A Skeptic Does The Mufon Symposium Part 5 Of 5

The Sunday afternoon session started off with Major George A. Filer (USAF Retired), MUFON's Eastern Regional Director, who says he worked as an Intelligence officer. His talk was titled "Mars the Living Planet." Filer is a well-known figure in UFOlogy owing mostly to his weekly Filer's Files, a "kitchen sink" compendium of UFO claims, where no claim is too absurd to receive a respectful hearing. Sometimes when I'm short of material for Psychic Vibrations (that doesn't happen too often), I know I can go to Filer's Files to find something entertaining to write about.

Filer says that when he was stationed with the Air Force in England, UFOs were seen on many of their flights. Sometimes fighter jets were sent up to look at them. However, the fighter jets often didn't return from this mission, so they sent up the tanker aircraft (in which he flew) instead. Because the tankers were unarmed, the UFOs didn't attack them.

Mars, according to Filer, used to be teeming with life until it was mostly wiped out in a nuclear holocaust some 180 million years ago. He showed NASA photos of Mars that purport to contain tubes (possibly water pipes, or trains) that extend for miles, as well as underground cities. There are numerous faces on Mars, and some of them look similar to Egyptian Pharaohs. But some life still exists among the ruins. The green colors on Mars represent growths of moss and algae.

Kathleen Marden, Stanton Friedman, and yours truly

I spent some time chatting with the Flying Saucer Physicist, Stanton Friedman, who I hadn't seen in about fifteen years. Klass and I had a friendly rivalry with Friedman. He's a decent guy when you get to know him. Still he's way off base about those UFOs.

At Friedman's table, before his talk, I asked him about the Marjorie Fish interpretation of the Betty Hill "UFO star map." ( I doubted, correctly it turns out, that I'd have the opportunity to try to nail him during his Q157 (3794): 1274-9). Friedman says that there's a movie soon to be made about him and UFOlogist Donald Schmidt (an odd couple indeed, since they're often been at odds concerning Holy Roswell). The movie will be titled "Majic Men", and will be completed as soon as 10 or 20 million can be raised.

In the closing session, MUFON demonstrated its brand-new smart phone App. It has three main functions. Two allow the user to stay in tough with MUFON messages and its database. The third, however, is potentially more interesting. It allows the user to receive real-time notifications whenever anybody in the same area reports sighting a UFO. This opens the possibility that large numbers of people might be notified of a UFO visitation, and provide additional witnesses and photos. If there is such a thing as a "real UFO," this app should help identify it. More information at www.UFOconnect.com.

Next year's MUFON Symposium will be in northern Kentucky, across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. For me, I'm thinking that's too far to go.