Friday, October 01, 2010

“Skeptical” Group CSI Comments on the Recent UFO-Nukes Connection Press Conference at the National Press Club

Debunkers Have Begun Their Propaganda




The Propaganda Push-Back Has Begun
By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
9-30-10

     The debunkers have begun their propaganda push-back, in response to my press conference at the National Press Club on Monday, during which six former USAF officers and one former enlisted man spoke about UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites. Skeptical Inquirer managing editor Benjamin Radford has just posted an article here, in which he tries his best to discredit the USAF witnesses' testimony.

Skeptical Inquirer is published by the group Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) which used to be the Committee for the Scientific Investigations of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). As I discovered years ago, the organization has some rather interesting and largely-unpublicized connections with the US government's nuclear weapons program--although one will have to look really hard to find any information relating to that.

In response to Radford's post, I wrote:
Benjamin Radford neglected to mention that he is the managing editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, published by the "UFO-skeptical" group CSI. Radford also failed to mention that the executive editor of the magazine, Kendrick Frazier, worked as a PR Specialist at Sandia National Laboratories--one of the US government's largest nuclear weapons labs--for more than 20 years although, with rare exceptions, he seemed shy about acknowledging that fact.

Moreover, a leading CSI member, James Oberg, once worked with classified nukes-related secrets while in the Air Force and once privately chastised another former USAF officer, Dr. Bob Jacobs, for leaking information pertaining to the nukes-related Big Sur UFO incident. As I have written elsewhere:

“Many years ago, I discovered that Kendrick Frazier was in fact employed—beginning in the early 1980s—as a Public Relations Specialist at Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yes, the same Sandia Labs that has been instrumental to the success of America’s nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s, through its ‘ordinance engineering’ of components for bomb and missile warhead systems.

Interestingly, Skeptical Inquirer's publisher's statement, or ‘masthead’, which appears at the beginning of each issue, never once mentioned Frazier's employment at the highly-secretive, government-funded laboratory. Instead, the magazine merely listed, and continues to list, his profession as "science writer"—a reference to his having written several books and articles on various scientific subjects. Also curious is the fact that various online biographies on Frazier—including one written by himself—also fail to mention his two-decade tenure at Sandia Labs. An odd omission indeed.

Consequently, here is the situation: In what is arguably the most dramatic nuclear weapons-related UFO incident ever revealed [Big Sur], two former U.S. Air Force officers—Lt. Bob Jacobs and Maj. Florenze Mansmann—insist that one of our experimental nuclear warheads was actually shot down by a flying saucer. And who is responsible for publishing the first debunking article about the Big Sur incident, in which it is claimed that the UFO encounter never happened? Why, a PR guy working for the U.S. government’s nuclear weapons program!

Furthermore, the CSICOP-Nukes Connection does not end with Kendrick Frazier. James Oberg, one of CSI-CSICOP's leading UFO debunkers, once did classified work relating to nuclear weapons at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, located at Kirtland AFB, just down the road from Sandia Labs.

From 1970-72, Oberg was an Air Force officer whose assignments with the Battle Environments Branch at the weapons lab involved the development and utilization of computer codes related to the modeling of laser and nuclear weapons. Oberg also served as a “Security Officer” while at the weapons lab and was, therefore, responsible for monitoring the security procedures used to safeguard the classified documents generated by his group.

After Bob Jacobs went public with the UFO shoot-down story, Oberg wrote to him, chastising Jacobs for revealing top secret information. In his MUFON UFO Journal article, Jacobs wrote that after he broke his silence, ‘I was contacted by a variety of investigators, buffs, cranks, proponents and detractors alike. James Oberg, a frequent mouthpiece for certain NASA projects and self-styled UFO Debunker wrote to disparage my story and to ask provocatively, ‘Since you obviously feel free to discuss top secret UFO data, what would you be willing to say about other top secret aspects of the Atlas warhead which you alluded to briefly...?’ I told Mr. Oberg where to put his misplaced cynicism.’

Despite Oberg’s charge, Jacobs has correctly pointed out that because Major Mansmann had told him that the UFO encounter ‘never happened’, he had no personal knowledge of the classification level attached to the incident.

In any event, it is almost certain that Oberg would not have criticized Jacobs for exposing ‘top secret UFO data’, had he known that Jacobs would subsequently publish his remark. So, here we have one of CSICOP’s leading UFO debunkers—whose public stance is that UFOs don’t even exist—angrily asking Jacobs in a private letter whether he would also openly discuss ‘other’ top secret aspects of the missile test. Once a Security Officer always a Security Officer, I guess.

For his part, CSICOP’s chief UFO-debunker, the late Philip J. Klass, aggressively hounded Dr. Jacobs after he published the warhead shoot-down story, going so far as to write a derisive letter to Jacobs’ department chairman—Dr. R. Steven Craig, Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, University of Maine—in which Klass accusingly questioned professor Jacobs’ fitness as a representative of the academic community.

Jacobs’ understandably indignant response to Klass, titled, ‘Low Klass: A Rejoinder’, may be found online. It is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the behind-the-scenes battle that ensued after Jacobs went public with the UFO incident.

Among other subjects, the rejoinder touches on acrimonious correspondence between Jacobs and Klass. At one point, after Dr. Jacobs ignored Klass’ repeated demands that he respond to the debunker’s charges, Klass offered character references, citing Admiral Bobby R. Inman (USN Ret.)—the former Director of the National Security Agency, who also held Deputy Director positions at both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency—and Lt. General Daniel O. Graham (USA Ret.), the former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Klass not only provided Jacobs with their names, but home addresses as well, and told him, ‘Both men have worked with me and gotten to know me in my efforts for Aviation Week.’

The character references provided by Klass are certainly interesting, given his stock response over the years to those who questioned his motives. Whenever he was confronted with the charge that he was not really a UFO skeptic, but a disinformation agent for the U.S. government, Klass would always recoil indignantly and ridicule the notion. So who does he choose to present as character references in his letter to Jacobs? Two of the top intelligence officers in the U.S. government.”
So, LiveScience, I just thought you might like to know about all of this. Interesting how Radford quickly publishes his attempted debunking of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites shortly after my press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. His comments are inaccurate and misleading. For a clearer perspective on the UFO-Nukes Connection (devoid of spin by folks who worked for the US government's nukes program and their associates) please visit my website www.ufohastings.com. My article "UFO Sightings at ICBM Sites and Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas" is a good intro to the topic.

Robert Hastings

END OF MY POST ON LIVE SCIENCE

I am asking persons who read this to keep an eye out for me and to report any other articles critical of the UFO-Nukes Connection press conference posted by CSI members Benjamin Radford, Kendrick Frazier, James Oberg, James McGaha, and others. Please notify me at ufohastings@aol.com. Thank you.

1 comment :

  1. Ah, smears, conspiracy, yes, yes. Excellent evidence. Good work. I'm convinced.

    ReplyDelete

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