Posts Tagged ‘part’
May 29th, 2012 | 
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A PM's guide to political lexicon, Part 5
Free Malaysia Today Today – with the loss of your news monopoly, the advent of WikiLeaks and the big coffeeshop in the sky – everyone knows for a fact there never was such an era. The reason for stating the obvious is to do it before anyone else does, and burnish your … |
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Dear readers,
Adelaide today, is experiencing the start of “winter” (it’s still autumn) rains, with heavy falls all over the city. So, I thought I’d find a nice indoor location to finish what has turned out to be a four part post on James E McDonald as seen through the perspective of Jacque Vallee’s diaries.
Chicago. Monday 17 July 1967
“McDonald continues to act like a bull in a china shop. Not only is he telling every journalist he knows that the United Nations wants to undertake a “discreet” (!) study on UFOs, he is instructing everyone to send massive amounts of UFO magazines and books to the “Moscow Committee for UFO Studies.” ” (p.297.)
Saint Germain. Thursday 9 May 1968
On the issue of the Condon committee’s revelation over the Low memo. “Now I have learned how the expose unfolded. It appears that a meeting took place in Boulder, gathering all the critics of the Condon committee including Hynek and McDonald. But it is only after Hynek’s departure that Saunders told McDonald about the memo, which had been discovered by staffer Ray Craig. Jim caught fire, charged ahead and used the memo immediately, in his typical “elephant in a china shop” fashion.” (p.347.)
Willingboro. Sunday 2 March 1969
Writing after the release of the Condon report. “Jim McDonald is expected to write a formal critique on behalf of NICAP. Always the same old maneuvers: These people have understood nothing, nothing at all.” (p.384.)
Belmont. Friday 7 May 1971
Professor James McDonald of the University of Arizona, who has become such a prominent advocate of UFO reality since the late sixties, has shot himself in the head. Allen just told me the very sad news. He isn’t dead but will remain blind for the rest of his life. There is much speculation about the reasons for this failed suicide attempt. McDonald recently testified before the Senate, opposing the supersonic airplane…The media, gleefully, didn’t fail to stress that this was the same professor McDonald who “believed in little green men.” His colleagues shook their heads sadly, noting “you see, that’s what happens when you get mixed up in all those stories.”
Allen was shaken up in spite of his dislike for the man…I pointed out to him that we both had a solid sense of humor, a trait which had always been missing from Jim’s personality.” (p477.)
Belmont. Wednesday 16 June 1971
Jim McDonald has killed himself. His body was found in the Arizona desert. Janine and I can’t shake the depression that this news has precipitated.” (p.482.)
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Dear readers,
This is the third post in my series taking a look at James E McDonald, as viewed through the eyes of Jacques Vallee’s diaries.
Chicago. Sunday 23 July 1966.
Speaking of Hynek’s forward to his book “Challenge.”
“Why should he be defensive before McDonald? It is to the public that he owes an explanation. McDonald, who is fast becoming the darling of the ufologists, is only another demagogue.” (p.198.)
Chicago. Sunday 24 July 1966.
“I am finishing the study of the Air Force files for 1951. I find landings and large cigar-shaped objects, just as in Aime Michel’s classic work. I am beginning to think like McDonald: how could Hynek have missed this?” (p.199.)
Chicago. Tuesday 26 July 1966.
Speaking of Hynek. “He is still worried about McDonald, who gives orders at Wright Field as if he owned the base.” (p.200.)
Chicago. Friday 7 October 1966.
“In the midst of all this Jim McDonald is trying hard to recapture the attention of the media, which is slipping away from him. He is now telling the press what he secretly believed all along: Flying saucers are extraterrestrial spacecraft. Big deal. He does not have any evidence to support his statement, so he has very little impact except among the small circle of the ufologists, who were already convinced. In the scientific world he carries far less weight now than he did last spring. Besides, the gossip in Arizonia academic circles is that his wife doesn’t believe in UFOs.” (p.223.)
Chicago. Tuesday 17 October 1966.
