Debunker Tim Printy -- reaction of Stanton Friedman

In early February, 2012, Andre Skondras, who distributes a lot of UFO related interesting articles on the internet, carried a  15 page  2008 article by Tim Printy entitled “The UFO Disclosure Myth” I am a primary target of the last portion of the article. I also did a quick internet search and found his paper “My Skeptical Opinion about UFOs”. Clearly he is a debunker not a skeptic. Equally true is the simple fact that he seems to know very little though he has strong opinions. In the opinion paper he starts with the following quote from a great physicist, Richard Feynman “I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the result of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than the unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial Intelligence”. The comment can be seen on U-Tube to much laughter. I greatly respect Feynman’s contribution to physics, his Nobel Prize, etc.I even heard a lecture he gave 40  years ago, but, as with many well educated intellectuals, he feels perfectly free to make a proclamation without providing any substantiation or any evidence he knows anything at all about the subject of flying saucers. The Genius has spoken.. no data required. This appeal to authority is common to many debunkers not just Printy. How can one comment about likelihood if one doesn’t know the possibilities? Yes, one can say when rolling normal dice that it is much more likely to roll a 7 than a 2... It may well be that aliens are all over the galaxy and that the likelihood of them visiting Earth may be 100%.

Printy starts the long piece with this comment  “Man is a credulous animal and must believe something:

In the absence of good grounds for belief he will be satisfied with bad ones.” Bertrand Russell. This is a fine description of the debunking of people like Printy and Feynman They have no good grounds to support their negativity, so bad ones will do. In his opinion piece he claims even the most hardened UFOlogist who believes that there is something behind these reports will admit that at least nine out of ten cases are misperceptions and hoaxes. The values usually turn out to be more like 3-10% of the reports remaining unexplained”. No source is given for this ridiculous proclamations. In Blue Book Special Report 14 it was found that 21.5% of 3201 sightings investigated for the USAF by scientists at Battelle Memorial Institute could not be explained.. completely separate from the 9.3% listed as insufficient information. Furthermore, the better the quality of the sighting the more likely to be unexplained. A cross comparison of the Unknowns and Knowns  showed that, based on six different characteristics, the probability the Unknowns were just missed Knowns was less than 1%. In Richard Hall’s “The UFO Evidence” it was found that 746 of the 4500 cases examined could not be explained. According to a special UFO subcommittee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics ,30% of the 117 cases investigated by the University of Colorado could not be explained. The one book of mine he lists has a 9 page bibliography which lists all these sources and many more.

I have quoted these numbers before. The point is that neither Printy nor Feynman has a leg to stand on. Better they should throw a dart at a dartboard with numbers on it.

Printy notes that he has been an amateur astronomer for 30 years and never seen a UFO.. Of course he doesn’t explain why that means they aren’t real. He doesn’t mention that fact that the great majority of amateur astronomers spend little time looking around for flying saucers. They spend most of their time looking through a telescope with a very narrow field of view at interesting astronomical objects like the planets, the moon, interesting comets and other things they know will be present when they are out gazing. Would they say there have been no fatal automobile or airplane crashes or gang rapes because they haven’t seen one? That there are no isotopes that are fissionable because all the ones they deal with are not?? Printy goes on to say the least likely explanation is that of little green men in spaceships.. again the stupid comment about liklihood. Of course no evidence is provided. He finishes us believers off with this comment “Despite over 50 years of “research”, UFO organizations have yet to provide us with any significant data that can back up the claim that UFOs are caused by aliens piloting space ships”. One wonders why the word SOME is not inserted before UFOs. The question isn’t whether all UFOs are spaceships, but whether any are. Because most people are not 7’ tall doesn’t mean nobody is. He obviously is unaware of thousands of physical trace cases, the many radar visual cases, the best abduction cases. It is perfectly logical to conclude that some UFOs are alien spacecraft when they are observed for many minutes and  to be obviously manufactured objects able to literally fly circles around our aircraft as observed visually and by radar

In his big article he talks about Major Donald Keyhoe and his books and conclusions about a government cover-up. He talks about Project Blue Book through never mentioning BB Special Report No. 14. He mentions Congressional  hearings in 1968 but doesn’t name the presenters or give a reference for the report.It would appear that he hadn’t read it. He does give a strong quote from Hector Quintanilla who had been BB director “The list of speakers reads like a who’s who of extraterrestrial proponents.I’ve never seen such a stacked deck in all of my life”. What a strange comment.Two of the 12 presenters were Donald Menzel and Carl Sagan  neither a public proponent for the ETH. Furthermore he didn’t mention such powerful presentations as Jim McDonald’s 71 page effort which covers more than 40 cases and demolishes the objections of people like Printy.

