Kalamazoo last evening, there was my young friend, in his thirties, who is writing a comprehensive study of the Hillsdale-Dexter Swamp Gas fiasco. He was alive and healthy and gave me a ride home. A young man came from Western Michigan University the month of August --- writing a Master's thesis involving a UFO connection. An art show on campus was rather good and the artist was inspired by UFOs in her work.
I am surprised to discover that we are all dead or hospitalized, or that some people want us to be so they can move on.

The Death of Ufologists & June 24th

On June 24, 1908, Grover Cleveland, the 22nd & 24th US President (1885-89, 93-97), died at the age of 71. On June 30, 1908, the Tunguska event, a large aerial explosion of unknown origins, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, Russia, occurred. The UFO wave of 1909 in New Zealand followed sightings in the Southland in June 1908. But no one was thinking about deaths and strange shapes in the skies in 1908.

The topic of the death of ufologists is a modern but old one in the field. In 1971, UFO author Otto Binder claimed that at least 137 UFO investigators had died under mysterious circumstances during the 1960s. Binder's 1971 Saga article, "Liquidation of the UFO Investigators," summarized his findings.
Otto Binder (1911-1975), as well as John Keel (1930-2009), noticed a number of “seemingly coincidental deaths in the UFO field on 24 June.” These included in 1964 Frank Scully, author of one of the first crashed-saucer books; British contactees Arthur Bryant and Richard Church in 1967; and Willy Ley in 1969. Frank Edwards, popular UFO author and radio personality in the 1950s, died a few hours before Bryant. News of the sudden death of Frank Edwards stunned delegates assembled for the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists in New York City’s Hotel Commodore on June 24th.

I have continued to track June 24th UFO-related deaths since Binder's time.

One person that has been overlooked is Robert Charroux, the best-known pen-name of Robert Joseph Grugeau (born April 7, 1909 - died June 24, 1978). He was a French author known for his ancient astronaut theories and writings in other Fortean subjects. Charroux's books include: Treasures Of The World (1967); The Mysterious Unknown (1972); Forgotten Worlds: Scientific Secrets of The Ancients and Their Warning For Our Time (1973); The Mysterious Past (1974); Legacy Of The Gods (1974); The Mysteries Of The Andes (1977); Masters Of The World: Groundbreaking New Revelations About The Ancient Astronauts (1979); and One Hundred Thousand Years Of Man’s Unknown History (1981).

Others have died on June 24th. An early advocate of flying saucer research, Jackie Gleason, died June 24, 1987. UFO writer Frank Edwards’ publisher, the maverick Lyle Stuart, died of a heart attack on June 24, 2006.

On June 24, 2013, former rocket scientist, computer scientist, and author of After the Internet: Alien Intelligence (2000), James Martin, 79, was found floating dead in the waters off Agar's Island. Dr. Martin bought Agar’s Island in 1977 and made his home in Bermuda. The multi-millionaire kept a relatively low profile in Bermuda.

For ufologists this date is of critical importance. On June 24, 1947 the modern era of UFOs began with Kenneth Arnold’s dramatic sighting of “saucers” flying between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams in Washington. The primary significance of this particular date, St. John’s Day, cannot be diminished within ufology.

Nick Redfern: Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind

Author Nick Redfern has a new book about UFO-related deaths that is being released on June 23, 2014. While it might have been more appropriate for his publisher to use the pub date of June 24, it does seem to be an intriguing coincidence. 

The book's title is Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind: Suspicious Deaths, Mysterious Murders, and Bizarre Disappearances in UFO History.

On May 16th, I asked Redfern a few questions about this subject as it relates to the RRR Group's writings. Here are his responses, which I appreciate Nick sharing with me.

 

Twilight Language: Do you feel that the field of Ufology is positively or negatively impacted when older, mature researchers die?

Nick Redfern: I think the field of Ufology can only be impacted negatively when a respected researcher dies. In simple terms, that person - presuming they were still actively doing research - is no longer able to offer anything else of value to the subject, so that's why I view such a passing as a negative event. If their files and archives are preserved, that's very good, since it allows us to ensure what they left behind doesn't disappear. It's like with John Keel: we have his legacy, his works. That's great. But it would be even greater still if he was still writing. Of course, if the researcher was an outright hoaxer, liar or criminal, then the scene is better off without them.

Twilight Language: Younger ufologists die too. How do you feel the field is altered when someone like Mac Tonnies dies, when his output is hardly known yet?

