Gulf Breeze UFO Flap (Part I): Ed Walters, Photos of Unusual Clarity and Hoaxes..,or not...?

a reply to: jritzmann

This makes 100% sense. The images were nearly impossible to enhance any further.

a reply to: ForteanOrg

If anyone is still having a problem with that Jack Black web page I've created a Tiny URL to make accessing it a bit easier.
Wayback Machine is a wonderful resource but ATS is very bad at rendering web page addresses from it.

Try : This Link

I have always been suspicious of Ed Walters story and the photos even when the news became mainstream back in the day. There is something not quite right about them. Jack Black's comments are quite scathing in the piece above.

The model found in Walters old home is a strange one. I haven't re-read through the case again just yet but the implication is that this model was obviously used to fake UFO photos. Walters, if I recall correctly, claims it was a plant. Of course just finding a model of a UFO is not definite proof that it was used in the photos. But, although I could never quite point the finger my gut feeling has always been that there is something not quite right about it all.

a reply to: Kandinsky and mirageman

Thanks.

Sorry for the late response - my main workstation had to have some maintenance.

I know, it's off topic. sorry. But what happened to me today should never happen to you. So a fair warning: for those of you considering an upgrade to Gnome3/Centos7: WHATEVER YOU DO, STEER CLEAR OF GNOME3. Use it just long enough to install MATE and then use that instead..

It took me the better part of the day believing that Gnome3 was responsible for a totally inadequate system performance. I mean, come on, Red Hat is pushing this ugly piece of shyte (excusez les mots) as their default desktop.. shame on them!

Anyway, it works fine now. I will give it a try later, thanks again Kandinsky and Mirageman !

a reply to: ForteanOrg

Glad you seem to be back up and running. I've never tried Linux installations to be honest.

But better keep this on topic.

Bruce Maccabee's acceptance of $20k for writing a chapter for Walter's book seems to taint the waters as well. I have no problem with people who need to make a living and we don't have to buy their product at the end of the day. In fact in this case I didn't.

But if there is one major problem in UFOlogy is that people often get sucked in to the field with genuine aspirations to get to the bottom of the mystery. But somehow they eventually lose their objectivity and continue promoting cases where often new evidence points to much more rational explanation. Without naming names it is a case of seeing too many $$$ signs and then being left having to continue preaching to the converted. I guess others simply don't want to admit they may have been wrong all along.

a reply to: cuckooold

Good question.

I do not fully know Jacques' entire take on the phenomena at Gulf Breeze. "Tommy" and his admission of hoaxing photos with Walters is sketchy at best - you don't even now these days hear much about him. I did not get to see his photos, but was told by some folks back in the day that they were rather amateurish is comparison. I do not know how true of false that is, as I was never privy to them.

There is, as I said, quite a soap opera that erupted out of the Gulf Breeze thing. I would encourage anyone who is so inclined as to find out why that is of import here, to study marginality, liminal states and anti-structural situation that are inexplicably tied to paranormal events. A warning: it is a complex situation and one that requires abstract thought (not the same old thought referred to as "out of the box" by UFOLogy and it's proponents - that isn't out of the box at all, but is it's own box) and a willingness to look at the paranormal in different ways, that are no less amazing - yet still don't give any answers per se. The point is better questions. It's too early for even hypothesis.

Here's the short version of part of those topics: the paranormal in all it's facades will always have a built in self-negating factor that renders the entire event or situation absurd. Marginal aspects, that were the story to be told in 100% unvarnished truth, you couldn't sell it to your mother.

Eventually you get to a point with this where you stop asking foolish questions like "what is it?" and start asking "what surrounds the event?" - and that's where you'll find more consistencies than you can shake a stick at.

As far as Gulf Breeze, the bizarre was in full swing there during the flap. I have often wondered, if the phenomena hides itself in the "not to be believed" - what better a place to appear than within a case where there is rampant uneducated speculation, and very little in the way of real scientific observation.

By "soap opera" I mean that there were separations of marriages and extra-marital affairs going on among the skywatchers in Gulf Breeze. There was backstabbing and infighting, and there was rumor and innuendo that culminated in a breakdown of the community involved in looking for UFOs. Such effects are also noted in paranormal cases across the board. It's a product of being out of routine, or in "antistructured" states. You're not at home with the family eating dinner (as in routine). This UFO thing has grabbed you to the point where you skip to McD's after work and head to the park to meet up with other. You're out too late and late to work the next day - you say you're going straight home after work, but you do the same thing again. That's the start of antistructure, and antistructural actions surround paranormal events, and perhaps even manifest them. It's a chain reactive chaos.

