The UFO Challenge – Stanton Friedman

I would assume most readers are familiar with Stanton Friedman but for those who aren’t his Wiki page is as good a place to start as any. en.wikipedia.org...

He is a firm believer in the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis, that aliens have been visiting the earth and that the US and possibly other governments are involved in a “Cosmic Watergate” as he calls it.

Of all UFO writers/researchers he is arguably the most recognizable face around the world due to his many appearances at conferences, on TV, radio and podcasts and continuous writing career on the subject. Friedman is maybe best known for his work on Roswell, the Betty and Barney Hill abductions ,the MJ-12 documents and his fierce criticism of Bob Lazar and his claims about Area 51.


His opponents argue that he is simply milking a topic for all it is worth and preaching to the converted with the same ingredients served up time and again. He likes to be called a nuclear physicist to this day despite leaving the field in 1970.


So I’ve posted this to discuss points Friedman has made in an article on his personal website. It was written way back in 1997 but I don’t think Stan has wavered from these opinions since then.

Source: www.stantonfriedman.com...

His main standpoints in the article (or Stan points )

As a nuclear physicist who has had a serious interest in flying saucers since 1958, I have reached four major conclusions:

1. The evidence is overwhelming that Planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. In other words, SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. Most are not.

2. The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate, meaning that some few people in major governments have known since July, 1947, when two crashed saucers and several alien bodies were recovered in New Mexico, that indeed SOME UFOs are ET. As noted in 1950, it’s the most classified U.S. topic.

3. None of the arguments made against conclusions One and Two by a small group of debunkers such as Carl Sagan, my University of Chicago classmate for three years, can stand up to careful scrutiny.

4. The Flying Saucer story is the biggest story of the millennium: visits to Planet Earth by aliens and the U.S. government’s cover-up of the best data (the bodies and wreckage) for over fifty years.

Since 1967 I have lectured on the subject “Flying Saucers ARE Real” at more than 600 colleges and over 100 professional groups in all fifty US states, nine Canadian Provinces, twelve cities in England and nine in other countries, with only eleven hecklers. I have also appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows. Overall, I have probably answered about 35,000 questions about UFOs and secrecy.

I find Stan an intriguing character. He articulates himself well and can be very entertaining when appearing on the TV and radio. When up against a hardened sceptic he does not back down. He often talks about the “noisy negativist” who does little work but is often allowed to have the last word in the mainstream media debunking UFO stories whilst arguing he himself studies documents, reports and witness testimony to arrive at his conclusions. He has a point there.

I’d like to question his points in the article quoted earlier.


Is the evidence overwhelming that Planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft?


Many people who have no real interest in the UFO topic are familiar with some aspects of the Roswell story. Despite that the facts of that story remain hazy to this day. We know something crashed to Earth. We know the USAAF recovered the debris. We don’t know for sure what it was and we don’t know for certain that alien bodies were recovered.

There are a number of other solid cases with more than witness testimony to suggest that the UFOs are real and leave trace evidence.

However, decades after Roswell, is it more accurate to say that there are overwhelming volumes of evidence. But none of it (available publicly) proves conclusively that UFOs are ET spacecraft?





The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate….

After WWII as the Cold War tensions mounted and UFO stories increased there was undoubtedly a campaign in the United States (which later spread to other nations) to dampen down reports of UFOs. It began with a debunking of cases with simple explanations. Eventually witnesses were ridiculed and the media has often treated the topic with a knowing smirk ever since.

There was certainly an attempt to cover up UFO stories. But this only brings more questions.

Have aliens really been recovered from crashed UFOs?

Is the United States government (or dark elements within the Military Industrial Complex) in collusion with one or more alien races?

If they are here why must their existence remain a closely guarded secret?


Stanton thinks he has the answers.




But perhaps elements of the government know little more than we do and the cover up is simply one of not wanting to admit ignorance?

Perhaps there is a need to pollute the public with tales of alien spacecraft to maintain a cover for something else, secret, but more terrestrial in nature?