Nick Redfern: When a younger UFO researcher dies, I think that - first and foremost - it's a tragedy for the family. No child should die before his or her parents. So, realizing someone is a human being before a UFO researcher - and the effects that an early death leaves behind for the family and friends - is the main and most important thing. But, in terms of research and written output, it's always unfortunate if a young researcher has a great deal of potential and dies before their time. Who knows what they might have done in the decades ahead? It could have been groundbreaking. But, in such cases, we'll never, ever know. You mention Mac Tonnies. Mac died in his mid-30s, and only had a couple of books published. Potentially, he could have been writing for another 40 years. I only ever met Mac once (for a weekend conference in Canada 7 or 8 years ago), but there's no doubt he was a man who had a lot to offer the field of Ufology and the wider issue of Forteana in general.

Twilight Language: Do you think young ufologists in the RRR Group truly want the "old guard" to depart so the RRR folks and younger UFO theorists will be heard more clearly?

Nick Redfern: No, I don't think anyone in the RRR actually wants any of the old guard to die. What I think they do want, and what I think is very important too, is to encourage the next generation of researchers, and the one after that. Not at the expense of the old guard, but to ensure the subject continues to get an injection of new blood, new energy, new thought processes, and new research. The major problem I have with much of the old guard is they are very much stuck in the ETH mode. Now, yes, that may well be the right path to follow. But, on the other hand, it may not. But, I think a lot of people, as they get older, they get into a comfortable, safe zone. And, when it comes to Ufology, I don't think research should be comfortable or safe, at all. It should be challenging, and filled with people not afraid to rock the boat and question accepted beliefs. That's why I think new blood is vital, and I think that's what the RRR people are saying.

Twilight Language: Thank you, Nick.

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In 2008, I left the following comment at the RRR site. I haven't changed my mind too greatly on these final thoughts.

It seems incredible to really read these words: "...the young crop of UFO mavens’ newer ideas will hold sway with the public and media, because this new generation isn’t conscripted by former old-think about UFOs, presenting instead original thought and pursuit of the UFO mystery..."

Being a radical Fortean observer watching the coming and going of all matter of writers, researchers, and theorists in the last four decades, you have given me a good chuckle.

Every "new" generation sees themselves as having the "real" solutions or the next best outside-the-box suggestions. Of course, it will only be something you will reflect upon when the next generation after you, the new group of "Young Ones" start nibbling at your aging heels, [and] says something similar to you.

It's always been that way, and it will continue so into the future.

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Loren Coleman On The Paracast

There is a new online chat with Gene Steinberg and Christopher O’Brien, 

which was conducted on May 1, 2014.

I agreed to do various interviews during what I think will become known as my quiet winter-spring of 2014. One that is out already is now on the Paracast.

Here is their site's description:

The Paracast is brought to you weekly on GCN Radio. Click here to get the exclusive GCN app for your iPhone or Android smartphone!
May 4, 2014 (DOWNLOAD!): The Paracast is a paranormal radio show that takes you on a journey to a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions. The Paracast seeks to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join long-time paranormal researcher Gene Steinberg, co-host Christopher O’Brien, a seasoned field investigator, and a panel of special guest experts and experiencers, as they explore the realms of the known and unknown. Listen each week to the great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
On this week's show: Gene and Chris welcome pioneer cryptozoologist Loren Coleman back to The Paracast with an update of ongoing research into the field, including a global call for DNA evidence. You'll hear about case histories, including recent reports, along with a dose of myth busting. According to his bio: "Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say 'the' leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries."

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I discuss a wide variety of topics including cryptozoology, Bigfoot, and new species. But the hosts of the show certainly wanted to begin with the Twilight Language, the Copycat Effect, and the Fortean end of things - and that's where we went.

Besides briefly mentioning the legacy of the Museum, I can't recall actually talking about my published works, per se, resulting in my books, now or in the future. Listener questions were intriguing, interesting, and broadbased.

This Paracast is a rather casual, all-encompassing conversation that hits a lot of the landscape of my recent intellectual life. You might want to go watch a baseball game, instead, or read a good book. Cheers.

  NOW PLAYING! May 4, 2014 — Loren Coleman

The 1983 cover of the first edition of Mysterious America.

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John Judge, 66, Passes Away

“I tell people you can call me a conspiracy theorist if you call everyone else a coincidence theorist,” John Judge once told National Journal.

If you were around to listen to Mae Brussell's weekly radio program, World Watchers, then you know the name John Judge. He was a shining light of intelligence on her programs, and demonstrated he researched his connections deeply.

John Judge, 66, who researched the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as doing unique research on Jonestown, 9/11, and UFOs, has left the building.

Judge, the founder of the Committee on Political Assassinations and tireless activist for open government, has died. John had a stroke this past winter but had improved to the point where he was moved to a rehabilitation center where he suddenly passed away on apparently the first night he was there, on April 15, 2014.