“Jim McDonald was going through O’Hare tonight. He took the time to call me, at the end of a gray cold day. He seemed much more calm than last time, perhaps because his personal position is now a matter of public record. He wanted to know what was happening behind the scenes in France. I gave him a vague answer, without mentioning how high our contacts went. He told me he felt good about the Colorado team, given Condon’s reputation as an intellectually independent man…McDonald only regrets seeing no field experienced scientist on the team…” (p.223.)
Chicago. Wednesday 29 March 1967.
“This evening, McDonald called me to say he was coming to Chicago in three weeks. he wanted to meet with me to discuss the results of my last trip to France. he is still trying to bring me into his team…The man is sure of himself as ever, he keeps telling everybody what to do. He has lost nothing of his arrogance.” (p.249.)
Chicago. Sunday 16 April 1967.
Vallee was sorting papers at Hynek’s house. “…I stumbled on something I felt was important. I found it among the relics of Project Henry. It was a simple letter dated 1954.
It came from a cloud physicist at the University of Chicago who was studying for a doctorate at the time. Together with three other physicists he had seen a bright unidentified object in the sky above Arizona. The letter gave precise details and calculations. It was signed James McDonald.” (p.255.)
Chicago. Tuesday 18 April 1967.
“At lunch today I brought Bill Powers up to date. He told me he placed no trust in McDonald. “All his views are negatively oriented,” he observed. “He doesn’t propose anything concrete, otherwise he would just do it and move forward. All he does is to complain and criticize.” (p.256.)
Chicago. Saturday 22 April 1967.
“Jim speaks today before the annual meeting of American newspaper editors. He has sent me the advance text of his remarks. This time all the cards are on the table. He repeats loudly what we have been saying in private about the Air Force, which he accuses of negligence, and about Menzel whom he practically calls incompetent. he also comes close to calling Hynek a coward…he accuses Menzel of not conducting a proper quantitative study, but he is guilty of the same thing. One minute he makes a big show of blowing up the doors that we have already forced open, the next he rushes forward crazily and hits his head against solid brick walls.” (p.257.)
Chicago. Sunday 23 April 1967.
“In the evening Jim McDonald came over to Bryn Mawr…I hadn’t seen McDonald in a year or so. I thought he looked much older, and he seemed to have lost some weight. He told us frankly that his press conference, without being a complete fiasco, had not led to the major fight he had been hoping for. Menzel had skilfully avoided him. Klass had wasted his time. Quintilla had not contradicted him. Reporters in the audience had asked questions that were too limited in scope….” (p.258.)
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The Guardian |
Activists hail victory after New York judge blocks part of NDAA law
The Guardian Among those celebrating victory were the leftist academic Noam Chomsky, Icelandic politician and WikiLeaks supporter Brigitta Jónsdóttir and the Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges. Activists are now preparing for a government appeal by vetting … |
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Armenian Weekly |
Kings of Spades (Part 1): Fantasies of Sovereignty in a Pathology Plot
Armenian Weekly The first represents the Armenian Diaspora, and the second, politicized Kurds, in two telling fantasies that have adorned the pages of Taraf, the sometime-contrarian Turkish newspaper, which recently boasted the Wikileaks first-publication rights in … |
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Posted in WikiLeaks in the news |
Tags: Armenian, Fantasies, Kings, part, Pathology, Plot, Sovereignty, Spades, weekly |
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Review: Faversham Garden Party 2012 Part 1 with DJ Sneak, Huxley and Ben UFO
Skiddle.com Unfortunately this meant we missed most of Ben UFO's set which by all accounts top quality. To recap; a thoroughly enjoyable day further building on the credibility gained in previous years. The opening garden party is a must in any clubber's summer … |
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Posted in UFO's in the news |
Tags: 2012, Faversham, garden, Huxley, part, party, review-, Skiddle.com, Sneak |
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Dear readers,
This post will continue from my previous one (click here) which started taking a look at what Jacques Vallee’s diaries told us about James E McDonald, as seen from Vallee’s perspective.
“Chicago. Thursday 9 June 1966.
…Afterwards Hynek bought me lunch…Naturally we compared notes about McDonald, and we discovered we had the same impression: extremely positive and enthusiastic at first, then a certain feeling of mistrust towards the man, an uneasy reaction that was hard to define.” (p.188.)