Friedman also claims that none of the statements by debunkers regarding the previous two points stand up to careful scrutiny and that the Flying Saucer, alien visits and cover up were the biggest story of the millennium.

I think it’s fair to say that the man has studied his subject and has done his homework. He can engage an audience when he speaks and some of the tales he can tell are compelling. Stanton Friedman asserts that this Cosmic Watergate, aliens on earth and a secret cover-up has been enforced for 6 decades. However the real solid proof of his claims seems elusive as ever.

What do other ATS members think of Stanton Friedman and his UFO challenge?

Originally posted by mirageman

His opponents argue that he is simply milking a topic for all it is worth and preaching to the converted with the same ingredients served up time and again. He likes to be called a nuclear physicist to this day despite leaving the field in 1970.

This part I wholeheartedly agree with.
He is on the record stating he found that he could make more money working less doing UFO lectures as opposed to staying on with Nuclear Physics.

Billing himself as a nuclear physicist is like billing oneself as a sports hero for the winning point you scored in kick ball during grade school, or something else accomplished decades ago that's no longer of any relevance.

He's corrupted by the mythology and the choir he preaches to through reverse sympathetic collusion.

He's also an example of one of the biggest problems within the UFOlogy circus; the majority of the people that spin out of objectivity to chase little green men, or some other color something.

As to ETs, well, until there's acceptable unambiguous confirming evidence, UFOs = Unknown Phenomenon.
Unknown Phenomenon is a big enough bucket to hold all the little green men anyone wants to imagine, as well as any and every other possibility real and/or imaginary.

No acceptable unambiguous confirming evidence?
No ET.

Until then, ET exists in a superposition of both existing and not existing until such time as acceptable unambiguous confirming observation is recorded.

UFOs do not equal ET.
UFOs = UFOs = Unknown Phenomenon.
UFOs can get along quite swimmingly well all their own without any requirement for ET.

reply to post by mirageman


Good thread

I do believe the UFO phenomena was used by various Governments to cover their secret project tests but I don't believe that was the cause of all UFO sightings , part of me still believes we were visited in the time of High Strangeness .

Have aliens really been recovered from crashed UFOs?

I think if they were here then we probably have recovered wreckage and bodies either from malfunction of or interception of craft .

Stanton thinks he has the answers.

I don't think he has unless he can produce real evidence to back up his assertions .

But perhaps elements of the government know little more than we do and the cover up is simply one of not wanting to admit ignorance?

I think that's probably close to the truth , a few people know a little and the rest of us are scrabbling in the dark .

As for Stan himself .... I like listening to and watching his lectures but I don't see him any differently to the other UFO researcher / Author / Convention entertainers out there ...Nuclear physicist or no

reply to post by Druscilla

I think Friedman deserves a little more respect than that pathetic ridicule. It is easy to shout LGM and laugh at all the youtube videos less so for one of the few researchers who attempts to sort through all the available data to find that which may be worthy of some consideration. While conclusions are certainly still just a guessing game, here we have one researcher who should be welcomed and respected by both skeptic and believer alike.

reply to post by Druscilla


Wrong again Druscilla. Wrong. Keep trying though maybe one day you will wake up and figure this out.
look at the 1 hour and 13 minute mark where he calculates the odds of Betty hills star map. 1 in SEVERAL thousand that it be due to chance that it would match the Zeta Ridiculi star system.


You have to be a nuclear physicist to do math like that.

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


Right, like it's REALLY interesting and oh so very convenient how the Hills didn't remember anything about what "happened" until some GOVERNMENT Military Psychologists were recommended to them by an also very convenient friend with convenient High level Military Connections, and accepted to implant ... oops, um hypnotize the Hills to implant false memories ... oops, there I go again, I mean, um, Recover their memories.

Yup.
Totally legit.