John Patrick Judge was born Dec. 14, 1947, in the District, and he grew up in Falls Church, Va. Both his parents worked at the Pentagon.

The Washington Post recalled John Judge thusly,

Through years of investigation and activism, Mr. Judge developed a devoted following in the community of skeptics who question official or commonly accepted narratives of the past. He co-founded and directed the Coalition on Political Assassinations, an organization whose activities include investigating the deaths in the 1960s of John Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and black nationalist leader Malcolm X. News outlets, with some frequency, featured Mr. Judge and his work.
He turned his Washington home into a repository of thousands of volumes and documents on political assassinations and other matters, supporting himself over the decades through odd jobs and fundraising work. He was once described as a “professional conspiracist,” but he considered himself an “alternate historian,” according to his Web site,judgeforyourself.org.
“I tell people you can call me a conspiracy theorist if you call everyone else a coincidence theorist,” Mr. Judge quipped to the publication National Journal.
His most noted work involved President Kennedy’s death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Like legions of others doubters labeled conspiracy theorists, Mr. Judge rejected the Warren Commission’s finding that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the lone gunman. Read more here.

The 21st Century Wire called Judge the "Godfather of Alternative Media," and noted that

Judge also served as a Congressional aid to firebrand Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney from Georgia. Author Daniel McAdams knew Judge and commented in his passing, “We had the pleasure of working briefly with John while he served as Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s aide in Congress. He would occasionally come by the office and I recall being so enormously impressed by his fierce intelligence and his great courage. In a world dominated by 20-something staffers who in the main were convinced they ruled the world but whose arrogance was only matched by their ignorance, you can imagine what a treat it was when John Judge stopped by. He was a giant and he will be greatly missed.”

...

McKinney’s eulogy demonstrates the measure of the man, "It is with even great sadness that I report to you the loss of my dear, dear, dear, dear friend John Judge of the 9/11 Truth Community. If ever there was a loyal friend to me, it was John Judge."

John Judge was the

...co-founder of 9/11 Citizens Watch, Judge also did investigative research on the background and details of the attacks of September 11, 2001. He worked with family members of the victims to push for a federal investigation and closely monitored the work of the 9/11 Commission.
Judge was also a co-founder of CHOICES, an organization engaged since 1985 in countering military recruitment in DC area high schools and educating young people about their options with regard to the military. Beginning with the war in Viet Nam, Judge was a life-long anti-war activist and supporter of active-duty soldiers and veterans. Your World News.

People in the conspiracy community were shocked to hear of John Judge's death. Many felt he had been recovering.

The Washington Post observed that John Judge's companion of four years, Marilyn Tenenoff of York Haven, Pennsylvania, said that Judge had a stroke in March but that the cause of death had not been determined. The D.C. medical examiner’s office had not ruled on the case, according to a spokesman.

See Marilyn Tenenoff's remembrance here.

For the "Selected Writings of John Judge," please click here.

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A Novel Death: The Second Oswald?

Gordon Novel was, to some, the perfect spy, the Second Oswald.

JFK.

David Ferrie.

Guy Banister.

Operation Mongoose.

Jim Garrison.

Clay Shaw.

New York World's Fair.

John DeLorean.

Firebomb Case.

Watergate.

Waco.

UFOs.

From Assassinations and Waco, Area 51 to Watergate,
one shadowy person always seemed to be in the middle.

Gordon Novel is dead.

The era of the "second man" lives on, even in these times of Aurora. It all began, in earnest, in the run up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy - and perhaps by a man named Gordon Novel.

Has there ever been a figure who found himself in the middle of so many conspiracies and strange topics?

Gordon Novel was born in New Orleans in 1938. According to Alan J. Weberman (in Coup D'Etat in America): "In his youth, Gordon Novel belonged to a neo-Nazi group and was arrested and charged with bombing a Metairie, Louisiana, theater that admitted blacks". In the early 1960s Novel ran an electronics firm which specialized in selling equipment used for bugging.

