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[Note: The following article was provided by the Oklahoma
MUFONEWS, the state supplement newsletter for the MUFON
membership within Oklahoma. Jean Waller-Selfried, BS, State
Director. Inquiries should be directed to Jean Waller-
Selfried, Oklahoma State MUFON Director, 1916 Inglewood
Drive, Norman, Oklahoma 73071. Subscription: $12 /Annually.

Permission granted to cross-post to FIDO UFO only

Oklahoma MUFONEWS - December 1992 Issue

CREDIBILITY AND THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

by Michael S. Carter - Editor, OK MUFONews

Remember the boy who cried wolf? He was the little shepherd
boy who kept telling the townspeople that a wolf was nabbing
his sheep from the meadow, when in reality there was no wolf
at all. Finally when a real wolf did start to get at his
flock, the people didn't believe him.

This is a problem that faces everyone at someone or
another, especially Ufologists, researchers and interested
parties in the UFO phenomenon. Because we don't have a real
live space ship or little green man caught in a net
somewhere much of what is related in journals and
newsletters or from word of mouth is mainly speculation. We
must rely on the word of the person telling the story to
tell the truth, make a decision about their believability
and credibility as a witness, and if he has a good
reputation and we are not going to make the effort to
personally check out the facts, take his story at face value
until we can prove otherwise. Alas sometimes a story that
gets circulated has not been as well checked out for
authenticity as it should.

Such is the case with the cover story of the November issue
of OK MUFONews. In that article taken directly from the
KeelyNet BBS and entitled "Something Is Coming Our Way" John
Ford of the Long Island UFO Network related a story that he
said was substantiated by several sources of good
credibility. The story was of an object in the vicinity of
Jupiter that was heading toward Earth.

According to John, the object had been detected by the
government and was being kept secret. Allegedly it had made
several course corrections along the way indicating that it
might be intelligently controlled.

Mr. Ford did say in the article however, that, "As yet no
evidence exists to support it...".

He also says, "In UFOlogy, you hear a lot of strange
stories. Some you have to take at face value, while others
are too far fetched to believe even in this strange study of
unusual objects and humanoid beings. Some stories you mark
off as holding merit, but lack supporting evidence to
bolster their credibility until a later date when something
might surface which could prove their validity. This is such
a story".
After the issue was published, we received several calls
from people who were very interested in the article and
wanted to know where they could obtain more information. It
then occurred to me that I couldn't tell them. I completely
and utterly had nowhere to tell them to go to verify the
story. I hadn't checked it out.

One reader called Linda Howe, who Mr. Ford said had related
the story to him, to confirm the story and she told him that
she was not very happy about the way she was represented in
the article. She said that the story had been going around
for a long time but she did not know whether it was true or
not.

I then tried to call Mr. Ford in Long Island but could not
get his number. Another reader also tried but found him
unreachable.

As a better measure, I tried to download a file I found on
Paranet about the Long Island UFO Network. Unfortunately I
was not able to get the file to download. Thwarted again to
find the source and confirm the article's authenticity.

So until the story can be confirmed, please take it as an
UNCONFIRMED piece of information. It may turn out to be a
flight of fancy. At this time, Mr. Ford has not been
contacted or had a chance to respond. If we can do so, he
will be invited to send his sources of information so we can
clear this matter up once and for all. We want to give every
opportunity to clarify the story.

In any case, please accept my deepest apologies for not
following up and confirming the story BEFORE it was put in
print for your consideration. Rest assured that we at
Oklahoma MUFON have never, nor will we ever purposely
publish information that we know to be false. That would
only serve to trash our credibility and to thwart all of our
attempts to get at the truth behind the UFO mystery. And
after all isn't the discovery of the truth the whole point
of spending hours and money out of our own pockets to search
for an answer to a question that burns bright in all of our
minds? Deliberately misleading the public would be like
stealing our own sheep and crying "Wolf!" When the real
truth does finally come out, no one will believe us.

At this point, make no prejudgments about Mr. Ford since he
has not been contacted to check out his sources. Also, this
in no way reflects on the Long Island UFO Network. We do
however appreciate the intelligence of our readership in not
blindly accepting everything they see in print without
substantial proof. Kudos to you!

=END=


Robert,
ricksbbs.synchro.net
http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
irc www.irccloud.com/irc/ricksbbs/channel/ricksbbs
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