Any thoughts on Allan Hendry?

Ok, so anyone who has been relatevelly savvy in the UFO history came across the "balanced" researcher Allan Hendry. If I am not mistaken he got funds through CUFOS to be in charge of a "reporting station", he would have unlimited time on the phone, and he could consult a few scientists who were specialists in a few topics, optics, radar and so on. He was an astronomer himself. I heard that Jerome Clark took him very seriously. A lot of people from the field took his report very seriously.
He claimed he was not a skeptic, he was an "open minded" person. Then he acted like a skeptic, I gave up on his report when he claimed that the Hopkinville case was a monkey who flee from a zoo. Which is pathetic. Most of his report is filled with assumpsions, still he has credibility with a few people. Hendry himself poopooed Ted Phillips (also from CUFOS) work on the remains from UFO landings.
So I will pass the ball on to you asking for your opinion.

a reply to: flamengo

Never heard of him, is he important to you?
There are lots of UFO nuts like us uot there and surely lots of payed actors.

originally posted by: flamengo
Then he acted like a skeptic, I gave up on his report when he claimed that the Hopkinville case was a monkey who flee from a zoo.

It's not so much the 'escaped monkey' explanation that attracts giggles, rather his theory that the monkey was physically painted "silver"! Presumably painted BY someone who caught the monkey by chance whilst it was making good its escape.

Which, of course, sounds like a load of bollocks. Ignoring the "silver" nonsense, this theory could have had more traction if there was a report on record by the local zoo that a chimp had indeed escaped at that time.

In theory... Chimp + Excess Booze = "ALIENZZZZ!!!!!!! GOTTA GIT MA GUN!!!"

originally posted by: flamengo
"balanced" researcher Allan Hendry...
I gave up on his report when he claimed that the Hopkinville case was a monkey who flee from a zoo.

You're saying Allan Hendry came up with that explanation?

According to this source, it wasn't Allan Hendry, it was attributed to U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert in 1957:

Hopkinsville Incident

Explanations.

* In 1957, U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert concluded that the Kelly-Hopkinsville case was the result of the witnesses seeing a "monkey painted with silver [that] escaped from a circus," and that Mrs. Lankford's imagination had exaggerated the event.

Allan Hendry was 7 years old in 1957, so if the Major is getting his information from a 7 year old, I'd pin that blame on the Major and not on the 7 year old. What makes you think it was the idea of 7 year old Allan Hendry?

a reply to: flamengo

CUFOS and Ted Phillips conducted some great research over the years so Hendry may well be wrong about that.

Thought his description of debunker Phillip Klass 'methods of investigation' were spot on though.

.Hendry objected strongly to Klass's modus operandi, which Hendry argued was based on suppressed and distorted evidence, unscientific reasoning, ad hominem attacks, smear campaigns, character assassination, scientific bait and switch tactics, and seemingly refusing to evaluate evidence that conflicted with his preconceptions.

This is all part of the Klass method of, as Hendry puts it,"using a truncated version of the information available to him and shaping it to his own ends." There is no way of winning an argument with him because, even when presented with documented evidence of the incorrectness of his position, Klass seldom concedes he is wrong. Instead he holds fiercely to a position even when it is demonstrably at variance with the facts.

Cheers.

a reply to: Arbitrageur
HE quoted this as the explanation, repeating the party line. he acted like a skeptic though saying he was not. To me he was CIA or just an ideological Skeptic under cover.

a reply to: karl 12

YEah, he denounced Klass so he gained credibility, then acted with more subtlety but eventualy to the same effect.

a reply to: Spacespider

Historically he is def important. These people shaped the history and the arguments that are floating about up to now. His negative conclusions were considered "credible" and "unbiased", though they were biased as F.

originally posted by: flamengo
a reply to: Arbitrageur
HE quoted this as the explanation, repeating the party line. he acted like a skeptic though saying he was not. To me he was CIA or just an ideological Skeptic under cover.

Please cite the source of what you're referring to, I'd like to see exactly what Hendry said. Are you sure he didn't just say that was the explanation offered by Major John E. Albert?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I took it from "The Ufo Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting Ufo Sightings" From where else could it be?
This is not unique, he spin several cases that push these absurd solutions. Take the Hill's for instance. He was extremely dismissive, and downplayed his witnesses.

originally posted by: flamengo
I took it from "The Ufo Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting Ufo Sightings" From where else could it be?

What page?
I found this on page 134 of that book where he lists the close encounters III in descending order of credibility, and the Hopkinsville case is the second one he lists, meaning it's the second most credible sounding.