It was claimed by Jim Garrison that Novel was formerly a member of the Central Intelligence Agency and was an associate of Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Ferrie and Guy Banister. It was also reported that Novel worked with the Cuban Revolutionary Front during the Bay of Pigs operation via the CIA proprietary, the Evergreen Advertising Agency.
According to William Torbitt Novel had been seen by a Dallas attorney having meetings with Jack Ruby and William Seymour in the Carousel Club during October and November, 1963. Another author, Paris Flammonde (in The Kennedy Conspiracy), claims that Novel was questioned on five separate occasions following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Jim Garrison discovered that Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Ferrie and Guy Banister had been involved in a CIA operation to pick up "war material" for the Bay of Pigs attack at from the Schlumberger Well Company. Garrison subpoenaed Novel but he fled to Ohio. However, James Rhodes, the Governor of Ohio, refused to extradite him unless Garrison agreed not to question him on the assassination.
A few weeks after Novel fled from New Orleans a woman cleaning his old apartment found a penciled draft of a letter wedged under a plastic cover alongside the kitchen. The letter was addressed to a Mr. Weiss. This letter was passed to Jim Garrison who concluded that it was a letter to Novel's CIA contact. "I took the liberty of writing you direct and apprising you of current situation, expecting you to forward this through appropriate channels. Our connection and activity of that period involves individuals presently about to be indicted as conspirators in Garrison's investigation."
Novel also said in the letter: "We have temporarily avoided one subpoena not to reveal Double Chek activities or associate them with this mess. We want out of this thing before Thursday 3/67. Our attorneys have been told to expect another subpoena to appear and testify on this matter. The fifth amendment and/or immunity (and) legal tactics will not suffice." Alan J. Weberman has pointed out that E. Howard Hunt worked for Double Chek in Miami.
In an article in Ramparts Magazine, William Turner claims that Novel admitted that the pick up at the Schlumberger Well Company was one of "the most patriotic burglaries in history." Novel is also said to have confessed that on the day the munitions were picked up, he "was called by his CIA contact and told to join a group which was ordered to transport munitions from the bunker to New Orleans."
In 1974 Jack Anderson reported that as a result of Watergate break-in, Charles Colson asked Novel to build a "degaussing gun" to erase tapes stored at the CIA and the White House that would incriminate Richard Nixon.
In an interview in 2006 Novel rejected the claims that he was a CIA agent: "I’m not a CIA agent. I’m affiliated, I work with, and we have a mutual admiration society based upon my relationship with the individuals I work with.... The CIA has multiple sides but it’s been my experience over the years that they’re basically the only good guys in the entire United States government. They’re really patriots. Most of ‘em are patriots and I’ve never known... I personally have never known them to do anything criminal, ever. And they didn’t kill John Kennedy and they didn’t kill a lot of people that they’ve been accused of causing the death of but I don’t know that to be true. So I can tell you that my experience with ‘em has been like dealing with Eagle Scouts." Source.

Novel has been involved in the UFO research community. After physicist Bob Lazar went public with his claims of having back engineered flying saucers at Area 51, Novel showed up at Las Vegas, eager to meet with Lazar. Novel was interested in the mechanics of alleged anti-gravity devices....Source.

Here is the statement from his son (without photos):

Dear All,
My Dad passed away last night [October 4, 2012] in his sleep at a rest home in Los Angeles around 3:00am.
He was 74 years young...
I will be making funeral arrangements with my older sister Spirit.
We will likely hold the funeral and have him cremated in Los Angeles, then take his remains to be buried next to his Mother in Florida.
I will let you all know when we have finalized his funeral plans and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Attached is are couple of photos of Dad under a purple tree here in Thailand on the beach of Koh Chang (Elephant Island) and also playing with a Dog.
This day in Thailand was the happiest day I ever seen my Dad in my life and he told me many times later it was one of the happiest days of his life.
Dad would not have wanted to been lying in the hospital much longer than what he was, so his time has come to pass.
Thank you all for being his close friends.
Please forward this email to anyone that I missed and let them know I apologize for not ccing them.
Sincerely,
Sur Novel

Gordon Michael Dwayne Novel (February 7, 1938 - October 4, 2012)

Retired Colonel John Alexander of Los Alamos National Laboratories, Gordon Novel, and John’s wife Victoria Alexander. Photo from Jim Moseley.

Col. John Alexander is a retired military officer with unusual interests, including remote viewing and spoon bending. He is also an expert on non-lethal weapons , is allegedly a member of the MJ-12 "aviary" as the"Penguin, " and is said to have taught Neuro-Linguistic Programming to Al Gore. Gordon Novel, however, is probably more interesting. He has involved himself, over the years, in Jim Garrison's investigation into the JFK assassination, the Watergate affair, the John DeLorean affair,the Waco investigation, and the Michael Jackson case. Source.

Right before I left Las Vegas for Tibet, our good friend Gordon Novel called about his March meeting with Michael Jackson. Gordon, notoriously misidentified as “The Second Oswald” and “The Umbrella Man” in a famous assassination (regardless of what conspiracy theorists claim, Gordon denies being in Dallas that day). ~ Victoria Alexander, The Devil's Hammer.

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