Are We Going to Let All of the Information Fade Away: Or Are We Going To Do Something About It?

 originally published in 2018 on the AOP Blog

I would like to offer this page from Patrick Gross' Ufologie page.  It shows the results for an incident during the 1954 "French UFO flap" -which may not have been a flap at all (see Unidentified-Identified):

The 1954 French flap:

The index page for the 1954 French flap section of this site is here.

October 3, 1954, Marcoing, Nord:

Reference number for this case: 3-oct-54-Marcoing. Thank you for including this reference number in any correspondence with me regarding this case.

REPORTS:

[Ref. la1] "L'ALSACE" NEWSPAPER:

The newspaper reports on October 6, 1954, with no other information, that there was a sighting in Marcoing. The date is not given but the sighting is mentioned among others that took place on October 2 and 3, 1954.

See the article here.

[Ref. li1:] "LIFE" MAGAZINE:

MARTIAN MEN'S HEIGHT is shown by two bakers. Pierre Lucas (left) of Loctudy was going to well when, he said, orange ball fell from the sky. Suddenly a small bearded figure with one eye in the middle of his forehead tapped him on the shoulder. Serge Pochet (right) of Marcoing was approached by two small shadows.

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

103. Location. Marcoing France Date: October 3 1954 Time: night Bakers apprentice Serge Pochet was approached by 2 small shadowy entities, about 3-feet tall. No other information. Humcat 1954-67 Source: Humcat quoting Newspaper reports Type: E?

[Ref. dj2:] DONALD JONHSON:

Donald Johnson says that on October 3, 1954, a humanoid report occurred later than 6:45 p.m., in the night and did not involve a UFO sighting: young baker's apprentice S. Pouchet, was approached by two small shadowy beings, about three feet tall, in Marcoing, Nord, France.

The sources are noted as "Webb, David F. & Bloecher, Ted. HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports, case A0271, citing Life Magazine, November 1, 1954" and "Life Magazine, November 1, 1954".

[Ref. gn1:] "GNEOVNI" UFOLOGY GROUP:

In "Special notes" of their catalogue, the GNEOVNI group indicates that there exists in several books, such as Aimé Michel's "M.O.C.", Planète publishers in 1966, in which there is a number of observation cases in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais which are not included in their catalogue because there "remains much doubts as to their credibility." One of them is noted "3-10-54 Marcoing nord".

[Ref. ta1:] "THINK ABOUT IT" WEBSITE:

Location: Marcoing France Date: October 3 1954 Time: night Bakers apprentice Serge Pochet was approached by 2 small shadowy entities, about 3-feet tall. No other information. Source: Humcat quoting Newspaper reports

[Ref. ub1:] "UFO-DATENBANK":

This database recorded this case 9 times:

Case Nr.	New case Nr.	Investigator	Date of observation	Zip	Place of observation	Country of observation	Hour of observation	Classification	Comments	Identification
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	Night	CE III
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.00	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.00	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.00	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.00	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.30	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.30	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	20.00	NL
19541003			03.10.1954		Marcoing	France	Night	CE III

EXPLANATIONS:

Not looked for yet.

KEYWORDS:

(These keywords are only to help queries and are not implying anything.)

Marcoing, Nord, Serge Pochet, entity, entities, dark, small, two

SOURCES:

[---] indicates sources which I have not yet checked.

• [la1] Article in the regional newspaper L'Alsace, Mulhouse, France, October 6, 1954.
• [li1] Part of the article "Astral Adventurers - Frenchmen report meetings with unlikely creatures", in LIFE Magazine, USA, page 28, November 1, 1954.
• [---] "HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports", compiled by David Webb and Ted Bloecher, Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), USA, circa 1978.
• [ar1] "1954 Humanoid Reports", compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2001, at www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1954.shtml
• [dj2] "The Worldwide UFO Wave of 1954", electronic article by Donald Johnson, Ph.D., USA, page 5, 2009, at www.ufoinfo.com/onthisday/papers/Worldwide%20UFO%20Wave%20of%201954.pdf
• [gn1] "Catalogue Régional d'observations", by the Groupement Nordiste d'Etudes des Observations d'Objets Volants Non Identifiés (GNEOVNI), France, undated, circa 2009, at www.geru.fr/fr/catalogue-regional-observation-ovni-nord
• [ta1] "1954: October Sightings", catalog on the UFO website Think About It, USA, not dated, found 2014, at http://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/8-1954-october-sightings
• [ub1] Online database UFO-Datenbank, Germany, found in 2016, at ufodatenbank.de

So what do you notice? Perhaps that someone notes that someone referred to this case...appearing in newspapers?  I am hoping that this sticks out like a ten feet (3m) high glowing red thumb. We have a case, once again, of 'investigation' by news-clippings.