I'll never forget Bruce and Ann Morrison saying on TV about filming "Bubba" in Shoreline Park, that they never missed a night. Holidays, Birthdays, it didn't matter - they were there searching the skies instead. Bruce said to me in Gulf Breeze when I met him, "nothing else mattered". There it is.

So, it's a little more complex than if someone faked photos or not. Lets say he did. Could there be a better cover for which the phenomena to envelope itself in? Could there be a more marginal situation? It couldn't be more perfect.

Someone asked about Bruce getting money from the case, and I don't know. I'm quite sure he spent more there then he even made, but he co-authored and that's work, so I'm sure he got paid - and why shouldn't he. But even still - does one not see the marginal aspect to that? There it is again.

The earmarks are all over this case of some seriously deeper aspects to all this. Were I to tell you the complete 100% truth of my own sighting there, I guarantee you not a soul here at ATS would believe it. Because it's stupid. Stupid as in your reply would be, "well I was with ya up until that point, but yeah...I'm totally not buying that." The phenomena reacted to my situation directly, and it was unquestionable. Again, it's a ridiculous story when it's told with 100% honesty. But it happened. One day I'll write it all out and let the chips fall.

My take on Gulf Breeze is that it did indeed happen. But it's bigger than Ed Walters, and there's plenty more to the story people don't know. What I can say after looking into the case and the history of the place is it's steeped in the elements that seem to attend paranormal manifestations. I am sure Dr. Jacques Vallee knows this too.

I should say to anyone reading this who doesn't know me from Adam, that frankly I detest the UFO field in general, and one reason is that the mainstream UFO mavens B.S. you folks so much it's not funny. They sanitize the accounts they write about in their books, and bury case information referred to as "outlier" data. It's the high weirdness that again, is part and parcel to the enigma, but renders the event absurd or too far to be believed. This doesn't sell books, and it doesn't support the already-reached conclusions of the researcher.

My job as a researcher and radio host is to bring this data set out to the public, and call for 100% accurate reporting no matter what. No matter how bizarre, or unbelievable. I do suspect there are clues and consistencies in those bits of the utterly bizarre that we need to examine. Dr. Vallee, Terence McKenna, Dr. Richard Haines, George Hansen and others have reported on this, and are unafraid to push the boundaries of thought on the subject. They were pushed back by the UFO mainstream, and so Jacques and others like him disconnect and work on their own. I have taken to doing much the same thing. UFO research has become a business, and the business is dependent on selling you all a good story. But, you're missing the good part. The phenomena is infinitely more complex and interesting once you know where to look. It's devastatingly apparent.

My friend Dr. Tyler Kokjohn had the best quote: "...the consumers of books, articles and videos play a unique and crucial role as the ultimate evaluators of quality. Your decisions will determine the evidentiary standards and research conduct that will prevail in this field."

And so now that I've gone off on this spinning tangent (Just call me "Tangent Man"), I wish you all good day.

a reply to: mirageman

Well, one of my disks almost failed - SMART disks are capable of predicting their end of life quite accurately. Normally I would have replaced just the disk and rebuild the array (my data is on software mirrors) but as I am currently enjoying my summer holiday and so have some extra time I decided to use the opportunity to replace my disks with larger ones and also upgrade my system from Centos5 to Centos7. Actually the upgrade itself went quite smooth - but after the update the system felt sluggish and consumed massive amounts of CPU cycles. So, I thought it had something to do with the fact my old ATI card is not supported anymore, but that proved to be a wrong assumption. It simply was GNOME3 that was consuming all my CPU cycles...

Ah well - 'nough said. Thanks again. I am too tired now for a proper response to your posting - but you raise a point there on which I will respond later.

a reply to: jritzmann

Excellent points and the heart of the matter... the "high strangeness" around the "true" UFO events.

My own couple sightings were rather mundane, though another witness exhibited a strange attitude... an aloofness as though they were hypnotized or something and a detached determination to forget about the whole thing... an attitude I've seen again and again and have many weird ideas as to why, but no answers.

The Gulf Breeze sightings did occur (and apparently sometimes still do). The evidence says Walters didn't fake (at least) some of his photos... but this phenomena just isn't as easy to define as being some ET from Proxima Centauri or some black ops people with super tech.

At its heart... it's just really, really strange.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this discussion so far. A lot of interesting information I was unaware of has surfaced, and the conversation has been very open, friendly, and welcoming of new information.

