SUBJECT: A NEST OF INFO ON GULFBREEZE UFOs                   FILE: UFO1643


PART 29




TIMES, St. Petersburg, FL - July 8, 1990


DEBUNKERS vs BELIVERS
  Tales of another  world  are  not  alien  to  the national UFO
convention.

by Chris Lavin
  Times Staff Writer


    PENSACOLA - Sitting  in  the  lobby  of  the  Hilton  Hotel,
Gilbert Landis turned to the  person  next to him and , without a
giggle, said this:
    "I'm here because 10,500  years  ago  my  wife  and I made a
mistake."
    A few seats over, Clark McClelland  from Orlando was talking
about secret  autopsies  performed  on  alien  creatures and Nazi
scientists who escaped to secret Antarctic  bases where they have
been building flying saucers.
    Just down the hall, a preacher  lectured  about UFOs and the
Bible. The parting of the Red  Sea,  he said may have been caused
by the propulsion system of an alien spacecraft.
    So it went during the weekend at the  national convention of
the  Mutual  UFO  Network   (MUFON)  -  an  annual  gathering  of
scientists and others who belive the aliens have landed.
    If this was any other year in any other city, the convention
would probably drift off like a UFO,  an oddity never to be heard
of again. But  this  was  Pensacola,  and  it  seems  most of the
population of nearby Gulf  Breeze  had reported a UFO sighting in
recent years.
    So the conventation took on  special  meaning - to those who
belive in the extra terrestrial  and  those  who spend their time
challenging UFO believers.
    Specifically, most  of  the  Believers  and  Debunkers  came
loaded for a  showdown  over  photographs  taken  by  Gulf Breeze
builder Ed  Walters.  The  photos  purported  to  show a UFO that
Walters says hovered over  his  home,  paralyzed  him with a blue
beam and left him and his wife, Francis, scared and bewildered.
    Since the publication of his book  - titled "The Gulf Breeze
Sightings: The Most Astounding Multiple Sightings of UFOs in U.S.
History - Walters has been accused  by Debunkers of using a model
and trick photography to perpetrate a fraud.
    The battling has been, well, out of this world.
    "It's  the  wildest,  most  preposterious  story  I've  ever
heard," says Philip J.  Klass,  a  longtime  UFO  debunker. "Just
think of it. Multiple visits to the same house, little creatures,
voices in his head, talking about bananas."
    Yes, Walters says, it  does  seem  odd.  But  he insists the
evidence and sightings by  hundreds  of  others, including a Gulf
Breeze town council member, corroborate his story.
    Walter's story began November 11,  1987, when he saw the UFO
and snapped photographs. This encounter was close and continual -
recurring through numerous sightings during the next three years.
    Walters says the UFO called him  "Zehass,"  and he recounted
conversations apparently coming  from  the UFO. In one encounter,
Walters  told  of  hearing  alien   voices  speaking  in  Spanish
complaining about being fed too many bananas. "I know this sounds
bizarre," Walters wrote, "and I was tempted not to tell about it,
but bananas are what they were talking about."
    Walters says he was hungry for  an  explaination  of what he
had seen. He notified MUFON  investigators  and passed his photos
on to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, a small weekly paper that reports
UFO sightings.
    But as  word  of  Walters'  photos  spread,  more  and  more
residents of this Gulf Coast town reported seeing the UFO.
    Walters soon learned a quick lesson about UFO sightings: The
person who says he or she saw  the  UFO will be closely examined.
Walters was plunged into  the  little-known  but  continuous  war
between the Believers and the Debunkers - both of whom questioned
Walters for their own purposes.
    When the analysis was  done,  the  outcome  was  no suprise.
MUFON investigators backed Walters  and his photos, skeptics such
as Klass were not convinced.  "You  know,  Walters is a convicted
felon," Klass says. "Yes, car theft and forgery. He's slick, real
slick."
    But Walters says his problems with the law dated back to his
teen years. As an  adult,  he  says,  he  has  been  a successful
builder and a pillar of the community.
    With Gulf Breeze being the  hottest  UFO  spot in the world,
MUFON decided to bring its  annual  conference to Pensacola. When
the 600 or so MUFON  members  arrived  Friday,  they found a city
split over the  reality  of  UFOs,  but  unified  on the economic
impact of this convention.
    A Gulf Breeze  jewlery  company  had  created  "Gulf  Breeze
Sighting" watches and  medallions.  There were T-shirts featuring
Walters' blue beam,  and  visitors  could  pay to be photographed
with a life-sized statue of the Gulf Breeze alien.
    But even as the conference began,  it was clear west Florida
wasn't going to claim a special  place  in  UFO history without a
big fight.
    In recent weeks  22-year-old  Tommy  Smith  of Pensacola has
told reporters  he  helped  Walters  create  double-exposure  UFO
photographs.  And the Pensacola News  Journal reported that a UFO
model similar to  Walters'  photos  was  found  hidden in a house
formerly owned by Walters.
    But in an impassioned speech,  Walters  said evidence proves
Smith's claims are false.  The model,  Walters says, was found to
be constructed  by  materials  discarded  from  his  construction
business  in  1989,   two   years   after  he  made  his  initial
photographs.
    Debunkers, Walters  alleges,  constructed  and  planted  the
model to discredit him.
    The  new  allegations  have  stirred  MUFON  to  reopen  its
analysis of the Gulf Breeze  sightings,  but if the atmosphere at
this convention is any  indicator,  don't expect investigators to
undermine Walters' claim.
    This convention drew  a  wide  variety  of  UFO  types.  But
virtually all shared  a  strong  belief  in  UFOs  and an equally
strong belief that the U.S. government is hiding vast storehouses
of information on UFOs and alien life.
    There were scientists such  as  Brian  T.  O'Leary, a former
NASA astronomer and Princeton University instructor, who says his
own psychic experiences have convinced him that the United States
needs a new science  that  can  explain  psychic  phenomena  and,
perhaps, UFOs.
    "I began commuinicating telepathically, I experienced moving
out of my body and floating over cities,  I healed myself with my
mind," O'Leary said.
    And then there were  other  Believers  who  lacked O'Leary's
academic credentials, but had stories to tell.
    Landis, for example, the 10,500-year-old San Diego resident,
said NASA  and  the  U.S.  government  is  secretly  aware  of  a
60-member "Universal Association of Planets" whose spaceships are
Earth's UFOs.
    "You know what the astronauts  saw  on  the back side of the
moon?"  Landis  said.   "There  was  a  refueling  station  and a
structure that looked very much like  a hotel.  And the canals on
Mars?  Dry docks for space ships."
    Landis'  treatise  on  the  history   of  the  universe  was
interrupted by McClelland, who wants  everyone to know that Earth
is simply a giant genetic experiment  being orchestrated by alien
life.
    But all at this convention seemed  unified by a belief there
is something out there and we all need to learn more about it.
    Many are like George Kruse, a  free-lance  photographer from
California who was drawn  to  MUFON  when  he discovered during a
hypnosis session that he had been abducted by aliens.
    "I was taken and I couldn't move," Kruse says.  "They looked
down my throat and inserted  a  needle  (into  me).  I remember I
didn't like it."


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