This is not unique, he spin several cases that push these absurd solutions. Take the Hill's for instance. He was extremely dismissive, and downplayed his witnesses.

Well, eyewitnesses are not 100% reliable so a balanced view will never treat them as such. If you still think they are, you need to do more research.

But some are more credible and reliable than others. On page 138 Hendry expressed some concern with Betty Hill still seeing 50-100 UFOs per night! Do you consider this to be a problem with Allan Hendry, or is it a problem with Betty Hill?



These are drawings made of a structured craft some UFO eyewitnesses saw over Kiev. But what they all saw was a satellite re-entry burning up in the atmosphere, so just some points of light, the structured craft was an illusion, so we know from cases like these that taking credible eyewitness statements, or drawings, at face value, can be problematic for balanced UFO investigations.
Kiev Fireball Swarm


The Yukon case with over 30 eyewitnesses to a UFO which was described and drawn as a giant structured mothership was also a satellite re-entry.

originally posted by: Spacespider
There are lots of UFO nuts like us out there and surely lots of payed actors.

They are even posting right here on ATS.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Betty probably saw a UFO every time she opened her bloody fridge.

Regarding the Pascagoula case, Parker's sudden claim of 'special powers' and continuous alien meetings was an utterly depressing development, but even more so when co-witness Hickson (who boasted a veneer of respectability for a while) ALSO began claiming he'd had regular alien visitations since 1973, including secrets of the universe and the source for cheap energy (evidence of Dr Greer biting at his ankles?)... a once great case flushed down the toilet. I was recently flayed alive by a seething 'Believer' for doing a U-turn on that case - not a pleasant experience.

And then we have the Nimitz's boggle-eyed Radar Op Kevin Day boasting that the 'Tic Tac' granted him miraculous powers of healing and precognition (including visions of an impending apocalypse).

As I said, all very depressing.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The Yukon case with over 30 eyewitnesses to a UFO which was described and drawn as a giant structured mothership was also a satellite re-entry.

Are you sure? I didn't study that one, but there were many cases with YUGE UFOs on the Yukon, so it points towards a real phenomenon. Plus abductions, the YUGE UFO following the JAL jet and so on.

originally posted by: flamengo
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The Yukon case with over 30 eyewitnesses to a UFO which was described and drawn as a giant structured mothership was also a satellite re-entry.

Are you sure? I didn't study that one, but there were many cases with YUGE UFOs on the Yukon, so it points towards a real phenomenon. Plus abductions, the YUGE UFO following the JAL jet and so on.

There are still some die-hards who refuse to accept the truth with the Yukon case as there are still die-hards who still think Billy Meier is not a hoaxer.

But, for it to not be a satellite re-entry, the witnesses would have needed to see the satellite re-entry and also a giant mothership at the same time, and that's not what they reported. So, based on that, yes, I'm pretty sure, as sure as I can be based on the satellite data and not being there myself. There were more UFO sightings explained when the satellite data was examined.

UFO, or Satellite Re-Entry? Finally, a List!

In April, 2012, Molczan was consulted about the famous Yukon "Mothership UFO" reports of December 11, 1996, which were touted as a "Top Ten" UFO case, and strongly promoted by Stanton Friedman, the "Flying Saucer Physicist." Molczan discovered that it matched perfectly with the flaming re-entry of the second stage of the rocket that had launched the Russian satellite Cosmos 2335 earlier that day. I wrote a Blog entry about this, with emphasis on the spurious details that had been added to the reports.

Previous to this, Molczan had little interest in, or exposure to, UFO reports, although a few of us skeptics had been in occasional contact with him. But this incident piqued his curiosity, and he began to investigate: how many other reported UFO cases can be tied to satellite re-entries? Apparently, the answer was, "lots," and the result was this list, the first of its kind. It hopes to list every natural satellite re-entry (a naturally-decaying orbit, as opposed to controlled re-entries) that has been visually observed, and reported. It now runs to 20 pages of reports.

So in addition to the Yukon UFO, there are dozens of other cases which match the satellite re-entry data.

So you might think dozens of cases doesn't add up to much number-wise in the scheme of thousands of unexplained cases. That's a fair assessment based on the number of cases and that also means many cases are NOT satellite re-entries, but still, the impact of this data is quote profound on how we should now judge eyewitness reliability, when we have multiple examples of cases like in Yukon and Kiev showing how many phenomena eyewitnesses judged as "credible" can mis-perceive.