After a comment by J.Ritzmann regarding Tommy Smith, I decided to see if there was any info about on him. I came across a website which gives some additional information to this already convoluted tale. Of particular interest is the fact that Ed Walters was running for city council against the father of Tommy Smith, perhaps giving at least a reason to want to discredit Walters.

xdell.blogspot.com.au...

Worst of all, Smith had good reason to lie against Walters. As B.J. Booth pointed out in “The Gulf Breeze, Florida UFOs,” Ed Walters was running against Smith’s father, Thomas Sr., for city council that year. Furthermore, Mayor Ed Gray and Police Chief Jerry Brown were always critical of Walters’ claims, and had supposedly demonstrated some antipathy for the man. So if someone were willing to come forth and testify that they had helped create a hoax, they would most likely promote that claim without much scrutiny. Moreover, the revelation created a double political windfall for Thomas Sr. by (1) discrediting his main opponent, and (2) depicting himself and his family as upright citizens who told the truth no matter the personal consequences.

In short, Tommy Smith had an agenda, couldn’t really describe how the photos were produced, let alone faked, and it would seem unlikely that Walters would confide in him. This led MUFON to officially adopt a “final” position on Walters’ veracity:

I'm on the way out the door, but it's definitely worth reading more of the abovementioned website. They look at both sides of the story, and give what appears to be some fairly damning evidence against both Bruce Maccabee, and Ed Walters, which I'll try to link to later on when I have more time.

Even way back in 1987 when I was starting College and had been reading the MUFON monthly news letter courtesy of my best friends dad, I was both excited and wary. I SO wanted to believe everything was legit but that itty bitty s***** commitie was whispering to me that it was too good to be true. I simply believed that if MUFON was taking it seriously so should I. And I did. In the mid 2000's I started having second thoughts when reading about the lamp shade. I know that there are a whole lot of sensitive military bases within 150 miles of each other in that area. I get the feeling we are being fed information/disinformation. Kind of perfect dont you think ?

a reply to: Attentionwandered

Wouldn't be such a hard task with Photoshop.

Funnily enough, this is the same year that The amazing program first came out.

I'm sure many UfO fakers saw the potential of that program way ahead of time...lol

Well put together OP
I'm not a regular poster in this forum , but this story fascinates me. I read his book, gulf breeze sightings.

First off that model is nothing like the UFO he photographed.
The UFO he saw doesn't not look like regular disc shape.if you are gonna fake a UFO, why make it look like that?

I saw or dreamt the exact same UFO one night

Now I had never watched UFO shows. None of that. I had no interest. In fact I had drawn a picture of it because it was too hard to describe. I gave that to john Mack. Wish I kept t.

One night I woke up in a complete panic. I saw this UFO outside my bedroom window. Very clear. Maybe it was a dream. It had to be. The opening glowed a brilliant white. Whitest of whites. I could see every detail. It was not very big. Like no way could there be occupants in it, unless they are much smaller than us. It looked to be a silvery dark pewter like metal. Not shiny. It was banged up, dented. The rim of lights were not lights but portholes that just reveal something illuminated behind the holes inside. It had the little thing on top. It just hovered. I was terrified because I thought the big white opening at the bottom took people away in it.

The next morning, I dismissed it as a dream, because the idea was stupid to think UfO's come by your bedroom and take you away. As if. I cannot believe I am so scared of a dream. Besides that thing looked so fake! They aren't shaped like that.

It wasn't until years later I saw this gulf breeze photo in the book that I freaked out, that's the UFO I saw! How I got this book is very strange. I prefer to leave this part out.

Let me be clear that when I read this book, I also read others and became very convinced UfO's were real, I had been abducted. All of it. I talked to Budd Hopkins and be convinced me I was telling the truth. I told him everything.

At a later point I gave up those thoughts. Decided I had fallen for a stupid idea and had in fact been tricked into doing so. I concluded they must just be demons tormenting me or very evil aliens.

Onto his book. It scared me. The aliens he described seemed mean, mischievous and bent on tormenting him. Much the same as I experienced. I was tormented for a good 10 yrs. then it abruptly stopped, but I thought it stopped because I refused to believe. Refusing to believe caused more paranormal events. Unexplainable ones that I prefer to think I imagined.

Anyways I don't want to go into my silly story much more than this.

From 4.42 onwards---->

originally posted by: cuckooold

HOAXED....... or not?

Great thread and an interesting case I'd never heard

This picture is the dodgiest if I was to pick out of them.
It looks like a reflection, almost like a light shade.