Even though he focuses on me after Keyhoe, he of course doesn’t mention my contribution to the Proceedings though it has several tables and many  references. He notes I have “been around Ufology since the 1960s likes to present himself as a scientist, who studies UFOs. He does have a master’s degree in Nuclear physics never earned his PhD.” Tis true after working my way through 5 years of university I immediately went to work as  a nuclear physicist for such companies as General Electric, Westinghouse, General Motors, Aerojet General, McDonnell  Douglas .Yes after many cancelled programs I finally went full time into ufology after 14 years.. I am certainly not ashamed. I wrote reports, presented scientific papers and am still a member of the American Physical Society, American Nuclear Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.” Despite his claims he has never really practiced science when it comes to UFOs”. What a remarkably idiotic claim. Obviously he hasn’t seen my articles in Physics Today or Aeronautics and Astronautics nor the aforementioned Congressional Symposium. He does list my book TOP SECRET MAJIC (1997) though obviously the 2005 version and my other books and papers  have escaped his attention. He neglects to mention that loads of my 700 lectures were to professional groups such as sections of the AIAA, IEEE, ANS various engineering and scientific groups.

Printy provides a splendid example of taking a quote out of context by saying “Friedman says in one of his books ‘As I gave more lectures, I found that I enjoyed speaking and that people believed me NO MATTER WHAT I SAID.(the  emphasis was his).”Apparently, Friedman realized that he could say anything within reason and the UFO faithful would accept it”. Wow, no mention of the fact that the great majority of my lectures were to colleges and universities and also to many sections of the AIAA,, IEEE, ANS, management clubs of companies like McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, North American Rockwell, and many other Fortune 500 groups..These hardly qualify as UFO faithful. These are all mentioned in the book along with the highly classified nuclear research and development projects on which I worked for 14 years.I guess he feared that if he gave some facts, people might think I was a professional scientist rather than an amateur astronomer

Naturally Printy misrepresents my views about ”the infamous MJ-12 documents.” Friedman endorsed the documents as authentic until proven otherwise, has hitched his name to the documents in several books.”

Funny for many years I have endorsed three MJ-12 Documents of the more than 100.But I provided detailed factual reasons for those three and have dealt with all the objections to those three and detailed reasons why a number of the phonies are not legitimate. I used the old fashioned scientific approach. I have visited 20 archives, some many times.I talked to family member of all but one of the 12.

Printy Says “ Even in 2008, over 20 years after the MJ-12 papers were released Friedman and others declare them authentic.” Funny Printy apparently has the1997 version of Top Secret/MAJIC. I was saying then that there were 3 genuine ones. And loads of phonies. But why bother the reader with the facts?

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Here is the above STF quote in context (p.9 TSM) “As I gave more lectures I found that I enjoyed speaking and that people believed me no matter what I said. After all I was a nuclear physicist for Westinghouse, which in Pittsburgh, with its numerous nuclear divisions and research facilities, were gold plated credentials. The blind acceptance frightened me—now I knew how the demagogues of the twentieth century had such success. I wanted people to think, to explore, to look at the data and make up their own minds. I decided that I would try to reach more technical groups, who presumably wouldn’t accept everything I said as gospel”.  I also said that “my lecture “Flying Saucers ARE Real” was designed to raise the objections of the skeptics and then demolish them with facts.”. This should give any rational person an entirely different take on my motivation and Printy’s willingness to deceive.

Printy claims ”Because of his association with Roswell and MJ-12, Friedman was one of the principle investigators who was publicly proclaiming that there was a flying saucer cover-up and the Congress should investigate the matter”. More poppy cock. I showed that there was a cover-up by pointing to the blacked out Top Secret UMBRA CIA UFO documents and the whited out TOP SECRET UMBRA NSA UFO documents. I quote from General Carroll Bolender’s  statement that” Reports of UFOs which could effect national Security are not part of the Blue Book system”. I note many lies in a long paper (Government UFO Lies on my website. I have not pushed for congressional hearings because I don’t think they would be useful. I have been to 20 document archives. Of course he doesn’t mention that Phil Klass paid me $1000. for proving him wrong about the Type face on the Cutler Twining memo. Of course Klass hadn’t been to any archives, but obtained 9 of 250,000 NSC documents by mail.. When finally more or less released, one could read several words per page in the CIA stuff with the rest being blacked out and about one sentence per page on the 156 NSA UFO documents with the rest being whited out. Then he tries to show by echoing Phil Klass’s false claims that I never tell people the reason the redactions appear is because they deal with classified sources and methods information. Here is another irrational lie. Could 98% of the CIA and NSA UFO documents actually deal with sources and methods? That is hardly likely since they were filed under UFO.I saw no indication in his paper that he had a clearance or understands about need to know. Of course he quotes Klass’s false claim  that I never tell people about sources and methods. I even mention it in my papers. Printy has more nonsense about Roswell. Of course he does not refer to the paper on my website “UFOs: Earth’s Cosmic Watergate” (or any of my many papers about MJ-12, Roswell, etc) He really finishes me off “UFOlogy is not about real scientific investigation of UFOs.It is about personalities who have found a niche in society that allows them to satisfy their egos and appear important to those who want to believe these stories”. Sounds like an excellent description of Phil Klass, Robert Shaeffer, Michael Shermer and Tim Printy and other anti-ufology specialists projected on to serious investigators such as myself, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Dr. David Rudiak, Kathleen Marden, etc.

My purpose is to expose his noisy negativism as irrational uninformed and ignorant as is that of most debunkers. I would be delighted to debate him anywhere, but don’t think he has the courage to take me on. Stanton Friedman fsphys@rogers.com   www.stantonfriedman.com.