And how many hypnotic sessions did this couple undergo?
How many regular/repeated sessions are necessary to implant false memories, oops, sorry again, um, recover memories?
You may want to look into hypnosis and some rather fun facts about how False Memory Syndrome comes about, oh, wait, there I go again, how memories are 'recovered'.

You may want to revisit the Hill case and look at the overabundance of convenience as it applies to access to High level Military Psy-ops mind control specialists, oops, um, I meant Psychologists when the Hills were just nobody civilians, and a mixed-race couple too at a time when mixed racial couples weren't exactly the stuff of public acceptance, respect, and equal treatment by anyone.

Mixed race couple?
They looked like good experimental subjects nobody would miss if by chance anything went wrong and missing people were called for, and, well, who's going to believe those kind of folks anyway?

Oh, FYI, Zeta Rediculi is your member name where Zeta Reticuli is the Bayer designation for a wide binary star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum.

Nice try!

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by ZetaRediculian

 

Right, like it's REALLY interesting and oh so very convenient how the Hills didn't remember anything about what "happened" until some GOVERNMENT Military Psychologists were recommended to them by an also very convenient friend with convenient High level Military Connections, and accepted to implant ... oops, um hypnotize the Hills to implant false memories ... oops, there I go again, I mean, um, Recover their memories.

Yup.
Totally legit.

You may want to revisit the Hill case and look at the overabundance of convenience as it applies to access to High level Military Psy-ops mind control specialists, oops, um, I meant Psychologists when the Hills were just nobody civilians, and a mixed-race couple too at a time when mixed racial couples weren't exactly the stuff of public acceptance, respect, and equal treatment by anyone.

Mixed race couple?
They looked like good experimental subjects nobody would miss if by chance anything went wrong and missing people were called for, and, well, who's going to believe those kind of folks anyway?

edit on 23-3-2013 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)

Do you mean they were 'picked' perhaps because they were both susceptible to hynotism? The MKultra stuff was much more than hypnotism.

still very possible ufo's are nazi bells or other man made tech. operation paperclip, then a crash in the US....tesla toys ? hmmmm

whatever the truth is, simply fascinating topic

reply to post by smurfy


More like they wouldn't be missed if anything went wrong, and if by some chance they talked, or any 'dangerous' talk came out of it, well, 'accidents' happen to those mixed race couples all the time.

Their "abduction" took place in 1961.

Martin Luther King didn't even make his I have a Dream speech until 1963.
The civil rights movement was underway what with Rosa Parks in 1955, and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 but, public acceptance of mixed race couples was far far far away from tolerant.


Black folk by themselves, well, that was one thing. People labelled as "Race Mixers"? At that time? Think about it.

reply to post by Druscilla



Well that throws a wholly different twist on one of the first modern stories of alien abduction.

Are you actually saying that nefarious schemers in the US implanted false memories of alien abduction into the minds of the Hills so they would tell their (false) tale and the motive behind all of this was to maintain racial purity in 1960s America?

Mixing black and white means you will end up with little grey guys.

I wonder what Stanton Friedman would think if you debated this point with him Druscilla?

reply to post by mirageman


*facepalm*
It has nothing to do with racial purity.
It has everything to do with catch and release Psychological experiments on the public, and then follow-up examinations to log results.

If you're going to start nabbing people from the public, relatively sane and 'normal' people, you're not going to start by picking up high-profile people that will be missed if anything goes wrong.

Is it really that difficult to understand?

Isn't it interesting how most people claiming abduction are people that aren't really all that credible or important; essentially nobodies?

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by smurfy

 

More like they wouldn't be missed if anything went wrong, and if by some chance they talked, or any 'dangerous' talk came out of it, well, 'accidents' happen to those mixed race couples all the time.

Their "abduction" took place in 1961.

Martin Luther King didn't even make his I have a Dream speech until 1963.
The civil rights movement was underway what with Rosa Parks in 1955, and Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 but, public acceptance of mixed race couples was far far far away from tolerant.