“Chicago. Sunday 12 June 1966.
Tomorrow Hynek goes to Wright Field to meet with the Base Commander, General Cruikshanks. He wants to find out just how impressed he was with McDonald’s arguements…In his answer the Secretary of the Air Force says he has “Carefully studied” his ideas: indeed the Air Force will go ahead with university-based investigations, which McDonald wanted to scratch as academic, worthless and irrelevant.” (p.188.)
“Chicago. Thursday 16 June 1966.
…Hynek seems more preoccupied and tense than ever. The source of his worries is McDonald’s abrasive, insulting ways, so diametrically opposed to his own gentle and witty personality. I pointed out that McDonald’s radicalism would in fact make the way smoother for him. He is preparing a lecture before the American Optical Society in which he will argue that a serious, sober study is needed. In contrast, McDonald now advocates throwing everything overboard.” (pp188-9.)
“Chicago. Thursday 23 June 1966.
Hynek can’t sleep anymore, caught as he is between McDonald’s vitriolic attacks and the Air Force’s desertion…Finally he picked up the phone and woke up the Lorenzens to share his distress with them. They told him that Jim McDonald had had a strong interest in UFOs for the last four years. So, why is he pretending to have suddenly “discovered” a scandal? Why has he picked Hynek as his primary target?” (p.192.)
“Chicago. Sunday 26 June 1966.
Jim McDonald called me yesterday from Tucson to get more data about power failure cases. We ended up spending an hour on the phone talking about the general situation of the field. He confessed to me that his radical campaign bore little fruit so far. He acknowledged he had not succeeded in convincing Kuiper either. Even his friend Brian O’Brien, with whom he had another meeting last Friday, remains skeptical. One would think he would learn something from this. Yet he continues to claim that the lack of interest in the subject among scientists is all Hynek’s fault. He has clearly been indoctrinated by the folks at NICAP especially Keyhoe and Hall. In a conversation with McDonald, Hall has even insinuated that Hynek doesn’t really know much about the UFO problem, and that he had only done research on “five or six cases,” which is patently false. Hyneck’s only interest in the whole thing, Hall told McDonald, is the money he gets from the Air Force!…Jim tries to recruit me for his camp.
“If it wasn’t for your influence, and all the research you brought over from France, Hynek would still be arguing that ninety-nine percent of those reports are due to Venus or to marsh-gas!” he said. “It’s time for you to move on.”
Yet I don’t see what good McDonald’s approach will do, if he keeps behaving like a bull in a china shop.” (p.195.)
“Chicago. Sunday 10 July 1966.
…when I think about the coming year it seems probable that the UFO scene will now be narrowed to two main groups…On one side will be the university group that will be funded by the Air Force, and on the other side NICAP which will find a strong supporter in McDonald. I think he has enough ambition to see the UFO problem as a springboard that can send him to the foremost echelon in American science.
The other day he told me on the phone that “Hynek’s hesitation demonstrated he wasn’t the man of the situation.” The implication was that he Jim McDonald was the one who should lead ufology to its ultimate victory and that I should rally under his banner. He certainly is a true man of action, capable of organizing a vast campaign, leaving no detail uncovered. He does not have Hynek’s subservient attitude towards power, his obsequiousness towards the military. For example, McDonald has clearly seen through Hynek’s harmless pleasure at having a jeep and a driver at his disposal in Michigan. What he fails to recognize in Hynek are the other important and subtle traits in his character…Where was McDonald all these years?” (p.197.)
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Inn of the Ozarks UFO Conference 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
8:00 am Registration and vendor area open
8:45-9:00 am – Forest Crawford – Welcome and Remarks
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Tags: arkansas-, conference, eureka, ozark, part, springs |
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shropshirelive.com (press release) |
Phil Hoyle's Shropshire UFO Casebook – Part 8 – The cigar shaped UFO
shropshirelive.com (press release) In this Shropshire UFO casebook for shropshirelive.com, UFO researcher Phil Hoyle tells of one man's UFO encounter with a cigar shaped craft on the Shropshire border. Another Shropshire hot spot runs down the Shropshire Powys border from Oswestry to … |
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Dear readers
Adelaide has slipped into its third month of autumn, bringing rain with it. Our climate is technically classed as “Mediterranean,” meaning that we have long hot summers, and rain falls mainly in our winter time. So autumn rain is always most welcome.