The others have me baffled.

Funny that everything in this flying object from the bottom part all the way up to the ridiculous top pimple glows with the same intensity and same color, like it was a lantern with a bulb inside. Looks like everything burns inside from the engine power, together with aliens

a reply to: iknowyou

The pimple part (can’t speak for the rest of the structure) recalls to mind the UFO described by Professor Robert Jacobs (then Lieutenant Jacobs) from the Big Sur UFO filming incident (1964), that shot beams of some nature at an ICBM missile, effectively disabling it.

"Now the thing that we saw, this object that flew in, was circular, was shaped like two saucers cupped together with a ping-pong ball on top."

Great post. Thanks for raising this case ; I read a book years ago about the gulf breeze incident ; and remember the high quality color photos clearly.

The case for the photos (NOT) being fake:
#1. The original photos were Polaroid's ; thus nearly impossible to fake.

#2. The photos featuring the "beam" coming down from one of these ships would be very difficult to fake.

#3. Multiple witnesses. Everyone makes huge cases like the Gulf B. incident about a certain person, instead of focusing on the fact that we had multiple witnesses observing this phenomenon in the same general area. Why make this about Ed Walters ? It was seen by so many more than him, and even in groups.

#4. Witnesses for the most part in an intellectual capacity are leaning towards stern, calm, collected --- not flighty, or giving the impression of "strange ufo people". For multiple witness testimony see: www.youtube.com...


Just my two cents,

I have always been a follower of the GB incident. It was the big flap in the late 80’s that got the “X-files” wave going.
UFO’s became mainstream and many of the concepts that we hold to be UFO fact came into the lexicon at that time.
I recall they had annual conventions in GB after this took off and I tried to get to one but could not spare the funds being a broke college kid.
At a convention in Atlanta I met a MUFON representative who detailed the case and many others. He had worked on the case but for the life of me I can’t recall his name. At that time he presented several pieces of evidence that had not made it out into the mainstream. This was shortly after the model had been found and he spoke of that saying in his opinion the model was not something Ed did. I can’t recall anything he presented that has not come out over the years but it was very compelling at the time.
I was fully prepared to accept everything at face value in those days regarding the Nuts and Bolts theory. These days I lean very far into JR’s camp in that I believe these events have a lot of paranormal elements that just don’t fit that concept totally.
I do believe that Ed took photos of something and was not a hoaxer. Its possible that he was a victim in another AFOSI operation. The problem with this idea is that the logic does not hold. If this was indeed military Intelligence attempting to provide cover for black projects they did the exact opposite. They drew people there in droves to witness whatever it was they were doing. The attempt to produce Walters as a witness and then publically humiliate him to discourage other witnesses did not work. Unless the project was to draw people there to induce a “flap”.
All in all it is still an enigmatic case that is much bigger than Walters and one that I love to read about. Good thread.

I see Jerry Black's name mentioned here so I figured I'd chime in.

I corresponded with Jerry Black years ago and found him to be quite terse and hard to deal with. I was asking (very politely) for the analysis report on the images where he said the polaroid film (the peel apart used in the GB photos) could overprint black *over* light exposed film. He could not, or would not account for my very simple request.

The reason I asked about this aspect was because I found it to be incredulous that light sensitive emulsion film could overprint black upon a lighted exposed area of the film. Black claimed this effect from the first sequence of Walter's photos where the tree partially obscures the object.

All further requests for clarification of this matter were ignored.

Black could also not account in any meaningful way for the "light beam" which in the schoolyard shot passed over open sky and trees, yet retained the same luminosity, or density. If this were a double exposure as he claimed, the beam would be of greater density over the sky than the dark trees. Again, he would not, or could not answer the question.

In the end I found his research to be highly dubious and it seemed to fit squarely into the fundamentalist skeptic (everyone is wrong and I'm right - at all costs, even the truth) category. I never communicated with him again and threw out anything I'd collected of his arguments. If you can't provide data to very modest requests for clarifications, then I'm sorry, but you're playing a game I'm not interested in.

JR

Do people not remember that the paper used to make the model was Ed's own drawings for a customer? It was proven this model was a plant because the drawings were dated after he moved from the house.

a reply to: Oouthere


A valid point people often forget. Also of note is that the reporter knew precisely where to look. Curious no?

Remember, Gulf Breeze turned into a Peyton Place soap opera, with backstabbing and rumor mongering running rampant. That people tried to accuse or set up Walters as a fraud should come as no surprise to anyone.

JR