Black folk by themselves, well, that was one thing. People labelled as "Race Mixers"? At that time? Think about it.

edit on 23-3-2013 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)

I don't need the history lesson, I was around a while before that.
Besides, everything you are saying is based on a presumption, including conspiracy, cover up, the whole gamut of things that those who delve into UFO's indulge in, or more likely come across in their research, just like Stanton in fact, and you can be sure he knew about all that shi'te a long time ago. The stuff you are talking about is a good starting point though.

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by mirageman

 

*facepalm*
It has nothing to do with racial purity.
It has everything to do with catch and release Psychological experiments on the public, and then follow-up examinations to log results.

If you're going to start nabbing people from the public, relatively sane and 'normal' people, you're not going to start by picking up high-profile people that will be missed if anything goes wrong.

Is it really that difficult to understand?

Isn't it interesting how most people claiming abduction are people that aren't really all that credible or important; essentially nobodies?

edit on 23-3-2013 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)

I guess you misunderstood me. *arsesmack*

Black and whites.... producing grey guys ...... that was meant to be a an injection of light hearted, colourful humour.

But so this doesn't get derailed further - the thread is about Stanton Friedman and his UFO challenge. You think he's full of it. We get that . I think he's half full of it.

reply to post by mirageman


You did a really good job pulling this together. SF is one of the top contributors to the field.

Stanton Friedman knows his place as a Scientist, some may complain over why he chooses not to introduces a new wave of continuous evidence to make his case, but in the time honored MO of most Scientists, he took a few points of interest which converted his mindset and has stayed true to that course though the years regardless of how others would have liked to have shaped his interests.

Jumping all over the board and begging for others to open their eyes and see as he has seen is not something this noble man needs to do in order to bring his piece of the puzzle to the table.

Originally posted by smurfy

I don't need the history lesson, I was around a while before that.

Besides, everything you are saying is based on a presumption, including conspiracy, cover up, the whole gamut of things that those who delve into UFO's indulge in, or more likely come across in their research, just like Stanton in fact, and you can be sure he knew about all that shi'te a long time ago. The stuff you are talking about is a good starting point though.

As far as history lessons go, well, you're not the only one reading this forum. Our posts are read by more than those who they may be directed at, and thus, a little filler for those unaware of such, as well as giving supporting weight to the argument is called for.
As far as the rest ...

That's all well and good.
I'll readily confess to a bias in favor of more terrestrial causation when presented with an overly convenient series of events, especially as it applies to concentrations involving Psychology.

Psychology, as it applies to the examination of Space Alien Abduction/Contact events readily supplies a wealth of damning data as far as the ease of replicating Space Alien Contact/Abduction events under controlled conditions in the lab.

All other views, whether speculation, or even Hypothesis remain such without any nonambiguous confirming data platforms to even stand one foot on.

Psychology can also explain some UFO experiences, but, those UFO experiences described in the paradigm already fall under the blanket of misidentification, hoax, and the overall majority of reports that are simply false positives.

The extremely finite rarity of a genuine Unknown still remains unknown.
As a Phenomenon, one glaring consistency is the lack of unambiguous confirming data across half a century and more of interest in the subject from official investigation on down to the interested enthusiast.

Friedman's academic field of concentration wasn't and isn't Psychology.
If he's gone back to school to get his doctorate, his personality profile would indicate yet another point for him to sell himself in his entertainment career, and this is absent. It's not likely he has the facility to make any call as it applies to anything that could involve or be the result of Psychology.

As far as the Hills go, there are less controversial criticisms that put the whole thing in doubt as being anything but a fiction.
Attaching significance, and/or using anything with so many holes as a foundation is certainly not call for claims of Absolute Undeniable Proof of ETs, or grounds for anything along those lines adherents to the ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) may like to present as 'evidence'.

Beyond the Psycho-Social paradigm, Space Alien Contact/Abduction does not stand up to any real criticism.
There is thus no data sufficient to warrant any claim of ET regardless of how much anyone desires to personify the UFO phenomenon with a face belonging to any one of a growing menagerie of creatures from supermodel blonde Pleiadians, Bug-eyed Greys, Insects, Reptilians, Cat people, and many other cartoon characters.