JAL1628, I did a lot of research on that case, and you will get a lot of misinformation in the various documentaries about it. I'll bet you didn't know that someone found a satellite photo that matches the description of the "mothership" UFO the captain and crew gave how the radar return of the UFO. And I'll also bet you didn't know that the pilot and co-pilot didn't agree on the so-called "radar confirmation". Early in the flight the visual and radar return were in the same general direction, more or less ahead of the plane, but as the flight progressed, the directions diverged, and the co-pilot said he did not think the visual UFO and the radar return were the same object (which apparently the captain did). Careful analysis of the transcripts where the pilot reported directions, combined with the satellite photo showing what caused the radar return, support the co-pilot's view.

I can tell you the data do not support what the popular media claim, that the UFO was "following the JAL jet". Rather, the radar returns from the aircraft were consistently in the location of the object on satellite imagery, that the plane requested a course deviation to fly around, and that did not follow the plane. The other, visual UFO, was in a different direction later in the flight, and they kept calling out the heading of that visual UFO multiple times during the flight, and the headings all intersect at a very well lit place that generated a lot of lights that seem to match the captains description and drawings.

I plotted all those directions they called out from the transcript on a map based on Air traffic data of their plane's locations, and they all intersected at the same place, you can see the map here if you're curious.

We have pretty decent evidence for the source of the radar return on the airplane. The visual sighting all coming from the same direction as a source of bright lights matching the captain's description is harder to explain how those lights appeared in the sky instead of on the ground, but we know the atmosphere can play tricks on us sometimes, as seen in this somewhat different example of things which are actually on the ground, appearing in the sky:

www.caelestia.be...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2513e065cb52.jpg[/atsimg]

"This photo was published in the January 8, 2005 edition of the Mexican newspaper El Imparcial. The following "clarifications" were given: "HERMOSILLO, Sonora(PH) - More than half of a hill located on the Hermosillo coast apparently 'vanished'. (...) According to a series of images taken by EL IMPARCIAL which were classified as 'historically significant', a hill belonging to the Sierra de Cirios range near Puerto Libertad ceased to exist in a matter of hours. At 08:54 minutes yesterday, a reporter and a photographer from this newsroom saw what they took to be a UFO as they drove along Rt.36 North along the coastline. After this sighting there occurred a strange phenomenon in which rocky formations changed composition (sic). At 14:08 hours, as shown by photographs taken from the site, a considerable part of said hill disappeared". The Mexican paper published 3 of the 12 pictures that were taken by their photographer. The image above is the first of this series and apparently shows not one but two "UFOs". The second photo is very similar except that, according to the newspaper's commentator, "Matter begins to fall from the object on the left before it lands on the hilltop". A subsequent investigation, however, revealed that chunks of the hillside were not swallowed up by spacecraft, but that the hills were still perfectly intact. In reality, the photos show a typical superior mirage, whereby distant mountain tops were not only stretched out vertically, but also mirrored in the sky above. [Image found at www.ufoinfo.com; translation from Spanish: Scott CORRALES.]"

I'm not 100% sure of the JAL UFO but I'm 100% sure of the source of those UFOs in that photo, because I can explain the physics of that better than the JAL physics of atmospheric distortion. Similar atmospheric distortions happened in that area of Alaska; this was a newsletter clipping from the university there, which is kind of a fascinating story in itself, how the atmosphere can do these things over a 500 mile range:

web.archive.org...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/536f15dc7f2c.png[/atsimg]
Look at the size of the area affected!

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

There is nothing depressing about it. You should know by now that this is part of the phenomenon, it is not because this people had after effects that the experience is not true. The only thing that is playing here is your assumpton tha tthese people should behave in such and such manner. but the pattern of the encounters says otherwise.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

LOL. Sorry pal, you seem like Jim Oberg with a different name. Not taking you seriously, but thanks all the same.

And regarding his interpretation of the Hill's abduction and the Hopkisville case are bizarre, it doesn't really matter if he rates well if he spin the case. To me it is a well done sceptic job.

a reply to: karl 12

He was wrong about almost everything. Just because he said he was not an ideological sceptic, does not mean he wasn't one. One should analyse his texts and they were entailing. He was full of the sceptical negativity and was diminishing the cases, giving superficial judgment on many classical cases, same stuff sceptics do over and over.
That is actually a new class of sceptic, the ones who pretend they are not and then destroy most interesting cases applying lack of nuance or regard for the observation of the witnesses.

a reply to: flamengo

Don't know enough about the chap to label him a 'pseudo-sceptic' mate but Professor Swords does include his 'UFO Handbook' on this list (and all the other books are pretty good).

originally posted by: flamengo

That is actually a new class of sceptic, the ones who pretend they are not and then destroy most interesting cases applying lack of nuance or regard for the observation of the witnesses.

And they post right here on ATS.