I have been closely following the postings of my co-blogger, Keith Basterfield, on the work of Dr James E McDonald, through Ann Druffel’s book “Firestorm.” As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a keen student of the work of Jacques Vallee. Druffel cites Vallee’s comments about McDonald in “Firestorm.”
I thought it might be useful to bring out my copy of Vallee’s “Forbidden Science: Journals 1957-1969,” (published by North Atlantic Books. Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-55643-125-2) to see what Vallee himself wrote about McDonald. As few people seem to have copies of Vallee’s Journals, I’d like to share references from the book with readers.
“Chicago. Wednesday 8 June 1966.
A major event has happened in the last few days. A friend of Brian O’Brien has launched a bold new campaign that is taking everybody by surprise. His name is James McDonald, forty-five years old, professor of atmospheric physics at the University of Arizona. Having suddenly become interested in the subject, he read many books, including Anatomy and decided to do his own research. Through O’Brien he asked to be authorized to spend two days at Wright Field. He began by requesting to be shown all the cases of “globular lightning.” He was amazed and horrified at what he saw; case after case that obviously had nothing at all to do with electrical discharges in the air. So he asked to see more and started reading the general files, getting increasingly upset as he kept on reading.
McDonald moved very fast once he realized, as he told us bluntly, “that the explanations were pure bullshit.” So he bypassed the Major and went straight to the General who heads up the base, to tell him exactly what he thought of Blue Book. After forty-five minutes, which is much longer than Hynek ever spent with the General, they were talking about the humanoid occupants! Then he flew back to Arizona and started contacting all the amateur investigators, one by one, from APRO to NICAP. He made an appointment to see Hynek.
We have just had lunch with McDonald today, and it is clear that an entire era has come to a crashing end. This man has many contacts, many ideas, and he is afraid of nothing.
He reached the campus about 11:30 and Hynek took him on a tour of the observatory. At noon I went to pick them up, and I drove them back to Hynek’s office, where we all sat down. McDonald signed the Guest book, and I presented him with a copy of Phenomenes Insolites.
After that the serious business began, with a forceful attack against Hynek.
“How could you remain silent so long?”
I jumped in before a fight could erupt.
“If Allen had taken a strong position last year the Air Force would have dropped him as a consultant and we wouldn’t be here talking about the phenomenon.”
McDonald brushed aside my comment.
“I’m not talking about last year. It’s in 1953 that Allen should have spoken out! Public opinion was ready for a serious scientific study.”
“In 1953 I was nothing, a negligible quantity for the Air Force,” replied Hynek. “Ruppelt regarded me with considerable misgivings, as a first class bother. He didn’t like to have a scientist looking over his shoulder.”
“Yet he says some nice things about you in his book.”
“That didn’t stop him from playing very close to the chest whenever I was around. He didn’t let me see his cards.”
The debate remained on that level, with McDonald insisting that Hynek had a duty to say something while Hynek would only concede that he had been “a little timid.”
Bill and I kept trying to explain to McDonald that any forceful statement by Hyenk would have thrown him out of the inner circle. It could even have precipitated a decision by some General to put the files into the garbage.
Eventually we set aside our differences and the four of us went to lunch. At the restaurant the discussion became more constructive. Hynek retraced in detail the real history of Project Blue Book, truly an incredible tale. Thus he explained how, following Ruppelt’s departure, he had seen a succession of unqualified, uninterested officers at the head of Blue Book. He was almost never invited to give an opinion. Hardin neglected his duties completely, he said. He spent all his time following the stock market while waiting for retirement. Indeed, today he runs a brokerage office. McDonald was astonished, although he ought to have some experience of how the military runs. I can see how difficult it will be for the public to understand the situation, when the history of this incredible period finally gets written down.” (Vallee, pp186-187.)
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