There is indeed a UFO Phenomenon, but, what it is, is still as of yet Unknown.

reply to post by Druscilla


Whatever.

So attack my user name? Well, if you cant discuss the data, attack the person. You are obviously are a noisy negativist. I would love to have an actual discussion with you, but you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Stanton Friedman personally interviewed Betty Hill and believed her story. She is definitely one of the more credible witnesses.



Try again

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


I wasn't attacking you or your name ZetaRed.
I was pointing out that you used the "D" like your username as opposed to the proper "T" in naming the "star map".

In the end, it doesn't matter who interviewed whom, and what was believed.
Friedman isn't a lie detector, nor does he have any concentration in Psychology, so, other than being a talking head that threw away his career in Nuclear Physics to make more money on the entertainment circuit of the UFOlogy circus, how he 'feels' about eye-witness testimony is essentially worthless.

No amount of testimony from anyone except perhaps a verifiable ET is worth more than just entertainment unless testimony is corroborated by hard data.
All we really have with the Hill case is a story.

The movie Avatar, or StarWars presents more credible evidence for the existence of ET than some story by some folk; a story that has enough holes and discrepancy to put serious question to its verisimilitude.

* Stanton Friedman worked on Apollo 12.

* Jesse Marcel very clearly described the debris at the Foster Ranch on TV shortly before his death, and it sounded like he was describing graphene, which we know is 200 times as strong as steel but we can't quite yet manufacture, although there is a lot R&D going on. There are probably a few scraps of it still out there buried under no more than a centimeter of sand, but it's a big desert, and if you don't find it soon, it won't mean much, because humans will be manufacturing it. The concept of graphene was first published in 1947, without crediting Roswell for inspiration.

www.youtube.com...
(description from 3:00)

* Jesse Marcel's son is medical doctor with an admirable military record, and he corroborates to this day what his father said, since he had the opportunity to handle and examine the debris when his father stopped by his house on the way back to base with the first load.

www.youtube.com...

* Walter Haut was ordered to write the official press release and was later ordered by the same officer to never go public with what he knew about the case as long as he lived. He obeyed that but left an affidavit to be revealed only after this death, about the debris and also about a small egg-shaped craft recovered from a second site along with small bodies with large heads.

Haut affidavit

The last three above are "straight from the horse's mouth," and we're all free to believe or disbelieve any particular horse or reserve judgement. There are now more than 600 witnesses on record in the Roswell case.

Also, the log book for Project Mogul shows that the flight attributed to the Roswell crash by the government was canceled because of bad weather and that there was a launch the following day, which was later recovered.

And it's well known that the crash-test dummies the government claims Roswell witnesses mistook for alien bodies were six feet tall, in U.S. military uniforms, and not used until several years later.

Many U.S. fighter planes have been scrambled to chase UFOs, yet none of their gun-camera footage has been released to the public.

In the Westall sighting there were some 200 witnesses of two disc-shaped craft, plus a physical trace on the ground. One teacher took photos, which were confiscated by a government goon squad that appeared promptly after the sighting. There's also a physical trace still visible at the Ruwa, Zimbabwe landing site, according to an ATS member who lives nearby.

It has been confirmed that the operator's manual for every type of piloted aircraft in the U.S. military inventory has a section on the procedure for reporting at UFO.

No evidence or best evidence confiscated and concealed?

Sorry to intrude on your thread to get my 20th post so I can start my own.

An analogy that always stuck with me is that it's like a goldfish in a tank in someones home communicating with even one in the house next door. the distances in space are just so prohibitive, that leaves exotic tech or other dimension stuff, I cant speak intelligently on either of those.
As regards to the topic, as just an opinion I would agree with the poster who said that claiming to be a nuclear physicist would like my claiming to be "sports star..."
Always stand to be corrected though.