SUBJECT: MACABBEE REFUTES TOMMY SMITH/ED GREY FILE: UFO1686
The following text is a letter to the editor that appeared
in the July 5, 1990 issue of the Gulf Breeze Sentinel. It is from
Dr. Bruce Maccabee and disputes recent UFO hoax charges made
against the Walters family.
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Dear Editor:
Ed Gray may know how to govern the town of Gulf Breeze, but he
obviously knows little about the UFO subject.
He claimes that he knew early on (over two years ago) from
"logic and common sense" that the Walters sightings were a hoax,
yet he admits that he had "no conclusive proof the sightings of Ed
Walters were fabricated." However, the lack of conclusive proof
did not prevent him from making, about two years ago, a public
statement that he believed the sightings to be a hoax." He does
not explain the "logic and common sense" that led to his statement.
However, I suspect that what he really means is that, so far as he
knows UFOs don't exist and hence photos of them must be fakes.
If he had studied the subject more, or had paid more attention to
the reports of many of his own constituents, he might have been
less positive in his conclusion. Perhaps he should talk to Ken
Fortenberry, the Managing Editor of the Pensacola News Journal
regarding the reality of UFOs.
He claims that the "many other sightings by well respected
citizens," sightings which he couldn't dispute, were a result of
"the power of suggestion and the very real occurrences of so much
air traffic in our area." As experienced UFO investigators know,
this sort of explanation can account for some sightings of the
"nightlights" or "daylight disc" type in which the witness' description
is vague or differes only slightly from the descriptions of
conventional objects in the sky. However, this cannot explain
sightings of distinctively unusual objects with strange flight
dynamics (e.g., able to hover silently at low altitude), nor can
it explain reports of daytime or nighttime sightings, sometimes
by many witnesses at once, of structured objects which are
distinctively shaped UNLIKE conventional objects.
Mayor Gray says that during the two years between his first
public statement and the present time he was dismayed to see
the Walters sightings had been turned into a book since he knew
it was a hoax. He claims that he received numerous phone calls
about the subject and either mentioned his opinion that it was a
hoax or else he "declined to discuss it because I was fed up with
the topic." Perhaps being "fed up with the topic" prevented him
from reading any of the generally available literature on the
subject and thus informing himself about the nationwide and
worldwide occurrences of sightings by all sorts of people. If he
attends the MUFON symposium he will learn how seriously
this subject is treated by scientific invesitgators from around
the world.
Mayor Gray says that the first "break" came with the discovery
of the model. He attempts to explain how this discovery came
about by suggesting that Ed "miscalculated how safely buried
under insulation in his former residence's attic the model of the
UFO would be. He didn't want to chance the model being discovered
should he move it and thus left it there, or he carelessly forgot
about it since it had been several months since he had used it.
That the Mayor should try to "rationalize" the discovery of the
model is understandable (he must have some justification for how
it happened to still exist and be found), but his rationalization is
silly. If Ed's sightings were a hoax based on that model then he is
a "genius" in carrying it off thus far. It is hard to imagine that
this genius would be so stupid as to silmply hide incriminating
evidence under insulation. It is much more likely that he would
destroy it. Even Tommy Smith, the formerly anonymous witness
against Ed, realizes that (assuming Ed hoaxed the photos) Ed would
not let any incriminating evidence be found. He states in his
testimony (the truth of which is not proven) that "Ed was pretty
careful with that stuff. Anything he was worried about he
usually burned." But as Mayor Gray listened to Mr. Smith he
somehow missed this clue that Ed would have burned any
models.
We now know that the model is not evidence against Ed. Not
only is it clearly not what appears in Ed"s photos, but it didn't
even exist before September 1989, about two years after Ed's
first photos. (I don't expect the mayor to now claim that Ed made
a model in September 1989, nearly two years after his reported
sightings, and then hid it in the house which he hadn't lived in
since December 1988.)
Apparently the testimony by Tommy Smith was the "last straw"
for Gray who decided to once again, and forcefully this time, state
his position.