Two reported incidents of alleged actual landings and entities and who turns up after -the press. There were people claiming to be flying saucer investigators but that amounted to noting down a news item on the radio or adding a newspaper clipping to the scrapbook. From the news clipping these people could pontificate and waffle on over pages.

I understand that there was no funding for flying saucer research but most of these people involved in the subject knew each other one way or another. There was a very real attitude, not just in France, that even if a report came from a mile or two away -why go investigate when the newspapers had all the information?

I actually almost choked on a swig of coffee when I read Italian investigators, who had not once even attempted to go and investigate Rosa Lotti's encounter in 1954 until the early 2000's, complaining and criticising newspapers and journalists for leaving out information and not doing a thorough job. Well, at least the reporters got off of their arses and went to see her.  There are literally hundreds of cases like the one above.

Writers -'ufologists'- are making money out of including these cases in their books and worst of all in their "data" or "sightings breakdowns" that make them look so good.  The truth is that they are producing nonsense: they have no data other that he wrote what so-and-so wrote who got it from whatshisname who found it mentioned in a newspaper clipping. That is then the solid data used by people like Jacques Vallee who does not actually check anything himself. 

The period 1947-2018 has literally achieved nothing when it comes to ufology other than over-hyped hysteria, bunko-men and...literally, huge volumes of trash.  Graham F. N. Knewstub's British Flying Saucer Bureau Technical Report No. 1 was in the 1950s, we all thought that we were seeing real science (I was fooled, too) when Vallee published his work on UFO Waves, Flaps and so on.  He included well known hoaxes, misidentifications of aircraft, meteors, weather balloons and much more in amongst the not investigated UFO cases. The data was useless.

Then we saw Ted Bloecher Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, published in 1967. This was an actual attempt at analysis and to piece events from that year together.  Published work that could be peer reviewed. It was as early as 1956 that Bloecher became intrigued by the growing number of “UFO occupant” reports and along with researcher David Webb, started to work on what would become the Humanoid Catalogue –HUMCAT: a collection of early “humanoid” sightings. I prefer not to use the term “Humanoids” as an all-encompassing term but the important thing is that the work began.

   Ted Bloecher’s major interest was always in occupant reports or Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K), as they would be called after J. Allen Hynek set out his categorisation of UFO sighting reports.  Bloecher had been one of the top thinkers in the Civilian Saucer Investigation group and after that became active with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and when  NICAP became “moribund”, Bloecher moved on to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).  He was still concentrating his efforts on investigation of CE3K reports with David Webb. In 1978, CUFOS published his and Davis's Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955, based on the investigation of the Kelly-Hopkinsville case.

   Bloecher could well be called the top authority on these cases in the United States by the 1970s and though he did everything he possibly could (see UFO Contact?) to get the Euporia, Mississippi landing/entity case prioritised and investigated it never was –presumably due to the prejudices of the two investigators.

   But being the top man does not come with a university grant or even financial funding and to keep records complete Bloecher filed away press reports.  This should have been the data base used for thorough investigation of the cases. Instead, ufologists just quoted Bloecher and that he, himself, was referencing newspaper reports.

   Then came the big excuse of the “Grey Abduction Paranoia” –if a case did not involve Greys then it was a fake or misidentification.  No need to bother. Or to use the much criticised US Air Force ‘excuse’ used so well by MUFON today: the amount of time that has passed negates any fruitful investigation.

Ufology does not “get the respect deserved”?  You earn respect.

Two cases from recent years I have tried to get more information on so I went to the site owners who reported on the cases.  In each I was told “I picked that up from (website) –best you contact him” and so I did: “I read that on (name of website) because it seemed interesting” and then I was advised to contact the “original source”. This original source turned out to have copied the item from some newspaper item and he could not remember which or the date. This is the most common response I get when following up old reports and today I more or less expect it.

Ufology is basing all of its claims on cases –including plain old “UFO” sightings- that were never investigated because it is much easier to sit in a chair and say “The evidence is all there” –it is not.

In the United States, France and Belgium I think there are enough ufologists with some credibility who can open cold case investigations on old CE3K/Alien Entity cases.  Once the witnesses, now in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s are gone then so are all of the facts that they can tell us and to ascertain which, if any, of the CE3K/AE reports is genuine could provide us with the valuable data we need.

I am undertaking this work in the UK (though some prominent ufologists appear to not want this –I wonder why?) and I just hope and pray that someone out there will do likewise in their own country.  

PLEASE!