Although this testimony was convincing to Gray, I have found ten
items that are discussed in the testimony which have technical
errors. I will mention just three. I would not expect Mayor Gray
to have realized the errors in the first two of these items, but I
should think that one or both of the reporters would have realized
there was something "fishy." On the other hand, even the Mayor,
I should think, would have questioned the third item.
The first items were the subject of a letter I sent on June 18th
to the Pensacola News Journal. One item has to do with the
explanation of how the model was supposedly supported while
Ed photographed it. According to Mr. Smith, and more or less
as illustrated in the PNJ (Sunday, June 17), Ed had a "tripod
set up with a flashlight pointing straight up," and sitting on the
flashlight "was part of a PVC pipe that was black and he had it
sliced at an angle, and he would tape the spaceship on top and the
flashlight would shine up and illuminate the spaceship." This
method of mounting the model would block the back side of the
"power ring" at the bottom of the model from the direct view of the
camera. Hence every one of Ed's photos, if made this way, would
show a rather wide black gap in the more distant part (the lowest
portion in the photos) of the "power ring." I suggest the reader
look at the pictures in Ed's book to see in how many cases the
complete ring is visible. The light coming up through the pipe
would directly illuminate the top of the model leaving the bottom
relatively dark (depending upon the exact size of the pipe relative
to the model), in contrast to the actual photos which have a very
bright bottom.
The second item involves the Nimslo stereo camera. According to
Mr. Smith, "from what he (Ed) told me, he went out and took a
picture of an airplane landing at night." This explanation is
completely contradicted by the photographic data. First, the
images recorded by the camera do not at all look like an airplane
at night. Second, the stereo effect (parallax) created by the two outer
lenses of the camera show that the photographed object was no
more than 100 ft. from the camera (the actual range estimate is
40 to 70 feet). At that range the length of the object, as determined
by the length of the image and the camera optics, was less than
6 feet. An airplane full of micromidget UFOnauts perhaps? The
above information on the results of the analysis of the Nimslo
photos has been available for two years in a document published
by the Fund for UFO Research entitiled "A History of the Gulf Breeze
Sightings." More importantly, the size information was immediate
available to the reporters for comparison with Smith's testimony
because it is on page 301 of The Gulf Breeze Sightings by Ed and
Frances Walters. (Reporter Myers told me he had read the book.)
The third item is one that almost anyone who has a lawn can
understand. When asked about how Ed created the circle on dead
grass in the field behind his house, near the high school, Mr.
Smith said, "If I remember correctly, he told me that he turned a
small trampoline upside down for a while and jumped up and
and down on it." This is patently rediculous. Aside from the fact
that a 13 foot diameter circle would require more than a "small"
trampoline to cover it, the grass in that circle was somehow
killed during the winter (the circle was discovered in February
1988) and remained dead for several months as the grass around
the circle turned green and grew during the spring. I have a
photograph taken in May showing the circle still brown. At the
time that the circle was found there was a suggestion that some
chemical was used to kill it, but no residue was found. One would
think that as silly an explanation as this would have at least raised
the eyebrows of all who were listening.
What led Mr. Smith to claim, in all seriousness, apparently, the
latter two explanations for the Nimslo photos and the circle?
According to Mr. Smith Ed TOLD him. Yet these explanations
(airplane and trampoline) CANNOT BE TRUE. Hence there must
have been fabrication on someone's part. There are several
possibilities, two of which are: (a) Ed admitted to Smith that he
(Ed) faked the Nimslo photos and faked the circles, yet Ed lied
to Smith about how he faked them; (b) Ed told the complete truth
to Smith but Smith, for some reason, didn't tell the complete
truth to the interviewers; (c) Ed told the complete truth to Smith
but Smith forgot what Ed had told him and made up explanations
on the spot to satisfy the interviewers.
None of these explanations for Smith's statements makes any
sense. If he didn't remember what Ed had said, why not simply
say, "I don't know." If Ed trusted Mr. Smith so explicitly as to
admit to him that he faked the Nimslo photos and the circle,
then why wouldn't Ed tell him exactly how the fakes were done?
(Why hide the true explanations from Mr. Smith who, according
to Smith, had watched Ed create double exposure fakes?) On the
other hand, if Ed told Mr. Smith how the fakes were done, then why
wouldn't Mr. Smith tell the investigators?
There is, of course, at least one other possible reason for why Mr.
Smith told the investigators about the "airplane and trampoline
explanations." I suppose that the reader can imagine what it is.
Mr. Gray says that he wrote the published letter while "in route
back from meeting an accomplice to Ed Walters...", Hank Boland.
Hank was the only non-Walters family member mentioned by
Smith as being involved in the hoax. Hank has vehemently denied
any involvement in a hoax and instead has testified that he, too,
saw the UFO. This testimony was first recorded by the MUFON
investigators in February 1988. His testimony was "voice
stress analyzed," with no stress being found at key points in his
testimony.
One would think, considering the gravity of this matter, that Hank's
rejection of Mr. Smiths's testimony (which leaves Mr. Smith as the
only person claiming to have first hand knowledge of the hoax)
would at least give Mr. Gray some cause to question Smith's
testimony. However, it apparently didn't phase the Mayor. He
simply got around Hank's testimony by accusing him of being
one of Ed's accomplices. Furthermore he explains Hank's being
"dragged deeper into Ed Walters' ploy" as the "greed factor". Mr.
Smith had already testified that Hank was "to get all movie or
TV rights." But if this is so, where is Hank's money (I'm sure
he'd like to know)? One would think that Hank, if he had made a
deal with Ed and Ed didn't follow through, would be WILLING to
testfy against Ed.
According to Mr. Gray, Hank was not the only accomplice; Ed's
whole family was involved. I expect that Ed's family members
will have something to say about this.
Mr. Gray is confident that the news media will report the fine
details of how the hoax was carried off because "they must
save face in the fact that they were taken in by the scheme as
were so many others." No doubt the newsmedia will publish all
sorts of details, including those which support Ed's testimony.
Mr. Gray criticized the MUFON investigators for "being so
wrapped up and biased in pursuit of the story that they fell
headfirst into that trap." He is clearly not aware that this
investigator, at least, started off assuming that the photos were
faked and that the whole story was a fabrication. He could read
the last chapter in Ed's book (or even the first few pages of that
chapter) to find out how I approached the case. The MUFON
investigation required many hundreds of man hours of analysis
and study of the photographic evidence testimony and a similar
intensive study of Ed and his activities over a six month period
(Nov. 1987 -- May, 1988). The MUFON investigation included the
reports of over a hundred other witnesses in the area. Only after
all of this exhaustive effort did MUFON officially endorse the
case. By way of contrast, the Mayor relied on "logic and reason"
(unbiased of course) and the testimony of one person, Smith
(who is contradicted by another person, Boland!).
The Mayor's "unbiased" approach comes through forcefully in
the transcript of the conversation with Mr. Smith, which has been
published by the Sentinel. At the very beginning the Mayor
thanked Mr. Smith for coming forward ("I can't tell you how
much I appreciate.......you getting with us....") and then said he
wanted to "get to the bottom of this whole issue and this whole,
in my opinion< hoax." The Mayor then said "....but right now we're
trying to deal with the facts." Mr. Gray criticized the MUFON
investigators for having "no expertise in investigating." On the
other hand, the interview of Mr. Smith is not exactly a model
of good investigatory technique.
Mr. Gray is a courageous man and a clairvoyant. He knows he is in
for an argument and he correctly predicted in his letter that his
statement would bring forth an avalanche of comments from
"Ed, his supporters, and MUFON members aimed at discrediting
not only persons who are coming forth, but me as a skeptic in the
public eye." What Mr. gray should realize is that information which
deserves to be discredited will be discredited. Those who loudly
proclaim discredited information will have to suffer the consequences.
At the beginning of his letter the Mayor says he is thankful that
he has been fortunate to serve in public office as Mayor for the
last six years. I suggest that if he wishes to remain in that
position for another six years he should stick to the city budget
and ignore the UFO controversy raging around him.
Bruce Maccabee
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